Less than an hour after firing Peter Laviolette, New York Rangers’ president and general manager Chris Drury acknowledged there was blame to spread around, meeting with reporters Saturday and saying, “Everyone here — players, management, staff — needs to take ownership of the season.”
“Leading into the season, given the success we had the last few years, we had high expectations,” Drury said on a Zoom call. “Quite simply, we fell short across the board. Nobody here takes it lightly. We know our fans are frustrated and they deserve a better season than this. That starts with me.”
Laviolette, the seventh-winningest coach in NHL history, finished his Rangers’ tenure with a 94-59-11 record, and Drury said he expects he will someday be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. The Rangers won the Presidents’ Trophy in 2023-24, then failed to make the playoffs this season. Drury also fired associate coach Phil Housley. Assistants Dan Muse and Michael Peca will have the chance to interview for the next staff, according to a league source.
Drury said the team will have “direct, honest conversations” with players during Monday’s exit meetings.
Asked if owner James Dolan has given him assurance that his job is safe, Drury declined to comment.
“I’m not going to get into personal, private conversations I have with Mr. D,” he said. “I can tell you my focus is doing what I think is right to make this organization better. We’re obviously all frustrated and disappointed with how things ended and not being in the playoffs. My focus is on doing everything I can to make sure we’re a playoff team next year.”
Drury mentioned multiple times in his news conference that he wants to be a playoff team next season.
“It starts with evaluating what went on in the season: what moves worked, what players worked, what players didn’t,” Drury said. “That’s an ongoing thing throughout the season. … With the extra time of not being in the playoffs, we’re going to continue to look up and down the roster, up and down the organization to see what we need to do to be back where we want to be next year.”
Drury said he would not go through what he saw issue by issue.
“We all tried different things throughout the year and looked at different things and ways to spark the team and ways to get us more points, and it just didn’t come together.”
Drury did not rule out hiring a first-time head coach, saying his eyes “are wide open” to different types of candidates. Hiring first-year coaches is typically not how Dolan handles coaching searches. Only two of the Rangers’ coaches Dolan has hired in his 26 years running Madison Square Garden have had no previous head coaching experience.
Multiple players, including Calvin de Haan, Zac Jones and Kaapo Kakko, publicly expressed frustration with healthy scratches this season, but Drury said Laviolette communicated with players on where they stood.
“Communication is a priority,” Drury said. “Being a former player myself, I always liked to know where I stood. We always tried to do that with players every single day.”
Asked about The Athletic’s report Thursday that Artemi Panarin and MSG paid financial settlements to a Rangers employee last year after she alleged that Panarin sexually assaulted her, Drury declined comment. He pointed to the MSG statement, which said: “The matter has been resolved.”
(Photo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
