As the Rangers’ 2025-2026 report cards wrap up, Chris Drury lands squarely in the spotlight for a season that went off the rails long before it was over. The summer started with enough activity to suggest real movement, but the bigger picture was still ugly: the team finished 30th in the NHL, and Drury’s early moves never came close to fixing the damage.
The offseason’s headline addition was Vlad Gavrikov, who came to New York on a discount because he believed in the situation and wanted to play with Artemi Panarin. The cap room for that deal had already been created by sending Chris Kreider to Anaheim for pennies on the dollar, though that move came before July 1 and sits outside this report card window.
More of the lineup shuffle came through the K’Andre Miller trade. Drury dealt Miller to Carolina for a 2026 first-round pick and prospect Scott Morrow, a move that looked risky at the time and has aged even worse.
On the ice, Carolina won the Cup with Miller as their 1D. Morrow barely played, but the first-round pick helped land Pavel Dorofeyev from Vegas, which matters later.
Off the ice, the logic was simpler: Miller was never going to reach his ceiling in New York. The trade had to happen, even if it looks rough now.
There were smaller additions too. Taylor Raddysh got a two-year deal, and Conor Sheary came in on a PTO.
But for the most part, the offseason amounted to replacing Kreider and Miller with Gavrikov and a lot of optimism. Drury never really replaced Kreider’s scoring, and the Rangers spent too much of the year struggling to put the puck in the net.
The in-season work was steadier, but not exactly transformative. After the Winter Classic, Drury could see where this was headed, and the Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin injuries only sped up the sell-off.
Those injuries likely cost the Rangers at least 8-10 points in the standings, maybe more. The first move came in January, when Carson Soucy was sent to the Islanders for a 3rd-round pick that became Charlie Morrison.
The biggest swing was the Artemi Panarin trade to the LA Kings. New York got Liam Greentree and a 3rd-round pick that turned into Tomas Chrenko. It wasn’t a blockbuster return, especially since the deal didn’t bring back a high pick, but Greentree is legit and the Rangers squeezed real value out of Chrenko.
Sam Carrick also moved, going to Buffalo for 3rd- and 6th-round picks. The 3rd was used in the Dorofeyev deal, and the 6th became Andre Mondoux.
A few smaller moves rounded out the year. Brennan Othmann to Calgary for Jacob Battaglia was the best of that group.
Derrick Pouliot going to Chicago for Aidan Thompson flew under the radar, but it helped add center depth in Hartford. There’s also a case to be made that the Rangers never should have acquired Soucy in the first place, and that the Panarin return should have been stronger.
The end results were acceptable, but the process still leaves you wondering what Drury was thinking at times.
There was one nice surprise on the waiver wire, though: Tye Kartye.
Where Drury really started to change course was at the 2026 NHL Draft. Maybe he finally decided that trying to muscle his way to a Cup isn’t the answer anymore. Florida’s talent level gets overlooked too often, and Drury’s recent pivot suggests he’s moving toward a roster built on more skill.
The Dorofeyev trade was the boldest move of the stretch. Vegas needed to clear out its star winger, and the Rangers had the cap space to make it work.
Two first-round picks is a steep price, but a move like that always carries risk. It’s also the kind of bet the Rangers should be making: a swing for real scoring talent.
The contract is high right now, but with the cap rising and Dorofeyev coming off back-to-back 35-plus goal seasons, it could end up looking like a bargain.
Drury didn’t stop there. Alberts Smits might end up as the best defenseman in the draft at 5th overall.
He also took big swings on high-end talent with Chrenko, Morrison, and Ben MacBeath in the early rounds. Even the third-round goalie pick that raised some eyebrows came with real upside.
That draft week was a clear shift in direction, and for Drury, it was the best part of the year.
Still, it’s impossible to give him a clean pass. The bad stretches since taking over as GM have piled up, and this season was no exception.
The summer plan failed, the Rangers cratered, and the early part of the year was brutal. But the June work matters.
The approach changed, and it changed for the better.
Unfortunately, his July through May were brutal.
In Other News...
Rangers May Be Heading Toward Another Painful Braden Schneider Decision
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For a front office still trying to balance roster construction with salary cap reality, that creates a difficult kind of decision. Schneider is no longer just a player to monitor on the back end, but part of a larger equation about how the Rangers can address other needs without thinning out their defense too much, and the next stretch of his play could go a long way toward determining how aggressively management moves around him. [Read more 🡒]
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How New York would get there is the part still worth tracking. Any serious pursuit would likely force the Rangers to weigh pieces from a defense corps that already has its own internal value, and that kind of decision is never simple this late in the summer. Wrights situation has opened the door for speculation, but the real question is whether the Rangers decide the fit is strong enough to part with a useful young defender before camp opens. [Read more 🡒]
Mike Sullivan Fixed One Rangers Problem But Created Another
Mike Sullivans first season behind the Rangers bench did deliver one clear change: the team became harder to play against defensively. After coming in with a more structure-first approach, he helped tighten things up on that end compared with the previous season, giving New York a more reliable foundation even as the rest of the roster kept searching for rhythm.
The problem was that the same system did not solve everything else, and the Rangers spent much of the year fighting for consistency on offense. Injuries to key players helped trigger a long losing stretch, and the lineup decisions that followed only added to the uncertainty as the club tried to balance short-term results with player development. What looked like one problem fixed quickly turned into another one waiting for answers. [Read more 🡒]