Inside the Rangers' 2024-25 descent, from playoffs to sell-offs: ‘No one here is happy'

New York Times

19-06-2025

Despite his dejection, Adam Fox had reason for hope. Still sweaty from a season-ending Eastern Conference final loss in June of 2024, the star New York Rangers defenseman stood in front of his locker in the visiting dressing room in Sunrise, Fla., and forecast a bright future.
'The foundation is there,' Fox said. 'It sucks to think this year is over, but what we built is strong.'
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It indeed seemed like the team was on the ascent to perennial-contender status, which was the target when owner James Dolan hired Chris Drury as team president and general manager in May of 2021 following a multi-year rebuild. The Rangers had made the playoffs in each of Drury's first three seasons, also reaching the conference final in 2022.
The 2023-24 season was especially charmed for New York, later described by then-coach Peter Laviolette as one in which 'everything went right.' Before falling to the eventual-champion Florida Panthers in a six-game conference final, New York set a franchise record for regular-season wins and points and captured the Presidents' Trophy with the league's best record.
Despite the momentum and Fox's optimism, though, the next year went about as poorly as anyone in the NHL could have expected.
Instead of another campaign filled with Stanley Cup hopes, the Rangers finished 11th in the Eastern Conference and missed the playoffs. The foundation Fox believed in was tested and failed to hold, leading to a dressing room of unhappy players, some of whom felt mistreated by the organization.
Away from the ice, the season was capped by the April revelation that Artemi Panarin, the team's leading scorer in all six of his seasons with the Rangers, had paid a financial settlement in August 2024 to a team employee who alleged he sexually assaulted her. Madison Square Garden Entertainment, the team's parent company, also paid the woman a separate financial settlement.
Now 11 of the 22 Rangers players who appeared in the 2024 playoff run are gone — most recently Chris Kreider, who was traded to the Anaheim Ducks last week. So is Laviolette, now the third coach Drury has fired in four years on the job. More departures are likely to follow as Drury continues to remake the core he inherited from former GM Jeff Gorton and tries to build a championship-caliber team.
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In replacing Laviolette with two-time Stanley Cup champion Mike Sullivan, one of the game's most highly regarded coaches, Drury has found someone fans and team brass alike hope can lead them to a brighter place.
But as Drury and Sullivan move forward from a debacle of a season, they also must look back at how the situation got so bleak.
'In my mind, something broke during the season and went the other way,' star goalie Igor Shesterkin said on locker-cleanout day in April. 'We couldn't handle it.'
If something with the Rangers did break, the earliest cracks emerged well before the first game.
In the grand scheme of things, the first one was small: Bottom-six forward Barclay Goodrow, an alternate captain, was placed on waivers. Drury made the decision less than three weeks after the end of the Panthers series, during which Goodrow scored three goals, including an overtime winner.
That the Rangers would try to move off Goodrow's $3.642 million average annual salary wasn't a shock, even after his productive playoffs. Signed to a six-year contract in one of Drury's first moves as GM in 2021, Goodrow's slipping regular-season production no longer matched his contract value, and New York was facing a salary-cap crunch.
The manner in which Drury carried out a seemingly minor transaction, though, proved to have a lasting impact on the dressing room.
Goodrow had a 15-team no-trade list in his contract, but the Rangers never asked him to consider waiving it for a deal. Instead, Goodrow received a call from Drury just 15 minutes before the June 18 waiver wire was publicized to tell him he would be on the list, which would give every team — with the league-worst San Jose Sharks having top priority — a chance to claim him. Had Goodrow cleared waivers, the team could have sent him to the AHL and buried some of his contract, or it could have explored buying him out.
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The Sharks, led by general manager Mike Grier, a Rangers hockey operations adviser in 2021-22 and former Boston University teammate of Drury's, claimed Goodrow the next day. Goodrow had San Jose on his no-trade list, but that didn't protect him against waivers.
'I didn't like how things were handled,' he later told The Athletic.
Drury wasn't finished with his attempts to remake the roster and free up cap space, even if it meant taking a cutthroat approach with the team captain. Defenseman Jacob Trouba had a full no-move clause that became a 15-team no-trade list on July 1, the day NHL free agency opened. The Rangers tried shopping him, asking for his trade list a few days early with hopes of figuring out a deal.
The New York Post reported on June 29 that Drury was working on shipping Trouba to the Detroit Red Wings. According to a source close to Trouba, the defenseman saw the story as an attempt by the team to push him out. He did not submit his no-trade list before he had to, limiting the Rangers' ability to search for potential suitors. He was also frustrated when the Post reported his wife's medical residency in New York, which had another year left, was factoring into his approach.
'I was put in a position this summer to make a decision between my career and my family,' Trouba said later. 'I chose my family. I would choose my family 100 times over again. … I don't like that it was made public, necessarily, or how everything unfolded so publicly.'
Along with the Goodrow waiver tactic, Drury's ill-fated attempt to move Trouba, whom he had named captain two years prior, started the 2024-25 season on bad footing.
Even former Rangers wondered how the summer's drama would affect the group. Former New York defenseman Brendan Smith, whose brother Reilly started the year with the Rangers, told The Athletic in January that after the Trouba situation, 'You could almost foresee how things were going to the side to begin with. It started that way in the summer.'
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Added Smith, who spent this season with the Stars, 'People are walking on eggshells, right from the top down. It's never a good way to be in any business. That's where that swagger comes, that confidence.'
Several Rangers players met at Panarin's house a couple of weeks before training camp to bid Goodrow farewell before he left for San Jose. At that gathering, players openly expressed resentment about how Drury handled both the Goodrow and Trouba situations, according to a person present.
Added another former Ranger, who requested anonymity so he could speak freely about his old team: 'There's some trust lost, clearly. And it's hard to know where that trust was lost, but it's in the room now. And you have guys wondering, 'Who's next?''
Facing reporters after the Rangers' first practice in training camp, Trouba ominously acknowledged the stakes of the season ahead.
'In all likelihood, this will probably be the last crack for this core,' he said. 'I don't think that's a secret by any means.'
Still, the Rangers started 12-4-1 — in line with expectations for a team that came close to a Stanley Cup Final appearance the season before. Shesterkin played lights-out in net and the team's high-end talent produced goals, especially on the power play, covering up some concerning underlying trends.
Then a western road trip ended with a pair of duds. The team surrendered 49 shots and lost 3-2 on Nov. 21 in Calgary, then got blown out by the defending Western Conference champion Oilers two nights later. The first back-to-back defeats of the season and the manner in which they happened prompted Drury to send a memo to his fellow GMs saying he was open to trading roster players. The message mentioned Trouba and Kreider, the team's longest-tenured player, by name.
News of the memo spread like wildfire, with media outlets picking up on it within hours. Others around the league took note, too.
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'You just don't do that,' one Western Conference assistant GM texted The Athletic the next day. 'You're basically dropping a bomb in your room in the middle of the season.'
The day after news of the memo broke, Drury spent part of a practice day dealing with the fallout. He met with members of his team's leadership group, including Trouba and Kreider, at the practice rink in Tarrytown, N.Y., an hour north of Manhattan, before the Rangers flew to Raleigh, N.C., for a road game against the Hurricanes.
As reported by The Athletic at the time, a league source characterized the meetings between Drury and his players as 'honest, productive conversations.' Upon reading that wording later, though, one of the Rangers who met with Drury texted a friend to correct the record.
'Productive?' the message began. 'No one here is happy.'
Whether unhappiness led to poor play or poor play compounded the locker room's unhappiness, the Rangers began to slide in the aftermath of Drury's missive to other general managers, which came two games into a 4-15-0 skid that lasted through the end of the calendar year. The Rangers had the worst record in the league during that span, based on points percentage, and they would not put together a single three-game winning streak for the rest of the season.
The roster felt the ramifications. The Rangers had three days off between games following a Dec. 2 drubbing at the hands of the Devils, and Drury acted to close the Trouba saga, sending him to the Ducks for defenseman Urho Vaakanainen and a fourth-round pick.
To Trouba, the trade marked the end of the contentious battle that began five months earlier with Drury's attempt to force him out. From the Rangers' perspective, the deal freed up cap space and also removed a player whose game had diminished. The Rangers also announced an eight-year extension for Shesterkin worth a goalie-record $11.5 million annually on the day of the trade, a commitment to a player Drury viewed as part of the team's future.
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On his introductory media call with the Ducks, Trouba said Drury forced him to choose between accepting a trade to a team on his no-trade list and going on waivers — the same way the GM got out of Goodrow's contract nearly six months earlier.
Trouba said the task of leading his teammates had grown tougher in the aftermath of the rumor-filled summer and called Drury's approach a threat.
'Yesterday morning it was, 'Accept this trade or we're scratching you.' I said, 'OK,'' Trouba said on the day of the deal. 'Then it was, 'Accept this trade or you're going on waivers.''
Asked about his use of waivers — either in action in Goodrow's case or as a threat in Trouba's — Drury acknowledged 'there are things at our disposal in the (collective bargaining agreement)' and said he was trying to do the same thing as every other GM: improve his team.
'I'm not trying to mess with players,' he said. 'I have a ton of respect for Barclay and certainly for Jacob. I'm just trying to do the best I can to move the team forward and make changes that I think are necessary.'
That likely wasn't much comfort to Trouba. In his Ducks introductory call, he quipped, 'It's a rite of passage to get fired from MSG.'
He may have been referring to himself and Goodrow, but according to people who know Trouba, he was also referencing a spate of dismissals in recent years, including of popular trainer Jim Ramsay in May 2023, which also brought unease to the locker room. At that point, Trouba was the latest, but he would be far from the last.
On Dec. 15, with the Rangers having lost nine of 12 since the 12-4-1 start, Laviolette made Kaapo Kakko a healthy scratch in St. Louis. Drafted No. 2 in 2019, Kakko never developed into the star that teams crave with a high lottery pick, and Laviolette had scratched him once in the 2024 playoffs, just as Gerard Gallant did in the 2022 postseason. Kakko aired his frustration after the most recent benching, saying to reporters he had 'not been the worst' of the Rangers' players.
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'I know you've got to do something as the coach when you're losing games, but it's easy to pick the young guy and put him out,' he said.
A day later, the 23-year-old was an ex-Ranger, traded to the Kraken for defenseman Will Borgen and third- and sixth-round picks. It was a sell-low move on a player who was once supposed to help usher in a new era of Rangers hockey. Kakko proceeded to score a respectable 30 points in 49 games with the Kraken.
Kakko's departure didn't mean the end of controversial scratches. In the last game before the Rangers' four-day holiday break, a Dec. 23 matinee in Newark, they sat Kreider. The veteran, who had 11 goals and only one assist in 30 games at the time, had already missed three games at the beginning of the Rangers' slide with back spasms, so the team could have feasibly said he was missing the game because of an injury.
Instead, the Rangers made clear prior to puck drop that he was a healthy scratch. And yet again, the bulk of the Rangers responded to the message — this one from their coach rather than their GM — with poor play. The game in New Jersey was perhaps the team's worst of the season; they got shelled 5-0, managed only 12 shots and took a pair of too-many-men penalties.
Whether it was the impending break, the awful month, the drama or some combination, the Rangers played like a team that wanted to be anywhere but at the rink. By the end of a calendar year that featured a Presidents' Trophy, their 12-4-1 start had snowballed into a 16-19-1 record.
The Rangers thrived in early 2025, at least in comparison to what happened before the calendar flipped. A 2-1 win over the Bruins on Jan. 2 kicked off an 8-3-3 month, reviving the team's playoff hopes.
But some players knew their futures on the team were uncertain. At the Rangers' annual charity Casino Night in January — a typically lighthearted night where fans and players mingle over drinks and games — Kreider made a crack about it being his last time at the event around a group of team staffers and players, according to a source present.
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Drury also made his first major addition of the season, one representing his hope to make the team more hard-nosed. He had long coveted J.T. Miller, a veteran who started his career in New York before getting dealt during the previous rebuild. The center had experienced a tumultuous start to 2024-25 in Vancouver, clashing with fellow star Elias Pettersson to the point that the Canucks believed there was no path forward with both on their roster, president Jim Rutherford told the Globe and Mail. That opened the door for the Rangers to acquire him, and they finalized a trade Jan. 31.
The Rangers said goodbye to another long-term player in the move, as Drury included Filip Chytil, who debuted with the team in 2017, in the package to Vancouver. Later, instead of trying to add at the trade deadline, as New York had done the three previous seasons, Drury sold off pending free agents Ryan Lindgren, Reilly Smith and Jimmy Vesey. Smith was new in 2024-25, but Lindgren and Vesey both played at least five full seasons with New York.
As the season wore on, players on the edges of the roster began to share their discontent. Zac Jones, a homegrown defenseman in the midst of a stretch of healthy scratches, told the New York Post in January that he was 'rotting away' by not playing and shared similar sentiments with other outlets. Later in the month, Vesey said to the Post he was 'kind of dying by being here' as a regular healthy scratch. At the end of the season, veteran defenseman Calvin de Haan — who arrived at the deadline but sat as a healthy scratch for the final 20 games — said it was 'f—ed' how the Rangers were treating him.
De Haan later clarified that he did not expect his words, said April 13 while walking onto the ice at an optional practice in Fort Lauderdale, to be made public and added he was simply concerned about how his lack of playing time would affect his pending unrestricted free agency. Still, the comments reflected an apparent gap in communication, adding to the feeling of unease that permeated the room.
When asked after the season whether communication between the organization and players needed to improve, Drury said, 'I'm always critical of myself and trying to figure out ways to be better.' He added that communication was a priority and that he believed Laviolette kept players informed on where they stood.
In another ugly moment for the franchise, Panarin and MSG's settlements with the former employee came to light in a report by The Athletic on April 17, the day of the regular-season finale. Panarin played that night — the video board showcased him during pregame warmups — but declined to comment on non-hockey matters after the game. An MSG spokesperson said: 'The matter has been resolved.'
Two days after the season, Drury fired Laviolette: the exclamation point on an unexpectedly awful season.
On April 21, less than a year removed from the Game 6 loss to the Panthers, Fox once again stood in front of his locker discussing what came next. This time he was at the Rangers' practice rink on locker cleanout day. Instead of expressing faith in a strong foundation, he and his teammates were trying to make sense of all that had transpired over a lost season.
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'Everyone has to really look in the mirror,' Fox said. 'This year was unrecognizable from the team that made the conference finals two of the past three years.'
'There was a lot of noise around our team this year,' Mika Zibanejad added. 'I'm not saying that is the cause of (how the season went), but it wasn't the calmness I felt we had the year before.'
That same day, the team was treated to a pep talk from a guest speaker about the road ahead. Addressing players before their exit meetings with Rangers management, Dolan emphasized his desire as owner to get back to a point of contention and talked about 'the privilege it is to be a Ranger,' according to a player present, speaking anonymously to discuss a closed-door meeting. 'Basically just kind of saying, 'It starts now over (the) summer.''
Perhaps Sullivan can help restore some of the calm Zibanejad craved from the year prior. Drury had been interested in hiring the former Penguins coach for years, and he made his move when Sullivan and Pittsburgh agreed to part ways April 28. Four days later, the Rangers hired the two-time Stanley Cup champion, wooing him with a five-year contract worth $6.5 million per season.
With a coach in place, Drury's attention is now solely on retooling the roster. After the season, he made it clear to Kreider that the Rangers, in need of salary-cap flexibility, were planning to move on. The Rangers gave Kreider and his representatives time to research teams he might be interested in going to, then worked out a deal with Anaheim.
'It was done in a really respectful fashion by the New York Rangers,' Kreider said.
A constant from the 2014 Stanley Cup Final team through the rebuilding years to the recent seasons of contention, Kreider had the Ducks on the no-trade list he submitted last summer but was intrigued by the team's young core and hiring of coach Joel Quenneville. After taking a day to talk through the situation with his family, he waived his no-trade clause, ending his 13-year Rangers career.
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'Other people that I've spoken to who have had a change of scenery at some point in their career all speak very positively about it,' he said.
Drury has already shown how far he'll go to make change happen when he deems it necessary, so his moves won't stop with Kreider's departure. The roster does not seem to have many untouchable members, and the Rangers once again have limited cap space. Younger players, like 25-year-old defenseman K'Andre Miller, a restricted free agent, could also be headed out the door soon.
The dysfunctional, disappointing season is finally behind them, but its ramifications are likely not over.
— Arthur Staple and Katie Strang contributed reporting for this story.
(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic, with photos by Steven Ryan, Tim Nwachukwu, Sarah Stier and Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)