Where did it go wrong for the Rangers? It starts in 2019

One thing fans always love to do is find blame for why things are happening with their favorite teams. I won’t lie to you, it’s something I really love to admit doing and as we look at the 2024-2025 New York Rangers, it makes me wonder, how did we get here? Where did it go wrong for the Rangers? Like all things in life, it doesn’t just happen over night. It takes years of decisions and bad bounces to end up where the Rangers have found themselves, sitting on the outside looking in at the playoff race.

While fans have been quick to pile onto Rangers General Manager Chris Drury, and he’s certainly not blameless, but all of this doesn’t lie solely at his feet. Part of the answer to where did it all go wrong for the Rangers lies with prior Rangers management, Jeff Gorton more specifically. Gorton helped cultivate the current Rangers culture and is part of the reason for the Blueshirts failure. Don’t get me wrong, this team is certainly talented and one of the reasons is because of what Gorton and Drury have both done, but this roster doesn’t strike fear in their opponents.

Where did it go wrong for the Rangers? Start with some bad luck

If we are looking for a starting point to answer the main question, where did it go wrong for the Rangers, then we start with the draft. The Rangers have had a stroke of bad luck when it comes to drafting, which seems odd to say when the team won the draft lottery two years in a row, picking 2nd overall and then 1st overall. Not every player will be Connor McDavid or Nathan MacKinnon, but Kaapo Kakko and Alexis Lafreniere haven’t (or hadn’t) yielded the dividends we had hoped for since their draft day.

But since we’re talking about Kakko, lets dive a bit further into that one and why he failed here. The answer shouldn’t shock many.

David Quinn, the development nightmare

Where did it go wrong for the Rangers, specifically with their drafting? Start with David Quinn.

Quinn should always be looked at by Rangers fans as public enemy number one and one of the biggest reasons as to why this team didn’t take the step forward out of the rebuild that they had hoped. His development and deployment of Kaapo Kakko is one of the prime reasons for this.

We all know how much offensive talent Kakko flashed when he played in the World Juniors or what he did as a member of TPS in Finland. A big body with an an ability to control the puck, Rangers fans looked at him as the centerpiece of the rebuild. However when Quinn got his hands on him, he deployed him as a bottom six player and forced him to try and earn his ice time in the top six.

Unlike most other clubs when they get a top two or three pick and they thrust them into the top six and play them in all situations, the Rangers player development is still rather archaic. Where did it go wrong for the Rangers? Start here. Coaching, development, and antiquated mindsets. Jack Hughes got top line minutes immediately with the Devils, and injuries aside he’s a star.

Accelerating and then disrupting the rebuild

A rebuild is meticulously planned. But the Rangers are the Rangers, and they couldn’t help themselves. Where did it go wrong for the Rangers? Also look to 2019 when they signed Artemi Panarin to accelerate the rebuild. Top talent is top talent and Panarin is one of the best in the NHL, no one doubts that. The question is about timing, and this was the right move for the wrong team at the wrong time.

But perhaps the biggest mistake the Blueshirts made along the way was being reactionary and firing both Jeff Gorton and John Davidson before letting them even remotely see through their vision of reshaping this team. Rebuilds can’t be disrupted. Where did it go wrong for the Rangers? Start in 2019 with the Panarin signing, the drafting and development, and then the firing of the front office.

Reactionary moves are often how bad teams stay bad for a long time. But the Rangers are not bad enough to tear it down and they’re not good enough to win a Stanley Cup. They’re in the mushy middle but they at least have a boatload of cap space to be able to try and turn this around fast. However without having a concrete plan in place and time to execute, we will continue to see the Rangers spinning their wheels.

Where did it go wrong for the Rangers? It isn’t one reason, or two. It’s several, and it dates back years.