One story making waves about the Rangers this week is The Athletic’s/NY Times’ agent poll ranking the Rangers as the 2nd worst run NHL team. It was an interesting poll of NHL agents that did not reflect well on Chris Drury and the Rangers organization. It seems agents haven’t forgotten how the Rangers have treated past players, “Deep down, they forget everybody’s a human being. They’re too forceful, and I think everything can be worked out one way or the other.”
When reading polls like these, we should always consider the source. In this case, the sources are the anonymous NHL agents that represent the players. Given ugly divorces from Barclay Goodrow, Chris Kreider, Jacob Trouba, and Artemi Panarin, this makes sense. Agents want (need) their clients to be happy, and the Rangers made headlines for all the wrong reasons when dismantling the previous core. Given the audience, the Rangers ranking near the bottom makes sense.
That said, this is a bit of an old story. We know Drury isn’t the best with personnel management and building and maintaining relationships. It’s been a problem since he was the GM of Hartford with ugly fallouts with key prospects like Vitali Kravtsov and Lias Andersson. Drury needs a buffer between him and the players. He’s been improving and learning from his mistakes in this area, but he still has a ton of work to do. The lack of communication with Panarin seems to be lingering.
Something like this shouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s reactive to previous events that still leave a bad taste in people’s mouths. It didn’t stop Vlad Gavrikov from signing with the Rangers. It probably won’t stop any free agent from signing here. New York is still the selling point, and while it seems Drury is maturing and growing in the role, his mistakes will haunt him for a long time.
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