As the 2025 offseason truly begins for the New York Rangers after missing the postseason, there are several questions lingering around the team. Who and why did so many key players for them have off years? And what will new head coach Mike Sullivan bring to a team that's looking for any way back to the Stanley Cup playoffs? Here are four Rangers that had either a lackluster season, or continued a trend of mediocre play in 2024-25.
Mika Zibanejad
Zibanejad's last two seasons have been a far cry from the last time he was a consistent goal scorer, where in the 2022-23 campaign, he logged 39 goals and 52 assists for 91 points. This season, Zibanejad just scratched the typical 20+ goals in a season mark that most players in the NHL look to attain in most of their own seasons. And while Zibanejad has at least kept up his games played streak, having played virtually every regular season game for a 4th consecutive season, there's a distinct difference between playing in those games *and* scoring compared to playing in those games but without finding the back of the net. Zibanejad's final nail was his high negative plus minus rating, coming in at -22, his lowest mark since his 2nd season in New York after coming over from a trade via Ottawa ahead of the 2016/17 season.
Vincent Trocheck
Like many of the Rangers' roster, Trocheck fell victim to a significant points drop compared to last season (25 goals, 52 assists for 77 points in 2023-24). This season, Trocheck only totaled 59 points, with a similar amount of goals and assists, oddly enough (26 and 33). It's worth noting that Trocheck's numbers this season, however, are actually pretty typical for the 31-year-old when you look at his past season stats. You'll quickly notice 50-60 points is his usual season-by-season production. Is it a little disappointing that Trocheck's points total took a nosedive from last season? Yes. But it was probably expected, since last season allowed Trocheck to tag on some extra points with some playoff ice time, something he obviously didn't get this season.
Alexis Lafrenière
This one may hurt the most, given Lafrenière's stellar junior record. At the very least, Laffy didn't take a huge points dive like some other players, but his goals total was the most affected. Lafrenière scored just 17 this season, after being a near 30 goal scorer just last season, like some of the biggest stars in today's NHL. Last season's points total for Lafrenière was also a drop, as he had a career high of 57 then, but managed 45 this season. Again, like the points total, not a huge drop, but enough of one for fans to notice something wasn't quite right. Luckily, Lafrenière is still only 23 years old, so he still has all the time in the world to make up for next season, which will be his 6th in the league. This Quebecois conqueror isn't done yet!
Chris Kreider
Ohhh, Chris. Where to begin? Not since the 2020-21 season has Kreider had such a poor season, where he put in 20 goals and 10 assists for 30 points after playing in just 50 games. After that, Kreider fired off 3 consecutive 30+ goal seasons, the first of which gave him his 2nd career All-Star Game appearance (52 goals, 25 assists for 77 points in all but 1 regular season game in 2022-23). But this season saw a monster decline, with 22 goals and just 8 assists for 30 points, a massive decline in production that also gave Kreider his first negative plus minus rating since that ill-fated 2020-21 season, at -5.
Sure, that's not as bad as Zibanejad, but Kreider had been way better than my birthday buddy since 2020-21. But the reason for this massive decline comes down to one thing... health. Kreider was plagued by a swarm of injury bugs for most of the season, with a laundry list of ailments. Back pain started in October, then an ear infection gave him a bad case of vertigo mid-season, followed by a hand injury during the 4 Nations Face-Off. And to top it all off, Kreider himself said he's probably looking at offseason surgery. As if that isn't the only thing that can happen to the 34-year-old this summer. I haven't even mentioned the swirl of trade rumors he's got.
So, hopefully, the Rangers will come back strong in the 2025-26 season, with their new head coach in Mike Sullivan leading the team. The 2025 NHL Entry Draft will also be something to keep an eye on at the end of this month, as well as free agency frenzy the first week of July. Those two major events are crucial if New York wants to return to the Stanley Cup playoffs anytime soon.