For a while in the current Stanley Cup playoffs, the New York Rangers looked poised to win their first championship in three decades, knocking off the Washington Capitals with ease in the opening round, then eliminating a great team in the Carolina Hurricanes in Round 2. Unfortunately for Blueshirts fans, the Rangers ran into a deeper, more determined Florida Panthers squad in the Eastern Conference final, and the Panthers sent the Rangers home for the summer by winning in six games to move onto their second consecutive Cup final appearance.
— x - New York Rangers (@NYRangers) June 2, 2024
The Rangers were six wins away from a Cup, and that has to be agonizing to their players, coaches and management members. But GM Chris Drury has set this team up to be a legitimate Cup front-runner for next season and well beyond, and if you go through their lineup and project what might happen down the line, you’ll see the Rangers have many good days to look forward to.
The Rangers have 17 players under contract for the 2024-25 campaign, and approximately $12.1 million in salary cap space. Some of that money will go to the Rangers’ three RFAs (and more on one of those three RFAs below), but that still leaves a good chunk of change to augment their lineup with capable veterans. That money may go to pending UFAs Blake Wheeler, Alexander Wennberg, Jack Roslovic and Erik Gustafsson, but Drury could look outside the organization for a different look up front and on ‘D’.
Meanwhile, speculation continues in regard to the future of RFA winger Kaapo Kakko. The 23-year-old Finn was a non-factor in the post-season. And with fellow youngster Alexis Lafreniere raising his stock dramatically this season, Kakko is effectively squeezed out of the Rangers’ top-nine group of forwards, and it’s probably time to cut ties with him. He could bring back an above-average draft pick for the future, and allow Drury to trade one of his first-round draft picks for immediate help. The Rangers have all three of their first-rounders in the next three years, but their 2024 first-rounder is the 32nd overall selection, and that should make it easier to part ways with the pick if they’re getting back an experienced hand on the blueline or at forward.
Otherwise, the Rangers are set in goal with star Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick as their tandem. And their core components – forwards Artemi Panarin, Chris Kreider, Lafreniere, Mika Zibanejad and Vincent Trocheck, and D-men Adam Fox, K’Andre Miller and Jacob Trouba – are under team control through the next two seasons. That’s an eternity in the quick-to-change NHL, but if you’re a Rangers fan, you have to feel good about what’s ahead.
The Rangers were dominant for large stretches of the regular season and playoffs, and with a tweak to the lineup here or there, they could be in line to get back to the Eastern final, and this time, win it and fight for a Cup.
Winning the Presidents’ Trophy as the NHL’s best regular-season team this season is an indication of how close the Rangers are to the peak of the competitive mountain. In the end, they met their match in a Panthers team that had as much skill as the Blueshirts, but that had more grit than the Rangers. The series might have been over sooner were it not for the performance of Shesterkin, but that shouldn’t take away from what the Rangers were able to achieve. They’re going to be a top team in 2024-25, and with a roster that will be quite similar to this season’s lineup, they’re achingly close to being the East’s best post-season squad next year.
Drury has been one of the game’s best architects, and now he has an even greater amount of pressure to push the Rangers to the Cup final and a chance to make themselves immortal on Broadway. But don’t be at all surprised when you see the Rangers playing important hockey in June once again next season. To paraphrase a famous Manhattan cultural figure, they’re good enough, they’re smart enough, and doggone it, people should like them.
