This team was very hard to write about. As difficult as they were to watch, I found it much more challenging to put my thoughts together.

The 2024-25 New York Rangers will go down as one of the biggest failures in franchise history. From the GM and coach down to the players, everyone is to blame for this mess. Mess is the operative word when it comes to describing the Rangers, who went from one of the league’s best teams to one of the most dysfunctional.

From the very beginning last summer, Chris Drury drove a stake through the heart of a team that advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals after winning the Presidents’ Trophy. He unceremoniously dumped Barclay Goodrow in a prearranged waiver deal with buddy Mike Grier to the Sharks, who were on his 16-team no-trade list. That move left a bitter taste during the summer.

Then, came the leak of trying to force captain Jacob Trouba to accept a trade to the Red Wings. He wasn’t willing to go, making the situation untenable during the first part of the season.

Despite having a good record, the Rangers weren’t playing well defensively. They relied mostly on Igor Shesterkin to carry them to victories. He and Jonathan Quick provided the big saves early. Eventually, they fell victim to all the defensive breakdowns in coverage.

There was the ill-fated memo to the rest of the league that made it public that both Trouba and Chris Kreider were available. That was a public relations disaster that only further divided the locker room. Eventually, Drury forced Trouba to accept a trade to Anaheim by threatening to put him on waivers. It really was a cold way to do business and treat a well-respected locker room leader. Drury didn’t care enough about how bad the optics were.

While Kreider was dealing with a back injury, he clearly wasn’t the same player. There’s no question that memo really affected his play. The longest tenured Blueshirt was treated like crap. Considering how he was used down the stretch by Peter Laviolette, it was almost as if they were deliberately trying to sabotage the third highest goal scorer in franchise history.

After becoming a healthy scratch for a game, Kaapo Kakko lashed out at Laviolette through the media by accurately pointing out that it’s always a young player who is used as the scapegoat. He signed his walking papers. Kakko was dealt to Seattle for Will Borgen and picks. He played more freely with the Kraken finishing with 10 goals and 20 assists for 30 points in 49 games.

Although Borgen came over and formed a solid partnership with K’Andre Miller, his game fell off after signing a five-year contract extension. Speaking of which, maybe Drury shouldn’t hand out extensions. Alexis Lafreniere all but disappeared after getting one for the next season. He was so unproductive and at times looked completely checked out. It was a lost season for the failed 2020 top pick.

Drury also made Shesterkin the league’s highest paid goalie. Starting next season, he’ll have a cap hit of $11.5 million. While the consensus is that he’s a top three goalie, his play has become inconsistent. He doesn’t always make the stops you come to expect. Part of the reason is that assistant Phil Housley’s defensive system fell apart in Laviolette’s second year. There were so many blown assignments, with even Adam Fox starting to question the system. Laviolette never considered adjusting from man-to-man to zone to help the team.

There were so many bad losses that it became hard to keep track. When they got blown out by the Sabres on home ice, that was a sign of things to come. There was the awful defense in a high scoring loss to the Kraken. Checking was optional. The Devils’ humiliation before Christmas. Losing to the Blackhawks at MSG was also mind-numbing. They even were shut out by the lowly Predators.

I could easily list more brutal defeats in the second half, with quite a few blown third period leads. Those were the valuable points they left on the table that cost them the playoffs. The ironic part is that I concluded they weren’t making it as far back as the first week of December. The chemistry had fallen apart, and the team structure was nowhere to be found. Players clearly tuned out Laviolette, who kept making changes to the lineup, which led to no cohesion. It was the complete opposite of last year.

Few players performed up to expectations. Mika Zibanejad struggled to score goals and fell off dramatically defensively. Vincent Trocheck wasn’t as consistent despite playing mostly with Artemi Panarin, and Lafreniere’s season long slump eventually led to him being taken off the scoring line. When they were together, they were getting scored on frequently. The magic from 2023-24 wasn’t there.

Zibanejad and Kreider struggled mightily at five-on-five. Kreider hardly produced with his play tailing off. He still wound up tying Camille Henry for the most power-play goals in franchise history. But he was eventually removed from the top unit. Something nobody could’ve ever predicted. Kreider also scored four times shorthanded to give him 13 for his career. Even in a down year that saw him wind up with 22 goals and only eight assists, he ranked third on the team in goals and power-play goals, and his six game-winners ranked second behind Trocheck.

If last night was the end of his career as a Ranger, Kreider made sure to go out the right way by scoring his 326th goal and assisting on a Zibanejad tally in a 4-0 win over the Lightning. Most notably, they won in Sam Rosen’s final game of his brilliant career calling Rangers games. It was nice to see Kreider and Zibanejad combine for one more goal. Zibanejad scored twice to reach 20 goals for the season.

J.T. Miller was a positive after coming over from Vancouver for Filip Chytil, Victor Mancini, and a top 13 protected first round pick in either 2025 or 2026. He averaged over a point-per-game after Drury acquired him from the Canucks. Miller was the driving force behind an abbreviated Rangers revival that even saw them get back into the wild card. However, it was short-lived due to the team’s inconsistency. They never won three in a row after Nov. 14-19. Even Miller couldn’t save the season.

If there was a move that never worked out, it was the trade for Carson Soucy. Once he arrived, that spelled the end for Calvin de Haan, who in a brief cameo looked good with Zac Jones. The team went 2-0-1 before de Haan came out of the lineup for good. It was a puzzling decision that never made sense. Eventually, de Haan voiced his displeasure to reporters who cover the team. He showed plenty of class by getting out in front of it on Twitter/X. Most fans were in agreement with de Haan about how he was handled. It never was fair.

Jones also went public in February after falling out of favor. He was out of the lineup for an extended period. You could understand the frustration. He probably thought he’d be a regular in the lineup for most of the season. That’s not how it played out. Instead, Urho Vaakanainen replaced him and was mostly used with Braden Schneider. Vaakanainen contributed offensively but had issues defensively. He’s signed for another year. Jones is a restricted free agent. It doesn’t look like he’s in their plans.

Aside from all of the distractions, there was Laviolette’s reluctance to play Gabriel Perreault after he signed his entry-level contract. With the Rangers playing out the string, there was no reason he shouldn’t have played more. It didn’t make sense to sit both Perreault and Brennan Othmann for three games in the hope of some miracle. It was an insult to the fans. Laviolette went down by sticking to his mantra that got him fired in Washington. He favored veterans over kids. Clearly, that philosophy needs to change for the organization moving forward.

At the very least, they sent Rosen out the right way. He deserved all the attention he received. That included Zibanejad gifting him the stick from the five-goal game he scored against the Caps on Mar. 5, 2020. It was a memorable night that still ranks as my favorite moment from all the regular seaaon games I’ve attended. Maybe it was fate that he did it against Alex Ovechkin, who became the greatest goal scorer in NHL history. It was a great game.

There’s so much more to say about Rosen, who was selected as the game’s first star last night. He got a standing ovation during a TV timeout with his partner Joe Micheletti, leading the applause up in the booth. Rosen passed the baton to Kenny Albert, who deservedly will take over. He’s been calling games on the radio for three decades. He’s the perfect replacement. Albert also serves as the lead broadcaster for the NHL on TNT. They have the Stanley Cup Finals this year.

There’s so much more to say. I deliberately left out the Panarin nonsense because it doesn’t belong in this post. That’ll be addressed separately. I also will have more on Kreider, who clearly is going to be gone. What a mess.

It’s going to be a long off-season.