5 questions facing the Rangers this offseason
Rangers left wing Chris Kreider looks on against the Edmonton Oilers in the first period of an NHL hockey game at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, March 16, 2025. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The Rangers underachieved and suffered through a miserable season in 2024-25. Now they’re starting a long and busy offseason, with a lot of questions that will need to be answered before training camp. Here are five of them:
1. Who’s the coach going to be?
Peter Laviolette, who guided the team to the Presidents’ Trophy in his first season in 2023-24, is expected to be fired. If he indeed is let go, general manager Chris Drury will be looking to hire his third coach in four-plus years on the job.
It’s widely assumed that Drury’s No. 1 choice to be the next coach would be Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Sullivan, if he becomes available. And though it seems unlikely that the Penguins would move on from Sullivan, who coached them to back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017, maybe Sullivan would want to move on from the Penguins, who have missed the playoffs three straight years and look like a team on the decline.
If Sullivan isn’t the guy, then who would it be?
Joel Quenneville? John Tortorella? Given that Drury’s first two hires were Gerard Gallant and Laviolette, it seems reasonable to assume the next coach will have plenty of NHL experience. If Vancouver’s Rick Tocchet, who everyone presumes is coveted by Philadelphia to replace Tortorella, shakes loose from the Canucks and somehow is available, is there any chance he’s a possibility?
2. Which veterans might not be back?
Well, to start with, Chris Kreider — the Rangers’ longest-tenured player and the third-leading goal-scorer in franchise history — sure looks like a goner.
Kreider and Jacob Trouba were mentioned by name in that memo that Drury sent to the league’s other general managers in November, saying he was looking to make trades. Trouba was traded a few weeks later, but Kreider, who revealed that he was battling back problems, wasn’t. He finished the season with the Rangers and scored a goal in the season finale, what may have been his final game with the team.
Kreider’s longtime linemate, Mika Zibanejad, struggled for the first half of the season but was better in the second half, especially after the arrival in February of J.T. Miller and his subsequent shift to right wing on Miller’s line. Zibanejad scored two goals in the last game — the second set up by Kreider — to finish with 20. But those goals came while playing as the third-line center, and at his salary-cap hit ($8.5 million), he almost certainly won’t be a third-line center.
Zibanejad has five years left on his contract and a full no-move clause. So if he’s too expensive to be the third-line center and the Rangers don’t see him as a top-six right wing, will Drury ask him to waive his no-move and try to trade him?
3. How aggressive might management be in free agency?
The NHL salary cap is jumping to $95.5 million next season, but after signing goalie Igor Shesterkin and winger Alexis Lafreniere to big-money contract extensions, the Rangers have just under $10 million in available space, according to PuckPedia. And that’s before re-signing restricted free agents K’Andre Miller, Will Cuylle, Adam Edstrom, Matt Rempe and maybe defensemen Zac Jones and Matthew Robertson and forwards Juuso Parssinen and Arthur Kaliyev.
That doesn’t seem like enough available cap room to do anything spectacular. Maybe if Drury moves a veteran or two, he can create some cap space.
4. Which young players who played this season might be on the team next season?
Assuming Kreider isn’t coming back and if Zibanejad is a full-time right wing, then from among the 6-7 Edstrom, the 6-9 Rempe and the smaller, more skilled Brett Berard, Brennan Othmann and Gabe Perreault, there’s room for a maximum of four. And if Drury acquires a veteran winger for the top six over the summer, then maybe only three.
5. Is there any chance they could lose an RFA, such as Cuylle or Edstrom or K’Andre Miller, to an offer sheet?
Actually, yes. If Drury can’t clear up some cap space, they might not have enough money to sign everyone. And they could be vulnerable.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
