New York Rangers: Is the rebuild officially over?

The New York Rangers entered into full-fledged rebuild mode on February 8, 2018, with the release of “The Letter” to fans from Glen Sather and Jeff Gorton.  Did head coach David Quinn announce the official end of the rebuild with his comments this week?

Larry Brooks of the New York Post shared this quote from Coach Quinn after the Buffalo Sabres game on Thursday night.

“We’re in a position where it’s all about winning, we want to win hockey games and that’s kind of where we’re at.”

The message from Quinn was in response to questions about playing time for the team’s third line that is made up of Filip Chytil, Alexis Lafrenière and Julien Gauthier, who in total got only seven seconds more ice time than Mika Zibanejad got for the entire game.

So that’s it then.  The rebuild is over.  The kids on the team that need the most time on the ice to develop are now relegated to the bench because winning right now is more important than developing them for a better team in the future.

As Steve Paulus pointed out right here yesterday,  it’s very clear that Quinn want’s to win, perhaps he is even desperate to win.

Let’s face it, Kris Knoblauch did a pretty good job with this squad while the head coach was in COVID protocol, and that could be setting a bit of a fire under Quinn’s seat.

Am I wrong here?  Is there something lost in translation to fans?  It sure sounds like the team is in win now mode, even if that winning is only to get to the playoff tournament and surely not much further.

The Kids

The writing has been on the wall here for several weeks. Since the return of Artemi Panarin and the resurgence of Mika Zibanejad, ice time for Alexis Lafrenière and Filip Chytil is noticeably less, and the only reason Kappo Kakko is seeing decent ice time is because he appears to have found a home on the second line with Panarin and Ryan Strome. But in Quinn’s world, he can be one bad shift away from being replaced by Colin Blackwell.

Doubtless all fans can agree that Kakko getting quality minutes with top line players is for the best.  He has been much more noticeable on the ice as of late and one can almost feel that the goals are about to come in bunches.  That is what development is all about.

But what about the other kids?  Chytil, Lafrenière and Julien Gauthier.  And lets surely not forget that Vitali Kravtsov will be in the lineup soon enough, he may even replace Gauthier.  How are these young guns going to develop when the coach does not give them quality playing time because, once again, as the coach said:

“We’re in a position where it’s all about winning, we want to win hockey games and that’s kind of where we’re at.”

This has to be somewhat disconcerting to many Rangers fans.  While making the playoffs this year would be great, a real accomplishment given the fact that they are in a really tough yet temporary divisional realignment.  (Even though to be honest, the division has not lived up to expectations with the Bruins and Flyers playing well below what was anticipated.) Should the Rangers be sacrificing development for the sake of another tenuous playoff appearance? Just because there appears to be an opportunity, should the Rangers be taking it?

Patience

It’s certainly a double edged sword, much like the one the Rangers faced just before the trade deadline last year while sitting just out of a playoff spot.  The decision at that point was to keep Chris Kreider, and make a run at the playoffs while continuing to rebuild. And while the COVID outbreak put a stop to what would have been a very exciting final few weeks of the season and robbed the team of some really valuable experience. It felt like the right thing to do.

So here we are again with the team sitting just outside the playoff bracket with twenty games left to play and the trade deadline looming. Should the Rangers be all in on a playoff run at the expense of the development of the young players?  In this writer’s humble opinion, it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do, not at this point, not with so much young talent that needs just a little more time to mature.

It’s an odd year to begin with, the short season, the adjusted division and schedule, as a fan I would be OK with missing the playoffs if the return was more playing time and development for the kids.  That would set the Rangers up for a very competitive 2021-22 season with a young roster that is really ready to take the next step and a boatload of cap space that can be used to add a high quality veteran or two.

The Rangers may not make the playoffs, but the rest of season will still be exciting to watch.  Can any fan remember the last time the team took this type of approach, growing the team organically from within and not trading away young talent for supposedly elite players at the tail end of their careers.  This is new territory for most Ranger fans, and it really should have the base excited for the future.

You enter next year with a complete understanding between management, the coaching staff, players and fans that the rebuild is done, the playoffs are expected and anything less would be a big disappointment.

Patience was preached back in 2018, let’s have just a little bit more so the payoff is as big as it can be.  Let’s think Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins level of excellence here, not Carolina Hurricane, Florida Panther flash in the pan.