All of this bullshit is just noise, and the hockey media is amplifying it because it's easy click material. It's the same shit they did with the Canucks a few years ago because they're a huge market and they know the fans will lap it right up. Drury ran the tightest ship with no leaks, and now all of a sudden you have clowns like Steve Dangle, who's only in his spot because he screeched louder than every braindead Leafs fan to relevancy, acting like they have insight into the locker room? Give me a f***ing break. It's so easy to spin this into an anti-Rangers narrative and act like Drury is the big bad meanie. Did he handle things perfectly? Probably not. Did he approach the players about waiving their trade clauses? Yes. Did he utilize avenues available to him to make moves to get rid of the bad players on the roster that were taking up significant cap space and providing negative value for the roles they were in? Yes.
I wouldn't mind seeing him fired either because I've commented before on how I think he's failed to fully build out an organizational philosophy where everyone is in sync from top-to-bottom on what their mission statement is. He's done an okay job, but he needs to do more. He didn't hire enough people with good track records of helping in these areas.
His major flaw was hiring Laviolette who had all of the massive warning signs flashing above his head from his time in Washington. Aging core that he couldn't get to buy into his system that ultimately just gave up and tuned him out. Same exact shit here, and now we're stuck at an impasse where we're a day late on moving guys that needed to be traded and locked into an Igor extension that'll just keep us mired in mediocrity.
Sorry if these guys have hurt feelings, but this is the business. Other teams can make trades and move out core pieces and survive. I don't know why our guys think otherwise when they haven't even earned the right to have a longer leash.
You want Drury to stop being "ruthless"? Stop playing like shit and show up for each other. Doesn't matter now because the noise is too loud and this is what predated Gorton and JD being shitcanned. All of that noise culminated into the Washington game where Dolan flew off the handle and axed everyone. We're not far from a similar point where he's going to step in unless Drury can convince him otherwise.
Leon Rose has been able to do all of his work without addressing the media, essentially blow up a young core, and put together a nucleus of prime-age players that'll have the Knicks in contention for a while. He got the right mix of person and talent too. Drury needs to do the same.
