Just when you thought the New York Rangers couldn't stoop any lower, they could.
New York is now dead last, 8th in the Metropolitan Division, with a 2-9-0 record in their last 11 games. And with an ECF rematch in Florida as the final game in 2024, it's more than likely the Rangers will carry their losing record over into the new year after losing 4 of 5 before the Christmas break, which ended in a hellish 5-0 defeat to cross-city rivals New Jersey.
How did this happen? How did a team that made it all the way to the ECF last season fall into a more likely-than-not playoff-missing situation? It's a formula of bad offseason dealings, a lack of team effort from that, and the usual star players having off years. Not just one star player, either. Basically all of them.
First, the impractical offseason dealings. GM Chris Drury still has his job despite sending two players to rebuilding teams, one of which may have started this whole mess. Veteran RW Barclay Goodrow didn't deserve to be sent to the once more rebuilding San Jose Sharks, who were basically trying to get their fins on every halfway decent player out there.
The same goes for the now former captain of the Rangers, Jacob Trouba, who was dealt to an Anaheim Ducks team that has been without Trevor Zegras for some time. Goodrow and Trouba represent the start of the Rangers' first legitimate curse since the 1940 Stanley Cup Finals, where the team burned the mortgage papers for the old Madison Square Garden right in the bowl of the Cup. It was 54 years before they won it all again, and it remains one of their last SCF appearances to date.
The resulting fallout from these two major dealings has culminated in a lack of overall team effort. Many players were greatly dissatisfied to find that Goodrow had been sent away without any prior knowledge, and the same thing happened to Trouba. Goodrow himself wasn't even notified that he'd become a Shark until a mere 15 minutes before all the paperwork was done. On top of that, Goodrow specifically had the Sharks on his no trade list. The only way the Rangers somehow still got the deal to go through was just to help out a longtime buddy of Drury's, a kind of situation that most other teams would've automatically avoided. And that's not even the worst part of this whole mess.
Remember how Goodrow was dealt without any team knowledge? Guess who else was also nearly sent away without any news? Superstar RW Chris Kreider! The man who singlehandedly saved the Rangers from losing the Eastern semifinals against Carolina last postseason with his Game 6 hat trick, ala Mark Messier! Just imagine the team's reaction to losing one of the Rangers' greatest modern players. And he's not the only star player suffering from the Rangers' woes.
Mika Zibanejad, who I share a birthday with mind you, is having his worst plus-minus rating season in his 14 year NHL career, and just very recently got demoted off the Rangers' top power play line. Other young stars like Alexis Lafreneiere and Kreider are having major downgrade seasons this year as well. Even New York's top scorer, the always reliable Artemi Panarin, the Breadman himself, hasn't cooked like he's used to.
The combination of these three major setbacks haven't officially put the New York Rangers out of playoff contention, but they might as well already have, given the aforementioned 2-9-0 record in their last 11 games and their respective skids going into and out of the Christmas break. It may be time for a full on rebuild and some more focus on the 2025 NHL Entry Draft than trying to squeeze through the rest of the regular season.