Mike Sullivan finally says out loud what everyone already sees

The 2024-25 New York Rangers were a team that was considered a massive disappointment, and they scored 255 goals while finishing 39-36-7 with 85 points. They ranked 12th in the league for goals scored, and 19th in goals against. Through 35 games the Rangers have scored just 88 goals, and are 26th in the NHL, and Mike Sullivan addressed what has been a major theme of the team's season to date following another shutout loss at Madison Square Garden.

Sullivan's quote admits what most fans already know

Following the most recent loss to the Vancouver Canucks, Sullivan said, "If I had the solution, we would certainly bring it. We're doing our best to control the process, because that's really, at the end of the day, what's within our control. I thought we defended hard tonight. They had a few looks. Their first goal was a little unfortunate. After that, they had a few looks, but not a lot. I thought we defended hard. I thought we controlled territory. We had a significant amount of O-zone time. The power play had a lot of good looks, so I feel like we're trying to solve it, for sure. But is it a little bit concerning at this point? Yeah."

Everything Sullivan said make sense, and you can certainly look at the 2025-26 Rangers as a team that has better overall structure than last year's squad, and one that generates chances. The Rangers currently sit 11th in the league with a team xGF% of 51.5, 17th with a CF% of 49.79, and 11th with a GF% of 51.08. These numbers reflect in how well the team has defended, and the team's overall underlying metrics are significantly better than last season. The strides the team has made is admirable, but no one should be surprised that the team's offense is as bad as it is. They have a finishing problem, something that is evident based on how the roster was constructed.

Chris Drury built a flawed roster

The players ultimately need to produce, and they share some culpability, but Drury didn't build an offensive juggernaut. He looked at a team that underperformed last season, and did nothing to inject more offense into the group. Last season the leading goal scorers for the Rangers include Artemi Panarin with 37, Vincent Trocheck with 26, Chris Kreider with 22, Mika Zibanejad with 20, and Will Cuylle with 20. Panarin is someone the Rangers have counted on for years, and last season was less productive than the year before. Trocheck's goal scoring was consistent, Zibanejad's season was dreadful, and Cuylle shined in what was his second full season as a pro.

When looking at that group, it is clear that Drury expected to find the goals he was looking for with Panarin rebounding from a down year, Trocheck being capable of doing what he's done since joining the team, Zibanejad rebounding, and Cuylle continuing the next steps of the development process.

It is also possible that Drury expected to replace Kreider's offense through players such as Alexis Lafrenière, Gabe Perreault, and the team to benefit from having J.T. Miller for the entirety of the season. On paper, it sounds like a reasonable bet to make. But ultimately it's a bit of a flawed approach, because Drury's needed to take an approach that not only replace offense lost, but raise the overall floor of the group. Banking on internal improvement is always tricky, and given that Drury's done that before, it makes his summer decisions that more frustrating.

Drury should have known better

When Pavel Buchnevich was traded away, Drury justified it by asserting that opportunities for youngsters like Vitali Kravtsov, Kaapo Kakko, and Lafrenière would be enough to fill the void, but it unfortunately never happened. It resulted in the team making trades across different seasons for players such as Andrew Copp, Frank Vatrano, Vladimir Tarasenko and Patrick Kane. The Tarasenko and Kane transactions were good in theory, but the end result was the Rangers being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.

If Drury wanted to roll the dice again, at the very least he should have had another capable option that could be plugged into the top six in the event his plan of a youth takeover failed... yet again. The lack of insurance is dooming the Rangers right now, and they are coming to grips with the fact that their talent may not be as talented as they once thought.

To this point, Panarin and Zibanejad have 11 goals as the team's co-leaders. Behind them is Miller and Cuylle with nine goals, Lafrenière with seven, Vladislav Gavrikov with six, and then Trocheck, Noah Laba, and Taylor Raddysh with five goals each. From there's a significant decline, but when you look at the numbers it isn't all that surprising.

Jonny Brodzinski has two goals in 22 games, Adam Edstrom has two in 24, Conor Sheary has one in 31, Brett Berard has zero points in 11 games, and so on. When looking at the construction of this team, it always felt like they were a top six forward short, and that was the spot previously occupied by Kreider. Cuylle is looking better lately, but earlier in the season he looked a bit overmatched when asked to take a top six role. He's been much better on the third line, and the result of that has meant someone like Sheary or Raddysh getting bumped up which hasn't worked all too well.

Drury could have spent money better

Drury's decision to extend Juuso Parssinen, sign Raddysh, and Sheary simultaneously remains a puzzling decision. To a lesser extent, so does his decision to pay Urho Vaakanainen $1.55 million to be a seventh defender. But to focus on the forwards, Drury spent $3.525 million on three players, and he's not seen the benefits of that investment. Had the Rangers used internal options to fill two of those spots, you could make an argument that they would have been able to sign one player to a deal in the $2 million range.

Heading into this season Raddysh had one 20-goal season and three seasons in which he tallied 20 points or more. If the goal was for him to be a younger version of Sheary, that's fine. But that Drury signed him for two years, and brought Sheary into the fold after signing Parssinen and already having Edstrom, Sam Carrick, Matt Rempe and other options in Hartford was pretty suspect. The bottom six was arguably the least of the Rangers' concerns. It was the top six which needed work, because they needed to have options in case the existing talent continued the regression of last season, and they also needed a replacement for Kreider if a youngster wasn't ready for that assignment.

One such player could have been Anthony Mantha. Mantha inked a one-year deal for $2.5 million, and so far he's got 10 goals, 12 assists, and 22 points for the Pittsburgh Penguins. He's a player that has scored over 20 goals in a single season multiple times, and he would have been an addition very similar to what the Rangers did previously by trading for Reilly Smith and signing Blake Wheeler. In those cases the Rangers took bets on players with track records and proven skill sets. The Rangers add zero players of that ilk, and that was a mistake.

This summer, Drury doubled down on bottom six talent. He did so even though that something the Rangers already had a lot of, and it is backfiring now considering that the goal was for the Rangers to be a better team than they were last year. It is possible that Drury acted the way he did because he thought he could get top six talent later on, but that never came to be with many of the 2026 top free agents all extending with their teams. Even if that were the case, Mantha as an example would have been a much better middle ground option, and one that could help the team right now. There are other names that could have been considered, maybe Jack Roslovic or Andrew Mangiapane, but the general point is that when it came to building this team, Drury didn't do enough in terms of the forward group, so it shouldn't be a surprise they aren't scoring.

Where Rangers go from here

The Rangers' best option would be cutting their losses with some of the excess bottom six talent, and acquiring a top six forward. It is unknown if that will happen, but in the meantime there's always the potential of recalling Perreault and seeing if he can provide a spark. He's posted a line of 10-7-17 in 20 games with the Hartford Wolf Pack, and would be a great fit in the top six. Giving him another shot would buy some time, because it is possible the Rangers don't want to add if they get to a point where they might recoup value by selling off pieces like Panarin if they are considerably removed from a playoff spot come late February and early March.

The Rangers continue to be a frustrating team, and it is possible these growing pains will pay off in the future. But no one should be surprised about the lack of goal scoring. Drury put together a top heavy roster with older players, didn't replace Kreider's production, and has filled the bottom six with redundant archetypes that don't scream offense. That the Rangers are where they are is not surprising in the least, and in order to get the most impact of Sullivan in New York, the team needs players who can get the job done.

How they get to that point is up for debate, but the Rangers need to start acting soon if they want to avoid missing the playoffs for a second season in a row.