The Athletic posted a column: "NHL front-office confidence rankings, 2024: How fans feel about every team." Each front office is graded in six categories: roster building, cap management, drafting and development, trading, free agency and vision. What makes the column interesting is two aspects. First, it does provide a temperature check on how fans are feeling about the state of their favorite teams. Second, as a contrast, it shows how outsiders view each team in the league.
The Rangers finished 17th. What's highly apparent is those who are not Rangers' fans have a markedly better view of the Blueshirts than ones who root for the team. The disparity could not have been starker to the point where the author almost seemed to take offense at how poorly New York had been graded.
Last year: 25th
“Cutting Goodrow and trying to trade Trouba was the kind of ruthless cap management that the Rangers have often struggled with. It definitely made me more confident in Drury.”
“It would be nice if the Rangers were able to hang on to their draft picks. Constantly trading away futures to patch holes in the roster is going to come back to haunt them.”
Hey, Rangers fans — relax a little bit, yeah? The team is elite, has gone to the conference finals in two of three years, has a fairly clean cap sheet and a strong core, and hasn’t made a whole lot of mistakes lately. What more do you want here?
It’s always funny when the public has a much higher relative perception of a team’s management and it usually means the fan base is a little harsh. High expectations aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but some perspective is in order for a team that’s been doing more good than bad over the last few years.
The cap management grade feels extra perplexing given the team’s current spending. Sure, the Jacob Trouba deal isn’t great, but other teams have it far worse. If that’s truly the only bad deal on a cap sheet that includes incredible deals for Adam Fox, Vincent Trocheck and Chris Kreider, maybe it’s time to start focusing more on all the good rather than the few weak spots.
No team gets it right 100 percent of the time. Cut the Rangers front office some slack.
GM Chris Drury has not been perfect, that is certain. Even recently, where Oliver Kylington signed a one-year deal for $1.05 million while Drury re-signed Chad Ruhwedel for 775K is a miss in upside. The same can be said about not adding Daniel Sprong or Viktor Arvidssson, though the latter likely wanted to play in Edmonton. But those are moves around the edges; potentially mild difference makers but not ones that likely will significantly alter the fate of the team or organization. But the immense amount of hate that Drury seems to engender with parts of the fan base - in this case, the voting population in this exercise - is pretty severe.
The cupboard is not empty. While the window may be starting to close, if we presume Igor Shesterkin is re-signed at a semi-reasonable amount and Gabe Perreault is the top-six winger we hope he can be, then rumors of the team's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Warts exists, like all teams, but in New York and amongst the fanbase, each indiscretion is treated like a catastrophic event.
Additional moves need to be made. Better analysis at times is required. New York has a solid, though not elite team. That's where moves around the edges can make a difference. Jonathan Quick is an example of such in the positive side of the ledger. My confidence in the front office is certainly shaken a bit, but it's nowhere near where the fanbase has voted.
My Grades and evaluation:
Part of the evaluation depends on when the clock starts. For purposes of this exercise, my presumption is we start with when Drury took over as GM. But the pipeline really began under Jeff Gorton while Drury was assistant GM.
For the six criteria below, my overall rating is likely in the B to B- range. Pluses certainly exist, but that’s balanced with minuses and moves that may be were available to make but weren’t.
Roster Building
Cap Management
Draft and Development
Trading
Free Agency
Vision
My grade is based on what we have seen the last few years. If Mike Zibanejad rebounds, then New York has a solid 1-2 punch with Vincent Trocheck, who Drury brought in. Filip Chytil’s injury history has impacted the third line, and if he is sidelined, I have no clue who steps up as Sam Carrick is a true fourth liner.
On wing, the right side has been issue since Drury dealt Pavel Buchnevich. Alexis Lafreniere has become what we thought he might be accompanied with a move to the right side. Kaapo Kakko clearly has not, creating a gap there. Reilly Smith should help, but we need to see how he meshes with Zib and Chris Kreider. The left side is stacked with Kreider, Artemi Panarin, Will Cuylle and several fourth line options. Plus Brennan Othmann and Gabe Perreault in future.
On D, the names stand out, the play less so. Adam Fox is clearly elite, K’Andre Miller should be better than he has been and Brendan Schneider has room to grow. We know what Ryan Lindgren is. The big question will be if Jacob Trouba can play as he did the first half of the year and can Zac Jones be a consistently effective blueliner. Future depth on defense exists, though no one projects to be elite or a top pair d-man.
In net, we have Igor and Quick. Dylan Garard could be the #2 in a year. But no one projects in the system to possibly ascend to the top role if needed.
Cap management has been a mild issue. Overpayment for Trouba has impacted the available space. Similar to the departed Barclay Goodrow, though both signings were made to send a message and reconstruct this team as harder to play against, which happened. That overpayment has to be balanced with the good work Drury has done keeping most of those first time restricted free agents or ones eligible for arbitration at a lower than expected salary, especially on bridge deals. This year will be interesting as he has Laf, Miller and Igor contracts that will be challenging, not to mention deciding what to do Kaapo, as an RFA, and Lindgren as a UFA.
In terms of the draft, up and down. 2020 saw the addition of Laf, Schneider and Cuylle in the first three rounds. Garard, selected in the fourth round, looks like he could end up the back up netminder in New York while Matt Rempe, a seventh round pick, is already a fan favorite. Brett Berard, a fifth round selection, also will get a shot. In 2021, Othmann was added to the pipeline, though his game did not take a major leap forward last season. Ryder Korczak in the third also could pan out.
Adam Sykora came on board in the second round of 2022, followed by Bryce McConnell-Barker in the third. One name to watch is Victor Mancini, who was a fourth round pick. We all have exceedingly high hopes for Perreault, taken in the first round of 2023. Drew Fortescue could develop into a third pair Blueliner.
Laf has taken that step forward while Kakko has not, though the question is who is at fault for that. Both should have started out in Hatford and their development was not helped by the pandemic. Nearly everyone missed on Wyatt Johnson and Logan Stankoven, who went to Dallas, so hard to criticize New York there.
Trading - 2022, Drury bolstered the roster, leading to the ECF run. The lack of cap space meant that a few who might have been fits to sign - Frank Vatrano especially - inked deals elsewhere. We all know what happened in 2023. Vladimir Tarasenko and Niko Mikkola were solid adds while Patrick Kane somewhat forced his way into the equation, which didn’t help the situation. Keeping Mikkola would have lengthened the D, but he landed in Florida, as did Tarasenko via Ottawa, helping the Panthers beat the Rangers and win the Cup. Last year’s deadline was underwhelming, as Jack Roslovic proved not to be a fit on the right side of the first line while Ruhwedel was just a depth option and not difference maker for the blue line. Time will tell on if Reilly Smith, added on free agency day from Pittsburgh, slots nicely in the top-nine.
The Rangers have a vision on how they want to play. North-South with some East-West included based on the skill level of the players. But far too often, the fancy play has superseded the gritty one needed to succeed. Getting buy in from the players through several coaches has proven to be a challenge, which also gets into roster construction.
Part of the request here is for you to weigh in. I have a pretty good sense of who is on each extreme and likely setting myself and the blog up for failure in posting this, but I thought the exercise was worthwhile.
My curiosity is for those in the middle as to which grade you would assign for each of the six categories.
New York Rangers Blogger • 
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