Chris Drury makes some moves to bolster coaching staff

Now that the New York Rangers have a head coach, General Manager Chris Drury can focus on other areas of need while Gerard Gallant can work on his own coaching staff.  Drury has been busy and has made some moves.

Gerard Gallant had his introduction to the New York media and his comments have been widely reported on and interpreted.  To be honest, his answers were predictable and what matters is what happens in the weeks leading up to the NHL Entry Draft and during free agent frenzy.  While  Gallant was positive about the Rangers roster, he also said that he wants the team to be the hardest working team in the NHL.  He said “I want to compete hard, to battle hard, to make teams say, ‘You know what? That team works hard every night.”

The question has to be how long it will take for him to assess the team’s ability to do just that.  He also pointed out the Rangers’ reaction to the Tom Wilson incident, saying the team “took an important step” by getting into six fights in the first four minutes of the next game.  Ironically, of the six players who fought (Blackwell, Bitetto, Rooney, Di Giuseppe, Strome, Smith) only Strome is reasonably sure to be back with the team in the fall. Blackwell, Bitetto and Rooney could be exposed in the expansion draft and Di Giuseppe and Smith are both free agents.

What we need to watch is the impact that Gallant has on player acquisitions and transactions over the next five weeks.

Drury’s moves

The moves made by Chris Drury were in the coaching ranks with the only holdover coach, Benoit Allaire, getting a promotion.  Allaire has been the Rangers goaltending coach for 17 years and now he has the title of  Director of New York Rangers Goaltending.  His responsibilities will now be all goaltenders in the organization though he did that already, but unofficially.  This means a pay raise and that he will be sticking around.  This was probably a move they had to make to guarantee he would not leave.

The team bolstered its goaltending coaching by making Jeff Malcolm officially the goaltending coach for the Hartford Wolf Pack.  He was previously a consultant.  Replacing him in that role is Jean-Ian Filiatrault  who has previously worked with the goalies for Colorado, Toronto and Anaheim.

Gallant will be the fifth Rangers head coach that Allaire has worked for and it’s clear that the goalie coaching system for the Rangers will not be changing, no matter who is in charge.

The other hire was that Drury brought on former Blueshirt defenseman Matt Hunwick to work on player development with a focus on defensemen.  Jed Ortmeyer is Director of Player Development and he has two Assistant Directors in Tanner Glass and Tuomo Ruutu, but all three were NHL forwards so adding a former defenseman makes a lot of sense.

Considering that the Rangers’ best prospects are on defense, Matt Hunwick will be a busy man.

In another move reported by Elliotte Friedman, longtime video coach Jerry Dineen was fired.

The odd thing is that the Rangers website still lists Dineen in the organization and the Rangers haven’t made any statement about the change (though they usually don’t announce firings).   Then again, they haven’t added the promotions for Allaire or Malcolm or the arrivals of Filiatrault or Hunwick to their website org chart.

They do list Gerard Gallant as the Head Coach and Mike Grier as Hockey Operations Advisor.  It looks like Drury needs to get the team’s website up to speed as well if Dineen has indeed been let go.

Key dates ahead

As Chris Drury remakes the organization, here are the key dates ahead and how the Rangers are affected.

• Tuesday, July 13 – Last possible day of Stanley Cup Final.
• Wednesday, July 14 – Buyout period opens (ends on July 27).  The Rangers are expected to buy out Tony DeAngelo,but will wait until after the expansion draft when he will be exposed.
• Saturday, July 17 (5pm) – Deadline for teams to submit protected lists for 2021 NHL Expansion Draft.
• Wednesday, July 21 (8pm)  – 2021 NHL Expansion Draft.
• Thursday, July 22 (5pm) – Deadline for teams to extend qualifying offers to pending Restricted Free Agents (RFA’s).
• Friday, July 23 –  First round of 2021 NHL Draft.  The Rangers pick 15th.
• Saturday, July 24 –  Rounds 2-7 of 2021 NHL Draft. The Rangers have no second round picks, two third round picks, three fourth round picks and one pick in the fifth, sixth and seventh rounds.
• Tuesday, July 27 – Last day for teams to sign pending Unrestricted Free Agents (UFA’s) to eight-year contract extensions.  No Rangers are in this category.
• Wednesday, July 28 (12 pm) – Free agent frenzy begins.
• Sunday, August 1 (5pm) – Deadline for RFA’s to file for salary arbitration.  Rangers RFA’s eligible for arbitration include Pavel Buchnevich, Igor Shesterkin,  Brandon Crawley, Patrick Newell and Yegor Rykov.
• Monday, August 2 (5pm) – Deadline for teams to file for salary arbitation.
• Tuesday, August 17 to Wednesday, September 1 – Salary arbitration hearings.
• September (TBA) – Traverse City Prospects Tournament.
• Tuesday, September 21 – Training camps open.
• Tuesday, October 12 – 2021-22 regular season begins (tentative date).