Reviewing a year of Rangers fan confidence levels

Since the beginning of the bubble, we’ve been running weekly Fan Confidence Polls that polls Rangers fan confidence levels with the team. With The Athletic releasing their offseason confidence levels, I figured now is a good time to dive deeper into the week to week fluctuations of the fan base over the last year or so. The votes here certainly are consistent with The Athletic’s findings, but let’s go a little deeper.

For the most part, confidence coming into the season was sky high. Then the Rangers opened the season by laying an egg, tanking confidence. It culminated in the Tony DeAngelo fiasco, then jumped back to around the 7-8 range. That continued throughout most of the season as the Rangers stayed in the playoff hunt, hitting a season high after the four wins in a row against the Devils.

Then all hell broke loose.

The Tom Wilson game. The Isles losses. Missing the playoffs. Then firing John Davidson and Jeff Gorton. All of this led to a pretty brutal drop in confidence as there was seemingly no plan. Then the offseason happened, hitting an all time low in confidence.

Rangers fan confidence levels have recovered somewhat as we go through the expected roles of the team following an odd offseason. While it is expected that the Rangers will be better, what is keeping confidence down is the future plans and confidence in Chris Drury himself. Naturally I expect this to go up as the Rangers start winning games next season. But time will tell if there is a plan, or if they are just winging it.