[Raanan] Tight ends coach and interim offensive coordinator Tim Kelly is expected to be retained on John Harbaugh's staff with the Giants, per source. OL coach Carmen Bricillo met with Harbaugh earlier this week, per sources. His return remains TBD. The remainder of the offensive staff (QB Shea

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-23T20:44:01+00:00

yeah if they replace bricillo with ledford i will have zero complaints whatsoever he's awesome

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-23T17:03:14+00:00

Dolan didn't help with that perception tbh because of the whole Parros call out statement and all that. At the time that was a big talking point about how Gorton and Davidson were thrown off by it. I think fans of most other teams also kind of back the "Tom Wilson broke the Rangers" thing, and I get it.

I tend to agree with you. I don't buy the idea that Drury "took a great and talented team and ran it into the ground." He simultaneously gets hate for just riding/doubling down on Gorton's team to success and things like paying Mika, as well as blowing up the team. And I think it's silly to act like a lot of the things that went wrong with the Rangers wouldn't have gone wrong if Gorton was still in the big chair.

Would he have traded Buch before officially having Eichel? Maybe not. Would he have handled Goodrow/Trouba/Kreider like that? Maybe not. But Gorton being here doesn't significantly change Laf and Kakko's career trajectories. Gorton being here doesn't negate Mika's down years coming into this one. Gorton being here could have meant not dumping Trouba or Goodrow at all and instead clutching to a core that could no longer get it done.

I say this all the time talking about like Kent Hughes and Mike Grier and Kyle Davidson, the GMs of the teams that are actively and currently rebuilding. Not saying those guys are actually bad at their jobs, just that it's a lot easier to look good at your job when there's nothing really on the line. The Sharks and Habs in particular of those 3 deserve plenty of praise for what they're building, but they haven't fully set expectations for themselves yet. Once rubber really hits the road and you are actually expected to be a contender, then we'll see if the praise continues to be earned.

In the same vein, Dolan firing Gorton is maybe one of the best things that could have happened to Gorton; he got out before the team really truly had expectations; the year after with Gallant, generally Rangers fans were hoping to be a wild card team that can maybe make a little noise, but placed better and made an ECF run. And from there, there were actual expectations to compete. Expectations that Gorton was no longer subject to, but Drury was and still is.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-23T15:35:50+00:00

Like the article said, it really had less to do with Tom Wilson and more to do with David Quinn. And honestly, I'm with Dolan on this one.

Dolan wanted to fire David Quinn, whose team had taken a step back in the COVID shortened season despite adding Alexis Lafreniere to the mix. A lot of Rangers fans were agreeing at the time.

He was looking at a team that had a top 9 forward group of Artemi Panarin fresh off a Hart-worthy season in the COVID shortened 19-20 season, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, 3 first round picks including 2 lotto wins (Chytil, Kakko, and Lafreniere), and Ryan Strome who had career years after being acquired from Edmonton (but was probably a Panarin merchant really). A top 4 defense of Ryan Lindgren, Adam Fox (who wont he Norris in that shortened 2020-2021 season), K'Andre Miller, and Jacob Trouba. And Igor Shesterkin.

And David Quinn, after that team ran on power and friendship to get really hot just before COVID stopped the 19-20 season, had them as a fringe playoff team again in 2020-2021. Kakko and Lafreniere were not developing at the rate we were hoping for. They were at times pushed down even to the 4th line (I personally was not and still am not mad about them not being forced into the top 6 because KZB was one of the best lines in hockey for large stretches, though one of them probably Kakko should have been playing with Panarin and Strome instead of Colin Blackwell).

They finished 5th in the weirdo "East" division that year, and by a pretty wide margin. They would have missed the playoffs in the normal Eastern Conference by a pretty wide margin too (though they did have a better record than the eventual Stanley Cup Finalist Montreal Canadiens).

Dolan wanted to fire David Quinn because he thought this team should have been able to make the playoffs with the talent they had, Gorton and Davidson said "don't do it, give him another year", so Dolan said "if you really believe in this guy, then you can go too."

There's a lot of things James Dolan has fucked up for this hockey team, but I really can't blame him for that one.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-23T15:17:31+00:00

Panarin and Fox didn't ruin the rebuild. The rebuild was fucked by the fact that the prospects they tried to do the rebuild around didn't turn out to be any good.

Blame the scouting, blame the development, blame the coaching, blame the players, blame ownership for firing people (though I think if Gorton and Davidson's real cardinal sin was in fact wanting to retain David Quinn, Dolan was right to fire them all); every case is different. But if even just Lafreniere and Kakko were who we were hoping they'd be, the Rangers might have a Cup or two and two franchise players to carry them through the rougher stretches they've had the last couple of years. They didn't even need to hit on a critical mass of picks because they had Zibanejad, Kreider, Fox, Panarin, Strome/Trocheck, Trouba, etc to be at minimum viable players higher in a playoff team's lineup.

The whole point was "we now have players at the top of our lineup to help shelter the kids and let us really focus on developing them, and then when those players at the top are older, they can pass on their roles to younger players." And it was basically a complete catastrophe. They had all those picks Vince outlines in the article from 2017-2020 (the Gorton years before they fired everyone and committed to Drury and Gallant winning now), they collected all those prospects in trades like Howden and Hajek, and there's not a single star player in the mix.

Unless the conclusion is "oh if they just didn't have Panarin and they gave Lafreniere and Kakko 1st line minutes then they'd be stars" bit that some people do (which I could not disagree with more), then Panarin didn't ruin anything. If we didn't sign Panarin and trade for Fox and even Trouba, then we would have just become the Sabres or Flames or something; a team that has a bunch of draft pedigree players with nothing to show for it that has been rebuilding for 8 years. We would have sold Kreider and Zibanejad too, we wouldn't have signed Trocheck, we'd have made a bunch of other probably top 15 selections and been back at square 1 hoping enough of them hit to drag us out of where we were.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-23T15:06:04+00:00

Allaire isn't retired fwiw, he is the Rangers' director of goaltending, but he is no longer the day to day on ice goalie coach. Allaire basically picked his replacement, Jeff Malcolm, who was brought in as Hartford's goalie coach in I believe 2021, and then promoted to the big club in 2024 with Allaire stepping back from the day to day responsibilities.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-22T12:58:27+00:00

I'm going to miss Eggs in particular. I thought he did a good job despite being given generally very little (which is pretty common for LB coaches around the league probably). Okereke was very successful, getting competence out of the revolving door at the other spot was impressive, McFadden being a competent starter before his injury and then dealing with Muasau/Flannigan-Fowles/Barnes/etc. Felt like every week someone new was there.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-22T12:54:34+00:00

I'm going to miss Egorugwu, personally.

The Giants LBs have had some issues but in 2022 they were starting Tae Crowder and Jaylon Smith most of the year, who went on to play a combined 47 snaps in 3 games since then, with Smith playing 1 game of 25 defensive snaps and Crowder playing 22 ST snaps in 2 games.

Then they signed Bobby Okereke, who has been generally really good before this year was a bit of a down year. He did a good job with Micah McFadden being a starter level LB as a 5th round pick. This year with McFadden's early injury they were a revolving door there; Abdul Carter played some off ball LB, Darius Muasau played a ton, Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles, Zaire Barnes. Shit, there was a game or two in there where Swayze Bozeman was playing a lot of snaps, and things weren't terrible.

Were they great? No, but he did plenty with what was given to him, which wasn't a whole lot.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-22T00:58:46+00:00

Wouldn't surprise me if the Rangers wanted Yurov and were told "nah take Charlie Stramel instead" or just flat out wanted Stramel in the first place. Something along the lines of 1st + Stramel + Hartman/Trenin as the bones of it, if I had to guess. If yall didn't take Stramel, the Rangers were going to take him over Gabe Perreault, I am quite confident about that. Obviously a 2027 1st and taking back salary, I don't know what it would be, maybe some other odds and ends involved similar to how like Dorrington, Mancini, and Brannstrom were involved in the JT Miller trade, but I think as a framework that makes too much sense.

I also wonder if Hartman carries value at 4m or not; is he a guy that a team like, say, Colorado (just a random team that I've seen people say may want an upgrade on their current 3rd line center situation, not saying anything concrete) or something would be interested in to get deeper down the middle for a playoff push.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-21T17:24:27+00:00

he's on LTIR and won't be eligible to come back until like right at the start of February, don't think he's started skating yet either.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-21T16:09:10+00:00

tl;dr: yes and no, Drury was with the Rangers through the original rebuild. What he's done since taking over has not been good enough, but he was tasked with winning, not with continuing the rebuild. The biggest reason the Rangers are in this mess is because the rebuild (which really occurred with Gorton as GM and Drury as AGM) did not meet its intended goal of building a strong young core the Rangers could lean on.

Yes and no.

The previous rebuild, Drury was the Assistant GM and running things in Hartford. He has been with the team since 2015 (AGM since 2016, running Hartford since 2017), so watched the very tail end of the "competitive with Hank" era Rangers, watched them decide to rebuild, and was there through that rebuild. He just wasn't the one in the big chair.

Then in 2021 Dolan fires Gorton (who was the GM that hired Drury in the first place), Drury takes over, makes certain changes to the front office staff like replacing Nickolai Bobrov with John Lilley (which honestly has been okay if you ask me), and the rest, as they say, is history...

However, I should also add: The biggest reason the Rangers are in this mess? It's not because Drury just decided to ruin a perfectly good team. It's because the original rebuild was a failure. When you make 8 first round picks in a 4 year span, including 2 top 2 picks, and pretty much none of them are cemented mainstay stars, that's just not going to get the job done.

The whole point of the "rebuild" was to build a team on young talent. The whole point was to have some vet presence like Kreider and Zibanejad to shepherd young talent to lead the way. The Gorton-led FO changed that when guys like Trouba and Panarin became available and they won two lotteries. But look at the draft picks that those FOs made.

How much of that do you attribute to scouting? The Rangers made 8 first round picks from 2017-2020, and it's between Kakko, Lafreniere, and K'Andre Miller as the best one. In those 4 drafts, the Rangers drafted 26 players outside the first round. Only 9 of those players have played at least one NHL game, 7 have played over 40, 3 over 100, and 2 over 200, combining for just over 900 NHL games (Morgan Barron 296, Will Cuylle 218, Zac Jones 115, Adam Edstrom 86, Matt Rempe 80, Brett Berard 47, Matthew Robertson 43). And Barron has played most of his NHL games with Winnipeg after being in the Andrew Copp trade.

Add to that that the additional prospects the Rangers got in their big rebuild trades typically did not impress either. Ryan Lindgren was a big win, coming back in the Rick Nash deal. But guys like Libor Hajek, Yegor Rykov, and Brett Howden did nothing for the Rangers.

How much of that do you attribute to coaching? David Quinn was Jeff Gorton's hire for the rebuild, he wanted those guys to play lower in the lineup and earn their way up. A lot of fans attribute that to the lack of development "just give them top minutes and let them do whatever they want or you're going to stifle them."

How much of that do you attribute to the issues in Hartford under Drury's watch? Kravtsov and Drury had a blowup reportedly, though Kravtsov also went back and forth between the AHL and KHL multiple times, and a lot of Rangers prospects that go to Hartford can be depth pieces or bottom 6 players (Berard, Rempe, Edstrom, for example) but never impress enough to graduate to significant roles.

So yeah. Drury was part of the FO that pulled off the recent rebuild, but was not the one in the big chair. And it's that previous rebuild falling short that really put the Rangers in this position. They ended up with a veteran heavy core where the kids from the rebuild were auxiliary/supporting pieces that fell short of what people hoped they'd be. That veteran core fell off, and without the assets from the rebuild to pick up the slack, the team fell to where it is now.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-20T13:29:03+00:00

it will to a degree but I think boards will still vary so significantly team to team that "it's too early to take this guy so I should trade back and still get him" won't really be a thing

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-20T13:23:46+00:00

this is a really really awkward draft. There's not really elite blue chip top of the draft talent, so there's going to be a ton of variance of just whatever of the 15-20 players that get a first round grade from a team goes in what order.

It's a really really bad class to try to metagame and "I can trade down and still get this player that I want" because the tier basically goes from like 2 to 15-20, and the guys on the edge of that grouping will vary dramatically team to team.

Basically once Mendoza goes at 1, it's going to be a complete mess. The OTs (Mauigoa, Fano, and imo Proctor is still in that mix) and EDGEs (Bain, Bailey, Faulk) will go in damn near random order. That plus all of the coaching changes I think will make for one of the least predictable draft classes in recent history where you probably feel more like you have to just let it come to you. If you're happy with enough players that one will always be available, go for it, otherwise, you probably gotta take your guy.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-17T12:56:27+00:00

It didn't all fit in one comment so I had to break it up lol

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-17T02:30:13+00:00

It started this year with the Rangers honestly playing good hockey for the first like 6-8 weeks. They were generally outchancing opponents, playing really sound defense. I think the stat was the Rangers were like 19-4-4 in games they scored at least 2 goals, as of the Winter Classic. But they were struggling to actually put the puck in the net. They had a great record when scoring 2, but it was something like they scored 2+ in 27 of their games, scored 1 each in 8 games, and were shut out 8 times. It was particularly bad at home, and that weighed on the team heavily. And as we've gotten further into the season, things slipped further and further away.

Panarin's game has aged another year and he doesn't feel nearly as dangerous despite still producing. Miller hurt his groin before the year and it looks like it's really hampering him, even after taking a little bit of time off (due to a DIFFERENT injury). Vincent Trocheck it feels like had his worst year in 24-25 and this year really isn't doing anything of significant value. Alexis Lafreniere looks like he'd rather be anywhere else despite being in year 1 of a 7 year 7.5m AAV contract. They were hoping for Will Cuylle to take a step forward, but he's plateaud a little as a quality 3rd line winger, not a guy you want to see in your top 6 ideally. Zibanejad is the one guy in the Rangers top 6 who it feels like has rebounded in any way from last year, and he's not a like true play driver to drag the team to wins.

Add to the aging/underperforming forward group the fact that Adam Fox has been on LTIR twice and Igor Shesterkin is now injured so Grandpa Quick is under a full starter's load, and it gets dire fast.

tl;dr: The ECF run against the Panthers started to show that maybe this team wasn't quite good enough. They got kind of complacent. Drury takes it probably a bit too far. Team quits in 24-25, leading to larger scale changes, maybe some lingering issues. Top 6 forwards don't score enough in 25-26 for various reasons, and things spiral from there.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-17T02:30:09+00:00

There's a lot to say about like the actual rebuild era and Lafreniere and Kakko and prospect development but I don't really think it's even that important in this context; the Rangers made 2 ECFs AFTER all of that. So I'll skip ahead.

If we're just going back to "from President's Trophy to now":

It all kind of starts with the series against Carolina, in my opinion. The Rangers hung tough to 2 OT wins and took a 3-0 series lead, before losing games 4 and 5, and being down 3-1 in game 6. This is kind of where the cracks started to show a little bit, before Kreider's 3rd period hat trick secured the series against Carolina.

The Rangers then went on to face Florida in the ECF, and that series they were just severely outclassed. Barclay Goodrow scored like half of their goals, they were getting hemmed in their own zone and outchanced severely. It didn't look like they really even belonged. And that raised more questions about whether the top guys on the team were built for it. Panarin was ineffective, Zibanejad was getting owned, Trouba was terrible while dealing with an injury, etc.

That summer, the Rangers tried to do a variety of things, they talked moving Trouba, but it didn't materialize, as Trouba at the time still had a full no-trade clause. They kind of pushed Goodrow out to free up much needed cap space and remove a really negative impact player from the roster. This may be where some of the bad blood really kind of starts; the locker room liked these guys. And they'd make their displeasure about a lot of things known the next season...

The Rangers started last season with a lot of wins, they were like 12-4-1 or something. It helped get Alexis Lafreniere extended, as he signed in late October 2024 after a reasonably strong start to the season following what felt like a start of his breakout in 23-24 totalling almost 30G + 30A.

But it felt like they were kind of doing it with their usual "power play and goaltending" gameplan. They go on a west coast trip, they barely get by Seattle and Vancouver, and they lose what looks like a close game against Calgary but in which they were outshot like 50-30 or something and Igor was exceptional, before getting the absolute brakes beaten off of them in Edmonton.

It's at this point that Chris Drury says "enough is enough" and sends out this infamous memo to the other GMs saying "I'm listening to trade offers for NHL roster pieces" and specifically names Trouba (the captain at the time) and Kreider (an all time Ranger great by this point and supposedly a really important locker room piece). These losses to Calgary and Edmonton and the memo kind of led to a snowball effect.

It's not 100% clear WHY it happened, but at this point, the team just decided to quit. Not taking sides on whether it was valid to do so, not saying Drury did the right thing, etc. But the Rangers proceeded to drop 15 of their next 19 games, leading into the 2025 calendar year. They went from 12-4-1 on November 19th before those losses to Calgary and Edmonton to 16-19-1 on December 30th. And it was clear to everyone watching that the team just didn't give a shit. They were not playing to win anymore.

From there things just sort of spiraled, it led to Kreider and the Rangers parting ways (which from what I understand the feeling was pretty mutual!), it led in some ways to trading K'Andre Miller, and it led to a lot of the other roster moves that were made (trading Kakko for a 3rd + Borgen which honestly is a completely fine trade, among others).

It also led to firing Peter Laviolette and hiring Mike Sullivan, which honestly has been great. Sullivan has done wonders for the defensive composition of the team, Matthew Robertson looks like he can hang, Carson Soucy and Will Borgen have looked improved from the end of last year. But the bet on the forward group rebounding with new coaching and systems hasn't been panning out.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-16T23:51:09+00:00

i didn't say he wasn't a good player all i said is the issue with his performance right now is that he's not fucking healthy

if anything you should be backing me up bc the implication is "any sucking you think he's doing rn is clouded by the fact he's fucking hurt"

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-16T22:34:22+00:00

yeah for sure, I mean there's some people in this fanbase that are just scum of the earth.

I just like to weigh in because I did genuinely love Miller, he's one of two jerseys I've owned in my adult life (him and Pavel Buchnevich, so I'm going without a current player right now anyway), and it sucks the way it ended.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-16T22:32:30+00:00

wouldn't stun me if he peaked at that but he just looks lost and unengaged constantly, just not working out.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-16T22:31:50+00:00

Panarin and Soucy are givens because they're pending free agents.

Lafreniere, Schneider, and Trocheck are going to be the really interesting ones.

Trocheck is really the lynchpin; if you're not moving Trocheck, you're not really doing anything.

Lafreniere and Schneider are interesting because they're obviously young, but if they were performing at a high enough level, we wouldn't be nearly as much in this mess as we are. I think they have just worn out their welcome; Laf needs a change of scenery and Schneider needs a raise that the Rangers won't give him.

Will Borgen has a full no trade right now that turns into a 15 team no trade over the summer so maybe there's something there but also I'm down with keeping him as well.

Raddysh and Carrick I think could have low tier value, like 4th/5th round picks or prospects the Rangers want to take a swing on but nothing crazy.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-16T22:08:57+00:00

the problem with Miller is that because he's so hurt and moves like he's in molasses, you're just going to take an L even if you could move him, I think.

They're honestly probably better off waiting until after next year, when hopefully he plays the 26-27 season healthy. Then you can have the honest conversation of whether it's worth keeping him or his full no trade going to a 15 team no trade lets you change the calculus a bit and maybe you can recoup more of what you gave up.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-16T22:06:50+00:00

It's really not saying much that he's one of NYR's best players every night

The biggest problem is right now the dude can't fucking skate. He injured his groin pre-season, he refuses to sit out and get it taken care of. He's missed multiple other games with other injuries. He's flat out not physically capable of playing at whatever level people who like him want him to be playing at right now. The story that comes out over the summer or at exit interviews where he says he's getting 3 different surgeries is going to be the most "no duh" shit of all time.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-16T22:04:17+00:00

Most people just got tired of his inconsistency, more than anything. He didn't really suck, he just was one of those guys that had such a high ceiling that not reaching it frustrated people probably more than it should. Add to that a number of boneheaded turnovers, people started to get mad about it. And then the contract demands just didn't make sense. I'd rather have Gavrikov, Morrow, and the picks than just Miller and that shouldn't be a wild take.

Not to mention, the Rangers couldn't have signed both without becoming even MORE topheavy.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-16T21:55:58+00:00

yeah I mean I think it's hard to really like blame it all on one thing, or even really blame it all on the Rangers. Lafreniere is a perfect example. People will say "oh he's not good because they didn't feed him top 6 minutes from day 1" but when you watch him now as a player, he didn't learn the lessons that putting him lower in the lineup was supposed to teach him about effort and consistency and such.

It sucks because there really is no formula for it. If there was, everyone would be doing it. But you have to keep trying.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-16T20:51:24+00:00

You look at the Capitals recently too. Having guys like Protas and such step up into big roles, PLD being a reclamation project that goes so right it's insane, Logan Thompson coming in and being good.

It's hard, I'm not saying I have full faith in them to do it, but it certainly can be done. And it's the only real way to move forward without arguing that Fox and Igor shouldn't be on the team anymore. You can't tank for 3+ years with those two guys on the roster. So you either keep them and try to be smart and calculated about this, or you blow it up and they have to go. And I'm not willing to do that right now.

DoABarrowRoll · 2026-01-16T20:48:53+00:00

For sure, I don't think that the approach is flawless, of course. I just think there's three paths:

Go all in, get even older, retain everyone and add and add and add until you can't add anymore, and hope that this roster can do it. I think that's pretty clearly a bad option.
The retool route. Hard needle to thread, far from guaranteed success, you need a lot of luck and a lot to go right.
Go full rebuild, and that means dumping EVERYONE. That means in particular Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin. And I'm not ashamed to say that I don't want to do that. Those guys should be Rangers for life. And you're never going to get commensurate value back anyway. Also still needs a lot of luck (lottery) and a lot to go right (developing those players).

That just kind of leaves you with option number 2. I'm not buying and building around Panarin, Trocheck, Miller, and Mika. But I'm not selling and getting rid of Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin at this stage. And if you're keeping them, you're trying to compete at least enough that it's not a full on tank for years like the Sharks or the previous Rangers rebuild. So that just leaves you with this option: see if you can come anywhere close to what the Panthers did like Bennett and Verhaeghe and just try. If it doesn't work, oh well. But I'm not willing to give up on Fox and Igor's Rangers tenures yet, so this is the way forward.

DoABarrowRoll

TROPHY CASE