Rangers give team president and general manager Chris Drury multi-year contact extension

Coming off the worst season of his four-year tenure as team president and general manager, Chris Drury has agreed to a multi-year contract extension to stay on with the Rangers, the team announced late Wednesday afternoon.

“I am pleased that Chris will continue to lead the Rangers hockey operations in his role as President and General Manager,” MSG Sports Executive Chairman and CEO James L. Dolan said in the statement announcing the deal. “Over his tenure, Chris has shown passion for the Rangers, relentless work ethic, and a tireless pursuit of excellence. While we are all disappointed in what transpired this past season, I am confident in his ability to guide this organization to success.”

“I am honored to sign this contract extension and continue in this position with the team I grew up supporting,” Drury, a Connecticut native and former Rangers captain, said in the statement. “As I said when I began in this role nearly four years ago, there isn’t a more special organization in hockey, and I look forward to continuing our work this offseason to help us reach our goals for next season and in the coming years.”

And there is a lot of work for Drury to do this offseason, beginning with hiring his third coach in four years, after he fired Peter Laviolette on Saturday. Laviolette, who guided the Rangers to a Presidents’ Trophy and an appearance in the Eastern Conference finals in 2023-24, his first season behind the bench, couldn’t come close to replicating that performance in his second season. The team finished 39-36-7 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2021.

With the way the season went, there had been lots of grumbling from fans on social media that Drury ought to be fired for his part in the Rangers’ failure this season. But one day after the rival Islanders announced they were moving on from their president and GM, Lou Lamoriello, the Rangers stuck with Drury, whose teams made the conference finals in two of the last three seasons.

This season was a struggle from Day One. It started last summer, when Drury got rid of well-liked veteran Barclay Goodrow by placing him on waivers as a workaround against his partial no-trade clause, allowing San Jose to claim him. That didn’t sit well with the team, and neither did Drury’s clumsy attempts last summer to trade captain Jacob Trouba.

Trouba eventually was traded to Anaheim in December, a couple weeks after a memo Drury sent to the league’s 31 other general managers in late November saying he was looking to make trades – and specifically naming Trouba and forward Chris Kreider as players he was looking to ship out – leaked to the media.

After the report, Kreider revealed that he was dealing with a bad back, and he ended up not being traded, and finishing the season with the team. But his still being on the roster is uncomfortable, and figuring out how to resolve his situation is one of the biggest tasks facing Drury this summer.

But after that, there are many more things to take care of, like what to do with Mika Zibanejad, who struggled for the first half of the season, but played better in the second half after moving to right wing when Drury traded for J.T. Miller? And what to do with defenseman K’Andre Miller, a restricted free agent coming off an up-and-down season?

And then there are the more routine offseason happenings, like the draft, free agency, and the seven other restricted free agents on the roster Drury will have to decide whether to sign, and for how much.

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

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.