NHL front office confidence ranking shows faith in Rangers' Chris Drury has hit rock bottom

The New York Rangers have had a much needed transformational summer after missing the playoffs in back to back seasons following a campaign which saw them win the Presidents' Trophy amid a run to the Eastern Conference Final. There's reason to be hopeful that this year could be the start of a return to the hockey fans were familiar with seeing, but there's still a lot of doubt. Simply stated, almost no one believes in the New York Rangers, and the results of a recent poll and subsequent ranking at The Athletic is quite alarming.

Rangers' reputation has hit rock bottom

Today the NHL front office confidence rankings went live, and the report ranks all 32 teams in the league by taking into account feedback from the public at large, and then a survey of those who identify as being a face of the team in question. It's a way of gut checking perception, because far too often there have been cases of fans being higher on their team while looking through the lens of rose colored glasses.

Interestingly enough... the fans and the public happen to be in full alignment when it comes to the Rangers. The sample in question featured over 10,000 responses per team, with another 500 plus respondents having taken the time to grade every team in the league.

The Rangers' were given a D- and that placed them dead last in the league at 32 overall. The general public graded the Blueshirts with a D, and Blueshirt fans graded a little harsher with a D- score. For context, the Rangers were ranked 28th in last year's rankings, and the public is 72 percent less confident this year than they were last year, and the fans are 54 percent less confident.

This also means that the public was 5 percent more confident than last year, and the fans were 16 percent more confident than they were this point last year.

Biggest pain points for the Rangers

There are six different categories in which a team can be graded, and this includes roster building, cap management, draft and develop, trading, free agency, and vision. The biggest universal pain point, as voted upon by the fans and public, is draft and develop, cap management, and vision.

All three of these concepts are deeply connected, and for a team like the Rangers, they remain three important things that will determine the immediate future. The Rangers are at a stage as a team where they needed to make a decision, and instead of tearing it down and rebuilding, they released the Letter 2.0 to retool.

This letter wasn't received as positively as the Letter 1.0, as many are skeptical that the Blueshirts can effectively pivot. That speaks to the vision piece, because it feels like the Rangers aren't exactly committed to one central strategy, but trying to make the best of their situation while also trying to get better.

But to that point, maybe pivoting with a retool isn't the worst thing in the world given the near universal acceptance that drafting and developing hasn't gone well. A full tear down rebuild would result in a lot more drafting and developing, and until there is major regime change, you can see why they opted to try and make it work while Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin are in their respective primes.

This is where cap management comes into play, and it stands to reason that there are significant questions about how the money is being allocated. As things stand, the Rangers have $2.4 million in cap space per Puck Pedia. Pavel Dorofeyev is the highest paid skater at $11 million a year, and despite his potential and upside, there are some who feel that's a major risk even in a world where the cap is going up at a rate we've not seen before.

Mika Zibanejad makes $8.5 million for the next four seasons, and J.T. Miller is under contract at $8 million over the same stretch of time. Both centers are 33, and it is very likely that they've already hit the peak of their respective careers. The Miller acquisition is one that turned a lot of heads at the time, and it's a deal that may be looked upon even less favorably if he gets off to another poor start.

Beyond those deals, there's ot a ton of bloat to be concerned about. Fox is a steal at $9.5 million, Vladislav Gavrikov's $7 million deal was a bargain last year and will continue to look better, and there's not a ton of risk in taking on newcomers Sean Durzi and Marcus Pettersson to overhaul the defense. If I had to pick a true bad deal... trading for Joonas Korpisalo who makes $3 million for two years to be a backup when Dylan Garand was already there under $1 million is a headscratcher.

This is a pivotal year

Despite the general doom and gloom associated with the polling, I still view this as another important year of transition in which the Rangers will learn more and continue to evolve. The Rangers are in too deep to turn back, as evidenced by draft picks they've dealt, but I think there was a lot of intention with how they approached the summer. At a bare minimum, the Rangers have a roster on paper good enough to make the playoffs.

And I truly believe making the playoffs is what they intend to do, and they built a roster to try and show prospective free agents that they aren't as far away as the public thinks they are. There's no guarantee it works, but in general, it feels like most roles are spoken for and there are fewer question marks than last season.

That being said, if the Rangers want to become contenders again, they need a few things to happen. They will need Alexis Lafrenière and Gabe Perreault to be productive forwards who can become the next focal points of the organization, they will need Alberts Smits to be as good as scouts think he can be, and they will also need Fox and Shesterkin to be healthy and at the top of their games.

Beyond that, they just need players like Zibanejad and Miller to be above average or better. Oliver Bjorkstrand was brought in as a veteran to help the offense, and he's scored 20 or more goals in most of the seasons he's played in his career. The Rangers have an interesting bottom six with Will Cuylle, Tye Kartye, Noah Laba, Adam Sýkora, and Jaroslav Chmelař, and there's players in Hartford like Liam Greentree, Cole Beaudoin, and Nathan Aspinall who could enter the mix.

The additions of Durzi and Petersson should also help stabilize the defense, and it makes it so that Smits doesn't have to do more than he's capable of at this point. All of this is to say, you can see the path being there for the Rangers to improve this year, level up, identify where they need to get better, and then go out and do it.

There's every reason for the general public and the fans to be down on the Rangers. They've had two terrible seasons back to back, are an older team, and there's no clear savior ready to emerge. However, I truly believe this could be a perception changing season. It feels like there's a team every year that is universally hated that goes on to surprise people, and all I am saying is the Rangers could just end up being that team this season.

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