Calvin de Haan has become the latest Ranger to voice his frustrations over his playing time, joining Kaapo Kakko, Jimmy Vesey, and Zac Jones in an ever growing list of frustrated Rangers. Initially, Calvin de Haan’s frustrations were colorful but not detailed, though he was able to clarify on social media later. de Haan’s concerns are valid, though his situation is not unlike Vesey’s. In a vacuum, these are clearly frustrated players. But nuance is needed, as is understanding the full scope of the issue.
In a vacuum, each situation is different. Focusing on Calvin de Haan’s frustrations, he was acquired in a deadline deal as a roster balancing piece, not as a core acquisition piece. He, like Juuso Parssinen, were included to make numbers work, not as specific targets by Drury. The prizes in that trade were the picks, not the players. It may seem like a minor point, but it does matter.
To de Haan’s credit, he looked very good in his three games before being unceremoniously booted from the blue line. The Rangers went 2-0-1 in that time with de Haan playing solid defense on the third pair, winning the high danger chance battle 12-9 over those three games, including a 3-1 advantage against the division winning Capitals. His pairing with Zac Jones was solid, if unspectacular, giving the Rangers balance on their blue line.
It’s easy to say the acquisition of Carson Soucy made de Haan a redundant piece, but there was a large stretch of games where Adam Fox was hurt and de Haan still didn’t play. This overlapped with a stretch where both Soucy and de Haan were scratched. So competition had little to do with de Haan’s ice time.
We will never know why de Haan was continually scratched by Peter Laviolette, despite on-ice results that have been better than both Soucy and Urho Vaakanainen. Laviolette was coaching to win, not to develop youth, so scratching de Haan every night seemed counter productive to his goals. NHL coaches are weird and set in their ways, and this is no different.
Context matters
Calvin de Haan’s frustrations are valid, but his ice time is the least of anyone’s concerns right now. That’s nothing against him and his complaints, but the Rangers needed to see what they had in both Vaakanainen and Soucy. Vaakanainen has since been extended and Soucy has looked pretty rough. It would not surprise me to see Soucy traded in the offseason.
In the grand scheme of things, de Haan has little, if any, future impact for the Rangers. He has a right to be upset with how he’s been handled here, and I’ll get to that, but he is what he is at this point for the Rangers.
Don’t miss the forest for the trees
While Calvin de Haan’s frustrations, in a vacuum, are both valid and inconsequential to the Rangers, this is another symptom of a much larger problem for the Rangers. Since Chris Drury has taken over as GM, we’ve had many players voice frustrations at their treatment. The quartet mentioned above are from this year, but we’ve heard from Vitali Kravtsov, who was publicly berated by Drury at one point, among other players.
The status of the player and whether they were a draft bust doesn’t matter. It’s easy as a fan to default to “well Kravtsov was a bust” and “well de Haan and Vesey were spare parts” and “Kakko wasn’t producing.” These are all factual statements, but the approach matters just as much.
In this case, the trees are each individual complaint. The forest is that there are now at least 5 complaints like this across multiple coaches, and that’s just what we know about. The lone constant in this span is Drury, and it’s something I wrote about in October 2021, which appears to still be impactful today.
No GM is perfect, and Drury is no different. For the sake of this post we won’t be diving into each trade or signing, instead focusing on personnel relationships. If there’s one thing we learned, it’s that the Mike Babcock approach doesn’t work anymore. Players aren’t reacting the same way, and the hardnose approach needs to be softened. This rings especially true when publicly berating players.
This goes far beyond just the five guys mentioned here. I have staunchly defended Drury’s approach to shedding Barclay Goodrow via waivers, but it appears he did not even give Goodrow a heads up first. There was no warning given to either Jacob Trouba or Chris Kreider about their inclusion in that trade memo either. So now we have eight players ranging from kid to respected veteran all showing communication issues with Drury.
Four years ago, I wrote that Drury is, at best, a poor personality manager. With these four years to evaluate, it appears this is true. The stink this year starts at the very top, and Drury is not exempt from blame in how this season went, especially in light of all these complaints.
Whatever Drury is doing in the locker room, it isn’t working. His desire to have a hand in everything isn’t working. Refusing to delegate and/or learn to address his shortcomings isn’t working. At the very least, it’s clear Drury needs a buffer between him and the players. Someone to soften the communication and perhaps keep Drury clear of the locker room. That’s one thing both Glen Sather and Jeff Gorton were good with: They didn’t meddle in the locker room.
It’s all connected
The players quitting this year is most certainly connected to how Drury has treated his players. Peter Laviolette is not innocent in any of this, but since the issue extends to both Gerard Gallant as well, we must consider the only constant, which is Drury.
The Rangers need a wholesale change. They need a change in the locker room. They need a change in the coaching staff. It is also clear they need a change in the front office. Drury won’t be fired, but he needs a buffer between him and the players. This cannot continue, or else the Rangers will fall further into joke territory. This iteration of the Rangers is dangerously close to the 1998-2004 dark ages teams, but at least those teams didn’t quit on the fans.
