PIERRE LeBRUN: It’s really an incredible fall from grace when you consider the pre-season expectations, a team that a lot of people picked to come out of the East to go to the Stanley Cup final. It really just never got off the ground.
A lot of drama, a lot of trades, and the Rangers hanging on here for dear life as far as still having a chance to make the postseason.
I can tell you that there’s absolutely no word out of the Rangers, themselves. Very tight-lipped about what might transpire here over the next week, or so.
But in talking to other people around the league, the low-hanging fruit, the expectations from a lot of people I’ve talked to is that Peter Laviolette could get fired.
He’s got another year on his deal, so certainly not a sure thing. But when you look at the body language and the performance of the team over the last month, again, when I’ve talked to other people around the league, that’s probably the easiest conclusion, and so, we’ll see whether or not that happens.
If it does happen, I think it’s important to know this is not about… well, it was "all" about coaching. Let’s be real, there are other issues here in New York. I go back to the way Barclay Goodrow was waived and his exit from New York last summer. I know that didn’t sit well with some Rangers players, and then how Jacob Trouba, the captain, got dealt earlier this season.
I think that there’s some players in that Rangers dressing room that have been upset with the way things have been handled, and it’s led to this malaise that has hung around that team all year long. They’ve just been off.
All of which leads to the next question, Gino, and I’ll ask it for you, which is: What about GM Chris Drury?
My sense there is that he should be okay. I think there’s a lot of loyalty from Jim Dolan, the owner. Chris Drury was pretty busy out of the trade deadline, too, really kind of setting up his off-season with a lot of moves he made. I think Chris Drury plans to be aggressive in trying to retool the Rangers again here this summer.
So again, not a lot of hard answers here, but a lot of people around the league waiting to see what shoe will drop in what has been one of the bigger disappointments in a long time in the NHL from Presidents’ Trophy winners likely missing the playoffs one year later.