It is becoming increasingly difficult to be a New York Rangers fan. The drama from this year’s product on and off the ice is well known, and now we have the Artemi Panarin sexual assault allegations on top of it all, casting a dark shadow on the organization and a call that the Rangers need to clean house. For those keeping score, this is the second set of allegations brought to a Dolan-owned team, with Isiah Thomas at the center of prior allegations when he was coach and President of the Knicks.
In 2007, when he was coach of the Knicks, Thomas was accused of sexual assault by Anucha Browne Sanders. Browne Sanders was fired by MSG and was later awarded $11.6 million in damages, $6 million for the hostile work environment created by Thomas, and the rest for wrongful termination for complaining about the environment. Thomas was eventually fired by the Knicks in 2008, but it was because the Knicks were a disaster. Much like the Rangers are right now.
Eventually the Knicks cleaned house and have had a decent amount of drama free success over the last decade or so. The Rangers need to clean house too, following all their off-ice drama this season, capped off by the Panarin allegations and settlement.
The Rangers need to clean house, and it starts at the top
Everything starts at the top. It’s a difficult sell that neither Chris Drury nor Peter Laviolette knew about the allegations and/or settlement. If they knew, then they need to go. James Dolan should be held accountable, as this is now the second time something like this has allegedly happened under his watch, but he won’t be and he won’t sell the team.
For those who are having some issues stringing together the timeline, let’s run through it, since it does matter and it’s a big piece of why the Rangers need to clean house. Some things are known, others are alleged.
- December 2023: The alleged Panarin incident.
- June 2024: Barclay Goodrow waived, a leader in the locker room. From a hockey perspective, this had to happen. But now with everything else, optics matter. He was one of the vocal leaders.
- Summer 2024: Jacob Trouba fallout.
- August 2024: The alleged Panarin settlement.
- Sometime in 2024: A female staffer is allegedly fired for having a platonic dinner with a player, violating new team rules implemented because a woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by Panarin. The optics matter.
- November 2024: The memo, naming captain Jacob Trouba and longest tenured player and locker room leader Chris Kreider specifically. Not on the memo: the accused/settled.
- November 2024: Rangers begin to quit.
- December 2024: Jacob Trouba trade.
- December 2024: Kaapo Kakko trade.
- January 2025: Filip Chytil trade (JT Miller trade).
- All season: Various player complaints.
- February/March 2025: Kreider trade rumors.
- April 2025: Panarin news made public.
This timeline of events matters. While we cannot confirm, it’s a hard sell that no one in the locker room, coaching staff, or front office staff knew about the details. This happened at a team outing with other players there. The settlement likely would not have been isolated to Dolan alone. This is guess work based on logic and what was previously written, and by no means confirmed.
It’s not hard to draw a line from the alleged sexual assault to the Rangers quitting. What message does it send to a team that the current captain and longest tenured player should be traded, while the guy who allegedly settled sexual assault accusations sticks? Panarin may also have a letter and is still objectively the best on-ice free agent signing in the team’s history, but if the goal is a cohesive locker room–which was specifically called out by Drury when he took over as GM–then Panarin needed to go last summer.
We cannot draw any conclusions about who knew or how it impacted the locker room. We can, however, use logical reasoning to say the Rangers need to clean house. It now starts with Drury and Laviolette, though it seems only Laviolette will be let go at the end of the season. Trading Panarin is now a must as well.
This changes everything
Before these allegations were brought to light, stating the Rangers need to clean house was almost entirely from a hockey perspective. Poor personnel management, poor communication, poor lineup decisions, and poor locker room and player attitudes were all reasons why the Rangers need to clean house, and they still are. We now have an overarching dark cloud with the Panarin allegations.
Do we need to re-evaluate the players quitting this season? Did they quit because the memo didn’t include someone allegedly accused of sexual assault? Did they quit because the GM didn’t out Panarin in the trade memo, instead focusing on two players without off-ice issues? Trouba and Kreider (and Goodrow) were the vocal part of the leadership group, after all.
There is only one thing we know: The Rangers need to clean house. They need to dump everyone who knew about and did nothing about the sexual assault allegations. This is not limited to just Drury and Laviolette, though we cannot confirm they knew. Again, it’s pretty easy to infer that at least some of the players knew.
There are many hockey reasons why the Rangers need to clean house. But now we need to look beyond. If there were players who overheard Panarin allegedly saying the woman’s phone can only be retrieved from his room, and kept silent, they need to go too. Teammate loyalty does not and should not stretch that far. This is right versus wrong, and it’s as simple as that.
There is something rotten in this organization, and it starts at the top. The Rangers need to clean house, and no one should be spared.
