While the New York Rangers have adopted a rebuilding mindset, it is important to keep the end goal in sight: to compete for a Stanley Cup.
Like anything in life, hockey is constantly evolving and changing with the times. Less than five years ago, the dominant roster construction was a team designed around size and defense. The Los Angeles Kings won a pair of Stanley Cups bullying their opponents around the rink. Fast forward five years and the New York Rangers are caught between different schools of hockey.
While the current roster is obviously not a finished product in the sense that it will have more turnover in the near future, there is a conflicting ideology as to what constitutes a quality hockey player. There are old school clangers like Adam McQuaid and Brendan Smith, but there are also Tony DeAngelo and Neal Pionk who couldn’t hip check a child.
The simple fact is that the Rangers don’t have an identity as a team. When New York made the postseason ten years in a row it was through homegrown talent that played at a level greater than the sum of its parts. Even during the 2014-2015 season in which the Rangers won the President’s Trophy, it was not the most talented roster in the league.
Instead, that was a team designed to win through depth and defense. This roster construction still can work, but it requires top-end talent to buoy the top-six. The Tampa Bay Lightning, the team in the driver’s seat for this year’s President’s Trophy, have two of the 10 best players in hockey and an elite defense.
For New York to eventually return to long-term sustainable success, it needs to identify a team philosophy and find the players that fit the mentality.