From Presidents’ Trophy to last place in the Eastern Conference in two years. The 2023-24 Rangers won 114 points; the 2025-26 version finished dead last in the East.
The 2025-26 Rangers finished 33-39-9 — 77 points, dead last in the East, eliminated March 26 on a 4-3 loss to Toronto. It’s the second straight missed playoff, which means this franchise has now duplicated the 2017-18/2018-19 crater — except this version came immediately off a 114-point Presidents’ Trophy season. The fastest collapse from elite to out in recent NHL memory, and Chris Drury is still the general manager.
Igor Shesterkin posted a 2.59 GAA and a .911 save percentage this season — third-best in the NHL. Without him, the Rangers went 6-19-3 with backup goaltending. He stopped 31 of 33 shots in a 2-1 loss to Ottawa. He allowed one goal on 29 shots against Pittsburgh in a shutout loss. One goal on 21 shots against Edmonton — also a loss. He is locked through 2034 at $11.5M AAV, and what the organization has handed him in return is a roster that crumbles the moment he’s unavailable and can’t score when he’s healthy.
The front office has known about these structural holes for years. No legitimate top-six right wing — the single loudest alarm in every end-of-season analysis. A left-side defense corps that’s average outside the Fox-Gavrikov pairing. A power play that collapsed from third in the league (26.4%) in 2023-24 to 27th (17.9%) in 2024-25, and didn’t recover. Lafrenière and Othmann haven’t developed on the timeline the front office needed them to. These aren’t surprise problems. They were documented, debated, and apparently ignored.
Then January happened. Shesterkin and Adam Fox both went down, and the team went 2-11-0 over 13 games, allowing 4.62 goals per game. On January 14th, an 8-4 loss to Ottawa. Two days later, Drury’s letter to fans arrived — “retool, not rebuild,” he called it — and confirmed Artemi Panarin would be moved. Panarin, the team’s best offensive player, was traded to Los Angeles on February 4th. That’s the sequence: your two best players go down, you absorb an 8-4 beatdown from Ottawa, then you ship out your top scorer. The Rangers opened the season 0-6-1 at home, finished 9-18-7 at MSG — second-worst home record in the entire NHL — and had five shutout losses in their first seven home games. The “Fire Drury” chants at MSG weren’t subtle. James Dolan’s response: “Chris Drury is a winner and competitor. The culture doesn’t turn around overnight. Don’t give up on my team.”
Captain J.T. Miller on #NYR getting eliminated from playoff contention in March:
"I don't think anybody thought we'd be where we are right now, eliminated with this many games left. But that's not where my mind is right now. It sucks. Obviously, that's the worst. You don't want…
— Mollie Walker (@MollieeWalkerr) March 26, 2026
JT Miller put it plainly after elimination: “I don’t think anybody thought we’d be where we are. It sucks… it’s the worst.” Mika Zibanejad was more measured but no less damning: “It hasn’t come as a surprise in terms of (elimination) happening. It was just a matter of time if you look at the standings.” The captain and the top center both essentially said the outcome was inevitable once you looked at the roster. That’s not frustration talking after a bad loss — that’s an internal acknowledgment that the team was constructed poorly.
Blue Seat Blogs lays out the systemic failure plainly: the pattern of missed acquisitions, of assuming existing pieces would develop, of treating Shesterkin’s presence as structural insurance rather than something that demanded an elite supporting cast. The post-season executive change amounted to development director Jed Ortmeyer getting let go. Drury was retained.
There are real resources heading into the offseason — roughly $27 million in cap space and a fifth overall pick. Gabe Perreault put up 13 points in 13 March games and showed something worth building around. The pieces exist to do this correctly. The question has never been whether the Rangers have the cap flexibility or the draft capital. It’s whether the people making the decisions have the judgment and the urgency to use them right — and the last two years have not provided reasons for confidence on that front.
Shesterkin is 30 years old and under contract through 2034. Every season he plays at this level for a team that can’t stay out of its own way is a season that doesn’t come back.
