Thirty-seven Presidents’ Trophies have been handed out in NHL history. Eight of those winners went on to hoist the Stanley Cup that same spring. The 2023-24 New York Rangers were not one of those eight — and now, two years later, they’ve managed something even more historically dubious: they are the only franchise in NHL history to miss the playoffs in back-to-back seasons after winning the Trophy. Not a runner-up. Not a fluke. The only one. Across 37 tries and four decades, no franchise has faceplanted quite this completely.
That’s not a curse. That’s a front office.
What “Running It Back” Actually Cost This Franchise
Summer 2024 was the fork in the road, and Chris Drury chose the path of least resistance. Coming off a 55-23-4 season, 114 points, a Presidents’ Trophy, and a career-high 119 points from Artemi Panarin, running it back was the natural instinct — same core, same structure, a few patches here and there, and try again. It’s the most human impulse in sports management, and it’s almost always wrong.
The warning signs were there. Mika Zibanejad was 31 and had started to show the subtle cracks that precede a real drop — the giveaways, the defensive lapses, the moments where “elite center” stopped being accurate. A power play that had ranked 4th in the NHL across five combined seasons had the look of a unit coasting on a system that opponents had begun to solve. A front office with genuine conviction in its own read of the roster would have treated summer 2024 as a restructuring opportunity, not a retool. Drury treated it like a maintenance window.
So they entered 2024-25 with limited cap flexibility, missed on Jake Guentzel in free agency, and watched the season unravel in real time: 12-4-1 out of the gate, then 15 losses in 19 games, and a power play that finished 27th in the league. A catastrophic collapse from a unit that was supposed to be a franchise strength. The elimination came April 12, 2025 — a 7-3 drubbing at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes — and Peter Laviolette was fired before the dust settled.
J.T. Miller on the Rangers being eliminated from postseason contention:
"I don't think anybody thought we'd be where we are right now – eliminated with this many games left. It sucks. Obviously it's the worst. Now we just want to play a good hockey games to end the season" pic.twitter.com/3MOKu8CrHq
— Rangers Videos (@SNYRangers) March 26, 2026
The Presidents’ Trophy Hangover Is Real and It Lasted Two Years
Year two was supposed to be different. Mike Sullivan was hired. Sullivan’s message was accountability and a new standard. What followed was a 28-35-9 season, 65 points, and the worst record in the Eastern Conference. They started 0-6-1 at home and finished 9-18-7 at MSG — second-worst in the NHL. Per TSN’s reporting from elimination day, J.T. Miller said: “I don’t think anybody thought we’d be where we are. It sucks … it’s the worst.” Zibanejad, who bounced back to 78 points in 2025-26 and was genuinely the team’s best center, put it more bluntly: “It hasn’t come as a surprise in terms of (elimination) happening.”
That’s the part that should haunt Drury more than any trade return or cap number. Miller said he didn’t expect the collapse; Zibanejad said the elimination wasn’t a surprise. Those two things being true simultaneously tells you everything about how far the culture had drifted from the 2024 peak.
Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin both missed 13 consecutive games between January 8 and February 5, and the Rangers went 2-11-0 in that stretch while surrendering 4.62 goals per game. When a team’s two best players go out and the infrastructure collapses that completely, it isn’t injury bad luck — it’s a roster with no load-bearing walls.
A Real Rebuild Means Hard Decisions, Not Another Retool
January 2026, Drury sent a letter to fans announcing a retool and informing Panarin he wouldn’t be re-signed. Then they traded Panarin to the Los Angeles Kings for prospect Liam Greentree and a conditional 3rd-round pick — retaining 50% of his salary. Critics panned the return immediately, and for good reason: a 119-point performer nets you a prospect and a late-round pick. That’s what desperation looks like when you wait too long to make the decision.
Kreider went to Anaheim. J.T. Miller went to Carolina for Scott Morrow and a conditional first. Roster stripping is underway — but stripping a roster and rebuilding one are different things. Right now the Rangers are somewhere in between, which is the most dangerous place to be. Zibanejad is 33, carrying $8.5M AAV through 2029-30. Shesterkin is 30, signed through 2032-33 at $11.5M, and his prime years — ages 28 through 32 — are the ones this organization just spent losing in back-to-back non-playoff seasons.
The comparison that keeps nagging at me: the 2014-15 Boston Bruins missed the playoffs the year after their own Presidents’ Trophy and at least had the clarity to blow it up and start over. Rangers management has been slower, more reluctant, more convinced at every step that the next year would be different. It wasn’t. It isn’t. Dylan Garand at 23 backing up Shesterkin is a real thing now — the organizational depth that seemed nonexistent a year ago is starting to form — but the question heading into 2026-27 is whether Drury has actually internalized what the last two years revealed, or whether the top Eastern Conference draft pick becomes the centerpiece of yet another “we’re one piece away” sales pitch that wastes another year of Shesterkin’s window.
Sullivan said the organization is “doing everything we can to instill a certain standard.” That standard currently stands at zero playoff appearances in two years. The next step isn’t instilling anything. It’s deciding whether this is a rebuild or a retool — and this time, getting the answer right.
