What's the best thing he's done, seriously? Probably the Trouba trade. Everything else has been bad or worse.
Its easily the Trocheck signing which even with his down year this season (to this point) has been a massive plus. Gustafsson last year was a good move which had positive impacts on the D even if it were in a bottom pair role.
He also got a 1st for Nils doofy ass. Traded it away trying to reassemble Panarin's super best friends squad in 2023 but isolated, that was also a massive win.
I thought his 2022 TDL was really good. Vatrano, Copp, Motte were all positive contributors during that run.
But to your point, we're 4 years into his tenure and the roster is still primarily made up of guys who were added during the Gorton years or were drafted while he was GM. Of the regulars/semi regulars on the roster right now, Drury guys are -
Trocheck
Mancini
Carrick
Vesey
Ruhweedel if you want to count him and his 9000 trips through the waiver wire.
Thats not even close to enough.
He inhertied some tough blemishes, but he added his own (some how got out of one unscathed) and hasn't really done anything to improve the areas that were obvious areas to improve and he had the pieces to do it. Lindgren and Kakko in the summer of 2022 probably gets you a pretty f***ing good LHD.
The Rangers had a couple deep play off runs and made play offs every year with Panarin scoring 31 points in 36 games. Bad timing ?
In fact, Panarin never missed play offs in his career (unless you take the play in loss as such )
35 in 46 as a Ranger (counting the play in, 33 in 43 if you don't.)
He's their top paid forward and has led them in scoring each of his 5 years in NY.
He hasn't led the team in scoring in any of their runs. Heck he's been outproduced by Zibanejad over the last 3 playoff runs (not just collectively, but in each individual run as well) who gets shit on here constantly.
He also missed the playoffs in 2021.
When you look at what he's been able to do in the regular season, being sub ppg in the playoffs is a
really bad look. It's not the only reason they've fallen short but he's definitely been part of the problem.