Who do you believe is responsible for the NY Rangers downfall?

[Crease]

I have no emotional alliance to any employee of this organization at the moment.

 

[LORDE]

I'd rather start over with an expansion draft roster of cast offs that want to prove someone wrong then this cast of "whoah is me" babies. These grown men are acting like babies that got their toy (Goodrow and Trouba) taken away.

Amen to this as long as the management goes also

 

[JimmyG89]

1. The players
2. The whole organization
3. Drury
4. Laviolette

This is the only order.

The players did not come in ready to go, and that is the leadership of the team. You can only expect so much from younger players that are supposed to be in support roles.

Next this is an organizational failure from the start, beginning with Gorton hiring Quinn for the rebuild. Who did he develop? The scouting, mainly the amateur scouting, didn't get anything out of multiple top 10 picks.

Drury is next because he held onto this thing for too long. He's done more good than bad IMO, but getting nothing for Buch is a major stain. The 2023 deadline was a mess. Now he's cleaning up a mess that he helped create.

Laviolette is last because he's been here the shortest. He pushed every right button last season and got them as far as they could go. Is there some blame that players might be tuning him out? Sure, but they've done it to multiple coaches.

 

[Profet]

Where is the David Quinn option?

 

[LORDE]

This team fooled fans last year. What we're seeing is more of the stretch they had last season when they were a bottom 10 team for over a month, and less of the team that battled back.

Some fans weren't fooled last season, or the one before that, OR especially the one before that.

Some fans knew it was all smoke & mirrors. Goaltending, wild streaks of luck & a PP

Now there's no smoke & the mirrors are all smashed ushering in a new dark ages... or 7 yrs bad luck... however you wanna categorize it lol

 

[NYR94]

What downfall?

 

[turcotte8]

Where is the David Quinn option?

Tom Renney?

 

[GoAwayPanarin]

The entire organization is the right answer but the players really wear the brunt of the blame.

Look at Tampa: They didn't even bother trying to keep Stamkos who was their captain for a decade and holds basically every meaningful franchise record and is no doubt on his way to having his number retired in TB before heading to the hall of fame. He's a guy who won 2 cups with them and battled through some significant injuries, probably pushing up his own expiration date playing through shit he shouldn't have played through.

This was a very unpopular move inside of their room, particularly with the tenured core of their team who have played along side him for their entire careers prior to this year.

They got over it and are better this year than they have been the last few and look like a EC dark horse. Honestly between that and the Sergachev, he's at least bought the current core another 2-3 years to possibly make some noise.

Meanwhile in NY a guy who was here for 3 years gets moved out and they talk to their captain about moving on and there is butt hurt everywhere. Players get moved, sometimes it happens in ways that people don't like but players and teams have always moved on.

Except this one apparently.

Now It's deeper than that - the GM didn't do enough this summer to improve and he should have honestly taken a f*** your feelings approach to improving the roster this past summer (and really before that) instead of trying to keep his "stars" happy.

It's not lost on me that the 2022 deadline was basically assembling Trouba's best friends (that one kind of worked) and 2023 was assembling Panarins (that one epic failed.) I'm sure this is part of the reason why Lindgren is still here.


I'm sure Lavi is going to fall on the sword for this before anyone big gets moved out and he should own some of this too but nothings going to change until the players on the roster do.

Another GM should be the one making the changes too but I'd be deeply, deeply worried about what direction they'd go in there. It has Brian Burke written all over it and he'd be worse than what we already have here.

 

[Ruggs225]

I would hate it if brian Burke took over here.

But i think he is really involved in the PWHL so im not sure he would even come back to the nhl.

 

[LokiDog]

Everyone. The players, but the whole organization. The foundation of this roster was laid down by the prior administrations. The current hasn’t been better, may have been worse, but didn’t create all of the problems either, so it can’t be Drury specifically/exclusively.

I don’t think the Goodrow waiving or Trouba rumors really torpedoed a whole season. I do think the players are being big babies about it and that quitting on your whole organization and fan base ISN’T the way to get a point across, nor a professional way to behave and as a GM of any other team I would now have very strong character concerns about some of the supposed “leaders” the Rangers may be trying to ship out. The Goodrow/Trouba drama obviously was a catalyst of some sort, but that’s weak players with entitlement issues, which a strike against the players but also the last 2 or 3 architects of the roster for assembling them. And of course, there’s the fact that whether the players quit on the team or not, what was assembled simply wasn’t good enough and didn’t have the innate “want it” to win it all even if they were still playing well.

Shesterkin can take some blame for sure. He put himself above the team and while yes, he MAY be the best goalie in the league (recent play certainly isn’t supporting that - at least not in any conclusive fashion) there are a lot of goalies who have had a great season or two and won one Vezina. He and his agent decided that they were going to die on the hill of “I’m better than ANYONE”. And after making that public he turned down an 88M contract and then AFTER the rifts and resentment that he created ostensibly helped get their captain kicked to the curb, he turned around and took marginally more than he had turned down earlier.

Physical issues for Kreider and Lindgren suck. Many of us have always felt Kreider was a lamb in wolf’s clothing. All this size, speed and strength and making a living around the net, you’d think he was some scary force, but even when he was producing, he’s still mostly been Mr. Softy. Now that age and injuries seem to have caught up, it’s just more obvious. Lindgren is just a walking corpse. We used to make Weekend At Bernie’s jokes about him YEARS ago. They’re just true now.

Zibanejad. What can we say? When I first caught wind of the vegan jokes/rumors I immediately knew it was a joke and an HF “in” meme. I assumed everyone else knew that too. If anyone thinks he’s actually vegan… smh. Regardless, the joke encapsulates most of our issues with him. And it isn’t even some type of pseudo political commentary like some of you want to make it out to be. In the animal kingdom there are carnivores and herbivores. We wanted our 5 goal game, blazing one timer 1st line center to be a f***ing predator and carnivore who came to eat every night. It turns out he’s more of a low aggression grazer.

Same with the DJ shit. I don’t think anyone truly believes he’s dumb enough to destroy his own lucrative career spinning a few records OR that having hobbies prevents you from being a good hockey player. Ditto me angrily nitpicking some of Miller’s swagalicious fashion choices last night. It isn’t serious criticism - it’s tongue in cheek criticism of larger organizational issues. Which in this case isn’t the guys having hobbies or an interest in how they look, it’s the organizational culture that promotes them as public figures and personalities rather than hockey players and then these side pursuits become bigger than hockey. Henrik played some guitar on a late night talk show; Mika literally played Lollapalooza. Playing Lollapalooze does, indeed, require coordination, resources, planning, rehearsal, etc. They don’t just let garage bands hop on stage, no notice. This would be fine if it wasn’t clear to everyone watching that at the exact same time that your DJing has blossomed from no one ever having heard of you to having songs on Apple Music and playing at Lollapalooza, your game has slipped tremendously. Trust me, when Travis Kelce started showing up to games dressed like Cam Newton, people would have gotten pissed if his play fell off on the field. If Hank hadn’t continued to be elite, no one would have liked his schtick with being a fashionista.

Bad prospect development. Bad picks in the 1st round, taking swings on Kravtsov and Andersson and McIlrath but probably overly safe drafting in the middle rounds where plenty of teams have found more gems than we have.

I don’t know. It’s the whole thing. Top to bottom. Somewhat unique, honestly, to just be awful in every way.

 

[Bacon Artemi Bravo]

Many many people on this forum had the foresight to know there was something very very wrong with the makeup of this team. Series against the devils was when we first saw a glimpse of it. The coach chosen was one that many of us thought was just another version of gallant and further, the leadership group was not the right one to take this team all the way. That said, this type of monumental collapse was beyond what many of us ever thought possible. The GM holds the reins to the organization and holds the most responsibility of anyone. That said, everyone all the way down also gets a piece.

 

[Trxjw]

I have a hard time throwing Laviolette on the pile. There was no mystery about him. He's been coaching in the league forever and his flaws are well documented. He's doing all he knows how to do. He was the wrong coach for this team and I put that hire squarely on Drury.

It's clear that the Rangers have a serious culture problem in the room. This team has shown that "#NoQuitInNY" couldn't be further from the truth year after year. They've been a team with the same flaws year after year. Can't get ready to start the game. Fold easily in physical contests. Can't muster any offense when their PP isn't clicking. Completely reliant on their goalie to keep them in games.

And yet that's the "core" management decided to build around. So ultimately the blame lies on the players for me but they're only here because management decided to build around them.

 

[Row I Goon]

It’s the entire franchise.

But you can’t fire everyone so Lavi will be the goat tied to the media stake.

 

[zlev]

i still really don't think the Trouba and Goodrow things played any part here. yeah it was a mess but the team started off fine like nothing happened and then started to suck like 2 weeks before the "Drury memo" about Kreider and Trouba. the team the way it was constructed to start the season was not good enough to go deep in the playoffs again and now we're finding out it's not good enough to even make the playoffs. that has to be on the GM. i have no doubt if the required upgrades on defense were made, all of the forwards that are performing way under their level would not be, aside from Mika, who was already washed up last season.

 

[Uglybstrd]

This season is over, Titanic har plowed into the iceberg and the water is pouring in.
I blame everyone, but the fish rot from the head down they say....
Hope they`re able to get rid of some of the zombies on the team.
And hope for a good draft.

 

[bleedblue94]

Drury to definitely deserves some responsibility for some of the contracts he handed out and the way that he managed the cap which basically promoted entitlement throughout the roster of players.

But the biggest culprit here are the actual players themselves because they allowed the internal effort to slip and the internal level of expectations from the individuals to slip and then they spent more time trying to defend each other than he did trying to hold each other accountable. I take this all the way back to Ryan strome and there was a very definite time that Quinn went after players for a lack of effort and for not playing hockey the right way and strome was asked about it and openly defended the players and basically said that they knew how to play hockey right and that they didn't need somebody else telling them what to do or how they should be doing their jobs. It was absolutely unbelievable to me what he was saying if you listened through the lines and then there was no recourse to it. Then you watch Quinn get fired, Turk comes in here and he basically lets the players do whatever they want to do and they're semi-successful for a year before the league figures them out and then they suck again. Then they er Turk, bring in lavy and they have another successful year with a little bit of structure but then in year two the players go back to doing whatever they want and they suck again I have never seen a change in the players attitudes or the internal standards of that room going back to the Quinn days. And the alarming part of it is there are times that players speak out about it over the last 5 years and basically call players and teammates out without naming people in the media kind of just skips over it and it's forgot or dismissed. Trouba did it directly the 90 through his helmet. There have been so many times that players have made comments that should make other people aware that there are issues in and around that locker room, and it all goes back to leadership and standards.

 

[Jack Hanson]

Management because they pick and develop the players. If you pick a bunch of crappy stocks and they go down, is that the stocks fault or your fault for picking them? Dolan has no sense of hockey i.q. it all flows from there. Dolan also poisons the culture. Whoever picked Mika especially and signed him to the dumb contract is just one example, picking Kakko also was dumb. The good players that we do have arent managed or coached well.

 

[huerter]

Michelletti and the beat writers.

 

[80shockeywasbuns]

The core/leadership (veteran players)

Cant blame the coaching, we’ve had 3 different coaches that apparently cant work with this core for more than 1 year.

I don’t get this logic. You think the core isn’t good enough but you just watched two straight coaches ride or die with the core the exact same way with basically zero adjustments to how they used Mika, Kreider, Trouba, Lindgren. Yet you have no gripe with the coaches?

This board remains incapable of assigning blame to more than one thing at a time. “Well if I can’t assign ALL the issues to this one person then they are completely absolved of any blame” - NYRHF logic

 

[Tob]

I blame mika and kreider for being soft lazy p***yes and the maangement for committing to them and tbe coaches for enabling them and the rest of the players for not fighting them in practice

 

[The Crypto Guy]

I don’t get this logic. You think the core isn’t good enough but you just watched two straight coaches use the core the exact same way with basically zero adjustments to how they used Mika, Kreider, Trouba, Lindgren. Yet you have no gripe with the coaches?

This board remains incapable of assigning blame to more than one thing at a time. “Well if I can’t assign ALL the issues to this one person then they are completely absolved of any blame” - NYRHF logic

The core is gotten older and are not effective. That can happen…

That or they are all butthurt because Drury hurt their feelings and got rid of the country club they are so used to.

 

[80shockeywasbuns]

The core is gotten older and are not effective. That can happen…

That or they are all butthurt because Drury hurt their feelings and got rid of the country club they are so used to.

Gallant and Laviolette are basically the same person minus the hair. They maintained the status quo and used the roster the virtually the exact same way. They’re not the only problem or the biggest problem but they both sucked at their job and were part of the stink.

 

[egelband]

It’s a chicken-and-egg scenario. The (veteran) players and the organization are both to blame. But I suppose the organization is the enabler. Put Kreider and Mika in a better organization and they probably fly right.

 

[CasusBelli]

Starts with GM for mishandling Trouba this summer and perhaps the Goodrow waive too. No situational awareness or visibility of consequences. Just no EQ, which is baffling for the seniormost manager in the org.

 

[bl02]

I blame mika and kreider for being soft lazy p***yes and the maangement for committing to them and tbe coaches for enabling them and the rest of the players for not fighting them in practice

Bingo beat me to it.