Will this be last shot at a Stanley Cup for this Rangers core?
The Rangers were rumored to try to trade captain Jacob Trouba, but he's still here and in search of the Stanely Cup. Credit: Errol Anderson
Getting to the Eastern Conference finals for the second time in three seasons last spring wasn’t enough for the Rangers. And winning the Presidents’ Trophy, given to the team with the best record in the regular season, wasn’t enough, either.
After the Rangers lost in six games to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers last season, all anyone wanted to talk about was what general manager Chris Drury, coach Peter Laviolette and this experienced group need to do differently this season to capture the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1994.
“It's the same question, I feel like, all the time,’’ Rangers center Vincent Trocheck said. “It's never an actual answer to ‘what can you do different?’ It's so game-to-game once you get into the playoffs. And there's one minor mistake that can make a difference in a game. So it's not necessarily one thing that we know we can make different and [make the team] get better.’’
“We feel we're right there,’’ captain Jacob Trouba said on the first day of training camp. “There’s got to be another little extra edge this season, [because it] just wasn't enough last year. We're close. We feel good about our game and how we play. But there's another little hump we’ve got to go over.’’
Drury didn’t change the roster much over the summer. For salary cap reasons, he waived fourth-line center Barclay Goodrow, who was claimed by San Jose, and reportedly looked into trading Trouba, who carries an $8 million cap hit and who, at the end of the playoffs, was playing on the third defense pair.
When he wasn’t able to move Trouba, Drury decided to run it back with almost the same team that compiled a franchise-record 55 victories and 114 points last season. The only new faces entering this season will be winger Reilly Smith, acquired in a trade with Pittsburgh to fill the hole at right wing on the top line with Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider, and new fourth-line center Sam Carrick, signed as a free agent to replace Goodrow.
The hope is that Smith, 33, will be the long-term fit on that line that has been missing since Pavel Buchnevich was traded in 2021, and that he will help Zibanejad bounce back from what was a disappointing season for him. Zibanejad had 26 goals and 72 points last season but didn’t produce much in five-on-five play.
The Rangers will need him to bounce back, especially if Trocheck’s line, with Artemi Panarin and Alexis Lafreniere on his wings, can’t match what it did last season.
Panarin led the team in scoring last season and had career highs in goals (49) and points (120). Can he replicate that? He was bothered by a lower-body injury in the preseason that knocked him out of his only two preseason games, so he might not be fully healthy to start the season.
Lafreniere, under pressure to live up to his status as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, broke out with his best season. He had 28 goals and 57 points in the regular season and a team-leading eight goals and 14 points in 16 playoff games.
Goaltender Igor Shesterkin, entering the final year of his contract, reportedly is seeking perhaps as much as $12 million per year in his next deal. It’s been reported that if a new deal isn’t agreed to by the start of the season, he won’t want to negotiate during the season. If that’s the case, will his contract situation prove to be a distraction?
It’s a veteran group and it has accomplished much since ending its much-talked-about rebuild three years ago. But the pressure is on to accomplish the ultimate goal — winning a Stanley Cup.
As Trouba said on the first day of camp, this “will probably be the last crack [at it] for this core.’’
“We're a group that's kind of grown together, spent some years together here,’’ he said. “And we have something we want to accomplish.’’
THREE KEYS FOR RANGERS' SEASON
Staying healthy. Filip Chytil missed 72 games last season with a presumed concussion; Adam Fox (10) and Kaapo Kakko (21) missed games with knee injuries, and Jacob Trouba missed 11 games with a broken foot. But they still managed to win the Presidents’ Trophy. Defenseman Ryan Lindgren and fourth-line left wing Jimmy Vesey may miss the start of this season with injuries, and Artemi Panarin (49 goals and 120 points last season) left two preseason games early for “precautionary reasons,’’ with a lower body injury. If Panarin or other key players miss significant time due to injury, that could be trouble.
A Mika bounce-back. No. 1 center Mika Zibanejad had 26 goals and 72 points in 2023-24, after having 39 and 91 the season before. Panarin’s line, with Vincent Trocheck and Alexis Lafreniere, covered for Zibanejad, but the Rangers need the Swede to be back to his normal more-than-a-point-per-game self this season. Getting a new right wing in Reilly Smith to play with him and Chris Kreider, should help.
Running with the Devils. Two seasons ago, the Devils knocked the Rangers out of the playoffs in the first round. Last season, injuries and substandard goaltending caused the Devils to miss the playoffs. But New Jersey added goalie Jacob Markstrom in the offseason and brought in new coach Sheldon Keefe, and they’ll be a threat all season. The Rangers will need to stave off their Hudson River rivals to get far in the playoffs again.
BEAT WRITER'S PREDICTION
49-26-7 (105 points), Second in Metropolitan Division
Lose in the Eastern Conference finals for the third time in four seasons
They won’t repeat as Presidents Trophy winners, because since 2012, no team has. But it’s Cup or bust for the Rangers anyway. Too bad for them they won’t score enough in the playoffs to go all the way.
Colin Stephenson has covered the Rangers for Newsday since 2018.
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.
