PITTSBURGH — The New York Rangers enter the 2024-25 season facing a challenge familiar to so many quality teams struggling to get over the hump.
The regular season — the six-month grind sitting in front of them — matters very little. Success or failure will be judged by what comes after. Each year that passes without a championship is a year off the core’s time together.
As star defenseman Adam Fox said this week, “Teams don’t get any younger.”
“You always talk about a window, and we’re clearly in that window,” Fox said. “I don’t know if it’s necessary to go into the year saying, ‘This is the year,’ but I think we are a group that’s been around it long enough that not getting a Stanley Cup is coming short of a goal.”
The Rangers are a very good team. Over the past three seasons, only the Boston Bruins, Carolina Hurricanes and Colorado Avalanche have won more regular-season games. New York has won a Presidents’ Trophy and made two Eastern Conference finals in that span.
It has not won a championship.
“A big city like New York, a historic team like the Rangers, almost every year is a little bit of Stanley Cup or bust,” Fox said. “When you play for a team that’s this historic, it carries a little more weight and makes not achieving that goal sting even harder.”
“We’ve got a lot of experience, but we’ve never made it all the way,” Filip Chytil added. “This is our goal this year again, and we’ll do anything for this.”
The Rangers feel like a team at a crossroads. General manager Chris Drury brought back most of the roster from last year’s Presidents’ Trophy-winning club, though he explored trading captain Jacob Trouba over the summer. With a tight salary cap, the team almost certainly won’t have as many familiar faces next year, though. Trouba acknowledged as much on the first day of training camp, saying, “This will probably be the last crack for this core.”
It’s hard to see the Rangers moving on from Fox, Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider or Vincent Trocheck after the season, but Trouba’s future with the team is murky, in large part because of his $8 million cap hit.
And then there’s goaltender Igor Shesterkin, who is in the final year of a four-year, $5.66 million average-annual-value contract. A pending unrestricted free agent, he’s primed for a massive raise — be it in New York or elsewhere.
“What’s at stake this year is you know you have Shesterkin,” said Craig Button, a former NHL executive and current analyst for TSN. “You cannot do anything at this point in time to limit your opportunity to win with Shesterkin.”
Shesterkin’s importance to the Rangers is hard to overstate. Button, who won a Stanley Cup in the Dallas Stars front office and spent three seasons as Calgary Flames general manager, believes the Florida Panthers could have beaten New York in four games in the Eastern Conference final had the Rangers had lesser goaltending. Behind Shesterkin and his .930 save percentage that series, the Rangers extended it to six games. Panthers coach Paul Maurice said he hadn’t coached against a goalie playing that well in a playoff series since Jose Theodore in 2002.
“When you have one of those guys, don’t think you’re going to go lesser and have the same type of success,” Button said. “What a guy like Shesterkin does is he’s able to cover up lots of areas of your team that might not be as strong. If you don’t have Shesterkin, you’d better strengthen up those other areas, because they’re going to get exposed.”
ESPN analyst Kevin Weekes reported Tuesday Shesterkin has turned down an eight-year deal worth $11 million annually, and The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun confirmed the Rangers have offered more than Carey Price’s $10.5 million AAV deal, the largest for a goalie in NHL history.
With the opener Wednesday, it’s a less-than-ideal time for leaks, at least for Shesterkin. He has a season opener to focus on. In a worst-case situation for the Rangers, it could leave the goalie feeling alienated.
The Athletic previously reported Shesterkin’s camp does not want to negotiate during the season. A deal could still get done after, though it would likely mean the Rangers raise their offer to meet or at least come close to the goalie’s demands.
Shesterkin isn’t the only Rangers player due a raise next summer. The team has seven restricted free agents, including Alexis Lafrenière and K’Andre Miller. With big years, both could put themselves in position to land expensive deals, especially if they’re going to sign long-term. Cap space will get tight quickly, and the Rangers will have to sacrifice somewhere.
The most cost-effective way to extend a window would be to develop young players who can contribute while on cap-friendly entry-level contracts. The Rangers have a middle-of-the-road prospect pipeline but a few intriguing young players — most notably Gabe Perreault, who had 60 points in 36 games as a freshman at Boston College last season. He’ll likely turn pro after the NCAA season. Brennan Othmann, who debuted last season and will start the year in AHL Hartford, and defenseman EJ Emery are also encouraging prospects. Their development will be paramount.
Drury traded for Reilly Smith and signed Sam Carrick, and he’ll almost certainly be looking to add to the roster at the trade deadline. Last March, he resisted making a splashy move, instead adding pieces around the edges in Alex Wennberg and Jack Roslovic. The two combined for 10 points in 16 total playoff games and had only two points in the Panthers series.
Come midseason, Drury will have to decide how much he’s willing to part with in hopes of avoiding a similar fate.
“There’s no guarantee that you’re going to get to the promised land, but there is a guarantee that if you’re not bold, you won’t,” Button said.
Though the Rangers front office has to plan for the deadline and beyond, thinking too far ahead does not do any good for the players. Asked if he feels the team faces more pressure this season than it did last season, Kreider responded with a one-word answer: “No.” He stressed the need to have a good day-to-day process, focus on drills and have competitive practices.
It’s going to be a long journey, Chytil added, but the dressing room shares a common goal.
Coach Peter Laviolette sensed an expectation to succeed within the Rangers when he arrived ahead of the 2023-24 season. In the aftermath of the Florida series, he sat with the sadness familiar to any losing team as the result set in. That feeling faded over the course of the summer and one of excitement emerged. Last season’s playoffs are in the rearview mirror.
“The windshield now is just looking at this season — this brand new season,” Laviolette said. “It’s a chance to make your mark and go out and do great things. It starts with Game 1 in Pittsburgh.”
(Photo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
