When the Rangers’ 2025-2026 season ended, Chris Drury was left with the kind of questions that don’t fade on their own. Fans were wondering whether he was still the right general manager to steer what they hoped would be a quick retool on the fly.
That idea used to feel a lot less common. Then Boston’s Don Sweeney showed what a deadline sale in March of 2025 could look like when it leads to a playoff return the following season.
A few different things helped make that happen for the Bruins, and maybe the biggest was the injury trouble hitting other Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference teams. Even so, most people outside Boston didn’t see a postseason berth coming.
Now more teams are likely to chase that same kind of retool. The Rangers appear to have taken that path this summer, and Drury is the one who has to make it work fast if he wants to keep the job.
There’s no shortage of doubt about whether he can pull off a retool instead of a full rebuild, but he has clearly tried to improve the 2026-27 roster. Building around Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin is easier said than done, yet Drury made aggressive moves to show he’s trying to do exactly that.
The biggest swing was landing young forward Pavel Dorofeyev from the Vegas Golden Knights and giving him a seven-year deal with an AAV of $11 million. It’s a major commitment, but Dorofeyev brings real offensive upside.
He scored 35 goals and then 37 goals over the last two seasons for Vegas, and he added 27 assists last season. That kind of production is exactly the sort of forward New York has been searching for.
Drury also brought in Vancouver Canucks defenseman Marcus Pettersson in exchange for a first-round pick. Pettersson is 30, so there’s obvious reason to wonder about the long-term side of that move, but it was still a clear attempt to strengthen the blue line in front of Shesterkin and the newly acquired backup, Joonas Korpisalo. The need was there after Will Borgen was traded to the Bruins.
Like Boston a year ago, the Rangers’ offseason wasn’t just about new faces. It also depends on returning players finding another gear and bouncing back from last season. That’s part of the equation now, and Drury will be judged on whether these moves - and whatever else happens from training camp through the end of the season - were the right ones.
If the Rangers miss the playoffs again next spring, it could be the end of Drury in New York.
In Other News...
Rangers Prospect Nathan Aspinall Is Forcing A Serious Future Debate
Nathan Aspinalls rise has become one of the more intriguing developments in the Rangers prospect pipeline. The fifth-round pick from the 2024 NHL draft has gone from a raw junior player to a much more polished threat with the Flint Firebirds, and his 2025-26 OHL season turned heads around the league. After years of gradual growth in size, skill and confidence, he finally looked like a player who could make good on the talent scouts had seen in him all along.
What makes Aspinall so interesting now is the way his game has kept expanding. Coaches and scouts point to his persistence, offensive instincts and overall maturity as the reasons his breakthrough felt so convincing, and he also carried that impact into the playoffs while leading Flint in the postseason. For the Rangers, the question is no longer whether he belongs on the radar, but how quickly his latest step forward changes the conversation about where he fits in the organizations future. [Read more 🡒]
J.T. Miller Opens Up About A Brutal First Year As Rangers Captain
J.T. Millers first year wearing the Rangers captaincy was never likely to be a quiet one, and he didnt shy away from talking about it while appearing on the Spittin Chiclets podcast with former teammate Vincent Trocheck and ex-NHL defenseman Mark Pysyk during a golf outing. The conversation drifted from Team USAs Olympic gold-medal run to the familiar chemistry and hard edges that come with life around the Rangers, with Miller and Trocheck mixing in plenty of back-and-forth about careers, the room, and the noise that always seems to follow this team.
Miller also took time to address the criticism that came his way during a difficult 2025-26 season, leaning into the kind of self-aware humor that has long been part of his public persona. For Rangers fans, the interesting part is not just that he was willing to open up, but how candid he was about the frustration around his first season as captain and the way the scrutiny can stack up when results are not going the right way. [Read more 🡒]
Tye Kartye Could Put Early Pressure On The Rangers Forward Plan
Tye Kartye has a chance to make a real imprint on the Rangers bottom six, and it starts with a role that usually does not draw much attention. As a projected fourth-line left wing, he brings a track record that has translated from the OHL to the AHL and, more recently, into the NHL, where he showed enough last season to keep himself in the conversation for a steadier job in New York.
For a Rangers team trying to settle its forward plan, Kartye is the kind of player who can complicate things fast if he gets rolling. A strong start could force the coaching staff to rethink how it wants to sort out the lower lines and the ripple effects could reach other forwards as the roster gets sorted over time, while the organization would still prefer not to push longer-term pieces into action before they are ready. [Read more 🡒]