The New York Rangers will enter training camp for the 2024-25 season surrounded by the same narrative as this time last season: A veteran team that has delivered great regular-season success is ready to try again to get over the championship hump and post the six more victories needed to hoist the Stanley Cup.
Rangers forward Brennan Othmann (Jess Starr/The Hockey Writers)
Yet for the Blueshirts to do so this season, they’re going to have get contributions – perhaps significant ones – from youngsters. In leaning on the kids, the Rangers, unintentionally or not, will be starting a transition from the current core – one that may have gone as far as it’s going to go – toward the next chapter in team history.
That would seem to be a tough pill to swallow after the Rangers put together the best regular season in franchise history in 2023-24, racking up 55 wins and 114 points to capture the Presidents Trophy. For the second time in three years, however, they fell short in the Eastern Conference Final, outclassed again by a team from Florida that was bigger, tougher and more playoff-ready, in a crushing six-game defeat.
Facing serious salary-cap issues both this season and (especially) next summer, the club apparently had little choice but to run it back with mostly the same roster. Trade addition Reilly Smith was the only notable pickup, but the veteran profiles as more of middle-six forward contributor, not a difference-maker.
Rangers’ Young Players Likely to Receive Bigger Roles in 2024-25
So where will the necessary improvement come from? Perhaps ostensible No. 1 center Mika Zibanejad returns to his point-per-game form of 2019-23 after going through something of a “down” season in which he recorded “only” 72 points. Other than that, though, can the Blueshirts expect more than they got last season from linemates Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck, who enjoyed career seasons in which they piled up 120 and 77 points, respectively? Or Chris Kreider, who scored 39 goals for the second-highest total of his career?
The Rangers’ top veterans put together excellent seasons in driving a talented group to the best record in the NHL. Yet it simply wasn’t enough. The opportunity to get better isn’t coming from outside the organization; it will be largely from within, a possible trade deadline addition notwithstanding. That means a youth movement, small as it might be on this roster.
The Blueshirts believe they have a rising star in 23-year-old Alexis Lafreniere, who busted out for a career-high 57 points during the regular season and was one of his team’s best players in the playoffs, scoring eight goals with six assists in 16 games. Among forwards, though, Lafreniere seems to be the only youthful player who can be counted on to keep trending upward. Filip Chytil has yet to prove that he can consistently turn in healthy, productive seasons, while a big performance from Kaapo Kakko would probably come as a surprise to the organization at this point.
So the Rangers are likely going to have no choice but to see whether the future is now. Whether Brennan Othmann or Brett Berard or Adam Sykora are ready to graduate from Hartford of the American Hockey League and provide a jolt of energy, desperately-needed grind and offense up front. Whether young power forward Will Cuylle and perhaps even Matt Rempe can be more than just bottom-six role players and leverage their size and physicality to give the Blueshirts attitude, the kind that the Florida Panthers rode to the Stanley Cup in June. Whether Zac Jones’ ostensible ascendance to a regular role on the blue line helps the Rangers’ defense become a more dynamic, offensively-inclined group.
The question is whether players like Othmann, Berard or Sykora can be difference-makers right away – a tall order for even a first-round draft pick like Othmann, let alone a second-rounder (Sykora) or a fifth-rounder (Berard). All three turned in strong seasons for Hartford in 2023-24, but there’s no guarantee any of them will make the roster out of camp.
Rangers Will Be Preparing for Life Beyond Current Core
Cuylle, Rempe and Jones have 171 games of NHL experience among them and appear to be ready for bigger roles. Will that, however, make their games stand out more from a positive perspective, or will they be exposed as part-timers who can’t handle a heavier workload and more responsibility?
By definition, such a change in the roster marks a change in approach, and a change in direction. As badly as the fanbase wants this season to be about taking the next step with a long-time core that’s been close to the Stanley Cup, the organization is quietly preparing for the first steps on a new path – whether it results in a title this season or not.
The Rangers really have no choice but to do so. Giving the youth more meaningful minutes represents the most realistic chance for these Blueshirts to finally make it out of the East Final this season. Doing so, though, means that the group of young talent that general manager Chris Drury and his predecessor Jeff Gorton have assembled might be about ready to start taking center stage, with an eye on moving into a new era.
It would be wholly inaccurate to call that rebuilding, but the hard truth is that it might to amount to an admission that the current leadership group has run out of road. If the kids prove not to be the X-factor in a Stanley Cup run this season, it’s entirely possible that the organizational focus will shift to them being key factors in a future championship – one that would occur well after the current pillars of the roster have departed.
