What if James Dolan was right?

If you wanted to wake up and choose violence today, then this is the post for you. With the Rangers in the playoffs, in contention for a Metro Division crown, and looking like a top team, it makes you wonder if James Dolan was right all along. After all, the Rangers turned the corner after Dolan surprised the hockey world by firing Jeff Gorton and John Davidson, and put his man at the helm.

First things first, this post was inspired by @FitzGSN_’s tweet from a few days ago, where he chose violence himself.

If James Dolan was right, then we are giving him credit for recognizing more than we saw as fans a year ago around this time. Naturally that’s a good assumption to make, given Dolan is the owner of the team. But from what we heard about the firings, Dolan had been looking for a reason to fire Gorton for a while, and the Caps/Isles games, coupled with the disagreement about the statement to the Department of Player Safety, gave him all the ammunition he needed.

Disclaimer: I have no dog in this fight, and I don’t lean either way. Just presenting the arguments for and against.

The Case For: James Dolan was right

There is one undeniable aspect of this team, that even the staunchest Dolan and Chris Drury haters can’t ignore. This team has some serious vibes. We joke about Kreidbanejad, their vibes/60, and Ryan Reaves screaming ‘Shesty Release Us,’ but that’s all about how this team is now.

Think back to this time last year. The Rangers were barely three months removed from their backup goalie knocking out one of the better defensemen, and the Rangers kept the backup goalie. They were a month away from the Isles/Caps games that made the Rangers look like a peewee hockey team. Ryan Strome had more or less thrown David Quinn under a bus for the way he coached some of the players. There was enough off-ice drama to get a reality TV show.

This year? Nothing but good vibes, a mean tweets video that is sealed in the Disney archives, and all the drama is about on-ice performance and whether or not the Rangers need a new backup goalie. Everything is about the team, not the individual.

It also helps that, while Drury didn’t have a good offseason, he nailed the trade deadline. Gerard Gallant was also his hire. That’s a lot of positivity to be had to show James Dolan was right.

The Case Against: James Dolan was wrong

It’s very easy to point out that the team the Rangers have today is mostly the team they had last year. We will never know if Gorton’s plans were the same as Drury’s, but it is fair to say that Drury walked into a very good situation. So does Dolan get credit for thrusting Drury into a position where most people in the business could have succeeded in their first year?

If we are saying James Dolan was right, then we are saying he knew about the locker room issues and thought it needed to be dealt with. This part we will likely never know. What we do know is that he is rather hands-off with the Rangers, comparatively to the Knicks at least, so did he actually know about it?

How could Drury possibly have screwed up the Rangers that badly? Well it’s funny, because he almost did. The offseason was awful, and while Drury did nail the deadline, he fixed issues he created.

In the end, it’s likely a bit of both. We don’t know what Gorton’s plan was, but whatever Drury did for the locker room, it worked. Ditto hiring Gallant. But he was also gifted the top end skill that is so difficult to build a team around. Do we dare accept nuance in this answer, in this economy?