It hasn’t been a fun time in recent years if you happen to support one of or a mixture of the many sports franchises in New York, although the tide looks to finally be shifting for the New York Rangers.
The above doesn’t apply to you if you happen to pledge your allegiance to the New York Yankees who moved to the summit of the American League East over the weekend despite fielding a lineup more suited for the minor leagues, although New York Rangers fans can certainly relate to that statement.
You can’t even moan too much if you are of a New York Islanders or Brooklyn Nets persuasion given that both teams made the playoffs against expectations in 2018-19.
But you certainly have plenty of reason to moan if you happen to be one of the unlucky many who have chosen a life sentence by cheering on the New York Giants, New York Jets, the New York Mets or the good old New York Knicks.
Yes, the Giants have a couple of recent Super Bowls to their name but they have been an absolute circus act of late, as have the Knicks who have lurched from one comical disaster to the next for as long as one can remember.
And then you have the Jets who were actually enjoying a calm offseason for once with quarterback of the future Sam Darnold in place, only to see the owner fire the general manager in a surprise move and again, subject the franchise to vast amounts of mockery and scrutiny from the media and other sports fans alike.
As for the New York Mets? The less said about them the better after another season full of early promise looks to be dead in the water before the All-Star break even arrives.
It hasn’t exactly been a fun ride for Rangers fans of late, either, who haven’t seen their team win a Stanley Cup since 1994 and have instead had to endure a flurry of painful near misses in the postseason.
Hopeful championship runs have been replaced by a lot of losing in the last two years, however, after the front office decided, and quite rightly by the way, to blow everything up and start over.
Rebuilds can be tough on a fanbase and there have been plenty of growing pains to suffer through since this process started back in February, 2018 with fan favorites traded and not a lot of winning to show for.
But rebuilds in the modern era now take only a couple of years to fully complete and this original six franchise looks to be on the fast-track to a very bright future.
General Manager Jeff Gorton has made all the right moves in stockpiling draft picks and prospects, ensuring that this team can be rebuilt as a genuine contender who can compete for, not one, but a cluster of championships.
There has been lots to get excited about on Broadway as of late and the latest gift was delivered over the weekend when John Davidson returned home as the President of the New York Rangers.
Davidson’s track record speaks for itself as he helped to put the Columbus Blue Jackets on the map, and he will now be tasked with helping Gorton to accelerate this rebuild throughout the course of the summer.
If he can help one of the biggest stars set to hit free agency this summer in Artemi Panarin to make Madison Square Garden his new home, then that would be an added bonus. And a big one at that.
Put it simply, the New York Rangers are on the right path and this off-season is set to be a big one and potentially one that will define the long-term future of this franchise.
The progress of this rebuild will be helped significantly come June, 21 when the team lands a generational talent at the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, whether that is Jack Hughes or Kaapo Kakko.
Even if they don’t get Panarin, there could well be some big name free agents on the way too given that the Rangers are armed with around $20 million in cap space, which would be added to a core of players in Henrik Lundqvist, Brady Skjei and Mika Zibanejad who are ready to lead this team towards the promised land.
Chuck into the mixing pot the fact that the next wave of talent in the ilk of Vitali Kravtsov and Libor Hajek are locked, loaded and ready to make an immediate impact then you have every reason to be optimistic about both the immediate and long-term future for the Rangers.
The New York Rangers, and most of the other franchises in the City, have been starved of success lately while Boston have been collecting championships like they are going out of fashion.
But a clear vision and a host of smart decisions have the Rangers primed and ready to be relevant again, not just in the NHL but in New York and they could soon join the Yankees in being bona fide championship contenders year in and year out.
So, among all the gloom and doom of being a New York sports fan at the moment, the New York Rangers are doing their utmost to change the recent narrative and finally deliver their fanbase some well-deserved and long overdue success.