Chris Drury must let the NY Rangers grow together
The NY Rangers were a surprise success story last season. Finishing just two wins short of a Stanley Cup Final appearance, the team exceeded expectations at every turn. With success, however, comes a new set of expectations.
Headed into this current offseason, the Rangers are expected to act like contenders. To be a team looking to add the talent necessary to push them closer to the Stanley Cup. Unfortunately, for this Rangers team, acting like contenders is the worst decision they could make.
NY Rangers do not need to keep up with the Jones’
The rebuild may be over, but adding newly established players to the team will be costly. Not just costly in terms of the salary cap, but also in assets via trade and players lost as cap casualties. Spending more cap dollars now would decimate the team’s depth and practically reverse the progress made during the rebuild. Players like Pierre-Luc Dubois and J.T. Miller, each a rumored Rangers target acquisition will be very costly to attain and nearly impossible to keep long term.
Fortunately for the organization, team President and General Manager Chris Drury has proven to be a pragmatic and thorough executive. He is not one to jump the gun and his record thus far speaks for itself. Not every transaction has been golden, but with more wins than losses, the GM has steered the team towards success. So much so that he was nominated for GM of the year.
Keeping it calm
It is Drury’s pragmatism that must win out this offseason. He must review the team realistically and make the most of the opportunities presented before him. He must not rush to fill perceived voids simply because they made it to the Eastern Conference Finals. In fact, recognizing how the team managed that feat after a four-year playoff absence is paramount.
Drury set the team in motion with last season’s offseason moves, confident they’d be a playoff team. His trade deadline transactions solidified the team and pushed them through the playoffs. But it is how the team won during the season when not at its best, that must be understood.
The team was resilient and had a chip on their shoulder thanks to new coach Gerard Gallant. But it was the team’s power play and individually excellent seasons by Chris Kreider and Igor Shesterkin that kept the team moving forward. Without these efforts, the Rangers’ season would have been a far darker experience.
It was good, now it’s better
The Rangers iced virtually the same first power play unit as the year prior. Also like the year before, Mika Zibanejad, Kreider, Artemi Panarin, Ryan Strome and Adam Fox received the lion’s share of ice time during each man advantage. Though, year on year, the power play operated at a nearly 5% better success rate, equal to roughly 10 extra goals on the season.
Kreider became only the fourth Ranger to ever reach the 50-goal plateau. His 52 goals scored this past season were 24 more than his previous career-best and roughly 20 more than he was pacing the season before. He would add 10 more during the playoffs, tying the franchise record for most goals ever scored by a Ranger in one complete season.
Shesterkin had one of the best goaltending seasons in modern-day NHL history. He took home the Vezina Trophy and was nominated for the Hart trophy for his efforts. During the season he posted a .935% save percentage, significantly better than the .916% save percentage from the season prior. The improvement is equal to about 31 fewer goals surrendered.
What happens when greatness is just really good?
The 2021-22 Rangers would finish with a +47 goal differential. This is with Kreider and the power play adding between 20 and 30 more goals while Shesterkin gave up 31 less. Had these figures more reflected the results from the 2020-21 campaign, the team could have finished with a goal differential as bad as -10. Simply put, they would not have been a playoff team.
It’s career year, not every year
Expecting players to maintain career-high levels of production is a fallacy with large pitfalls. Considering these highs to be the new foundation is bound to lead to a collapse. That is precisely what occurred after the team made the eastern conference Finals in 1997. Rather than reassessing they built on that success and led the team into a seven-year playoff drought.
Prior to the trade deadline, the Rangers were not one player away from winning the Stanley Cup, nor are they after reaching the Eastern Conference Finals. In fact, considering the team had added Andrew Copp, Tyler Motte, Frank Vatrano and Justin Braun, one could argue that they are several players away. Drury wants to keep the momentum of the rebuild moving forward, but these factors must weigh heavily into his off-season decisions.
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Adding one player now, one that can make immediate improvements would be helpful, but one player is not enough, and acquiring such a player would be costly now and in the future. Improving the team will no doubt come at a cost, but building on unrealistic expectations will cost even more. Drury and the Rangers must stick to the plan. The rebuild may be over, but the team still has a lot of room to grow.