After a 3-2 loss on Monday vs. the Florida Panthers, the New York Rangers have one game left in their season, but that hasn't stopped them from taking some L's off the ice as well. The Athletic just released the result of a polling of 23 NHL player agents, and the results were not pretty.
Vancouver Canucks named only franchise worse than Blueshirts
In a new article for The Athletic, some of the top player agents in the NHL were polled on nine questions which pertained to the league and its future.
— Snark Messier (@SnarkMessier) April 13, 2026
One question they were posed was which franchise is the worst-run in the NHL — the Rangers were second behind Vancouver. #NYR pic.twitter.com/qWz9DnCpnq
If you were looking for a charitable view of this poll, yes the Rangers finished second, but they only garnered four votes. Four is a lot more than you'd like, less than Vancouver' seven and the rest on this list, but that context feels important.
As to why they finished second, per the story, "Deep down, they forget everybody's a human being. They're too forceful, and I think everything can be worked out one way or the other." This certainly describes the aggressive nature of President and General Manager Chris Drury, and his ruthlessness in recent years.
This applies to placing Barclay Goodrow on waivers to circumvent his no trade clause, the uncomfortable situation with Jacob Trouba when the Rangers were ready to move on even though he wasn't, the end of Chris Kreider's tenure in New York, and you could even loop in the organization's cold shoulder toward Artemi Panarin during contract negotiations during the offseason. In any case, this is just one element of Drury's nature, but there are other things that have happened that make questioning his leadership defensible.
Drury's disastrous trade history
The tone was set in 2021 when Drury traded Pavel Buchnevich to St. Louis for Sammy Blais and a 2nd-round pick. It was a cap casualty trade before the team even had a cap problem, although they reportedly were trying to trade with the Buffalo Sabres for Jack Eichel. Buchnevich went on to become a point-per-game star, and the Rangers have spent the last five years fruitlessly trying to find someone to fill the hole he left in the top six.
Even if the Eichel situation were to come to fruition, they should have landed him and then move Buchnevich. At least then they'd have had Eichel, and if teams weren't willing to cooperate in a trade since they knew of the Rangers' need to free up space, a poor return for Buchnevich would have been more acceptable.
In 2023, Drury’s determined pursuit of Patrick Kane, even after already acquiring Vladimir Tarasenko, became an organizational embarrassment. To fit Kane under the cap, the Rangers were forced to play short-handed, shuffle the roster on paper, and essentially held their own lineup hostage for weeks. The result? A first-round exit and a team that looked tactically broken.
Last winter’s trade for J.T. Miller is the most recent transaction that looks like a massive blunder. Drury sent away young center in Filip Chytil and a 2025 first-round pick to bring back Miller and his $8 million cap hit. The issue isn't that he moved an oft injured Chytil, it is that Drury didn't accurately see where the team was headed, and he added an older player with term and a high salary that limited the team's flexibility. Additionally Miller was named captain, and the team has been in a tailspin ever since.
Drury's development desert
If the trade history is a fire, the Rangers' approach to prospect development is the gasoline. Chris Drury’s tenure has been marked by a my way or the highway philosophy that has consistently cratered the value of the team's highest-pedigree assets.
The blueprint for Drury’s forceful reputation started with Vitali Kravtsov, and that situation is quite illuminating when evaluating what's happened since. From Drury (then the Wolf Pack GM) reportedly calling Kravtsov a quitter for using his European out-clause to the public dressing down in the 2020 bubble, the relationship was toxic from the jump. Instead of nurturing a top-10 talent, the front office treated him like a problem to be solved, eventually losing him for pennies on the dollar. He wasn't the first, nor the last to be treated that way.
Additionally, while teams like Tampa Bay and Dallas use their AHL affiliates as finishing schools to get players ready for the next level, Hartford remains a developmental dead zone. The Wolf Pack currently sit near the bottom of the Atlantic Division with just 25 wins in 69 games, a reputation that needs to be improved if the Rangers ever want to land a high profile college free agent again.
While the Rangers will point to Adam Sýkora or Jaroslav Chmelař as success stories, those players feel more like survivors than products of a functioning system. When was the last time Hartford actually prepared a high-ceiling prospect to be a top-six impact player on Broadway? The answer is as bleak as the Wolf Pack’s record.
Where the Rangers go from here
The Rangers have just one game left on their schedule, but the real work begins the moment the final horn sounds in Tampa. The Letter 2.0 was marketed as the signal of a new era, yet the perception around the league remains stubbornly unchanged. Perhaps a top-four lottery pick will help bridge the talent gap, but even a superstar rookie won’t fix the organizational threads that remain dangerously frayed.
Vincent Trocheck fully expected to be traded at the deadline to a contender, yet he remains on a roster that is already planning for next October. This summer, the Rangers will have oodles of cap space at their disposal, but the free-agent market is thin, with few high-profile names worthy of commanding top dollar. It is going to be fascinating to see how Drury navigates this pivotal offseason. With the agents already watching closely and the fanbase losing patience, any more missteps will only serve to make Drury's seat on Broadway a bit warmer.
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