Don't Judge Chris Drury for What He Was Never Asked To Do Until Now
Chris Drury is reshaping this New York Rangers roster in his image. Judge him for that. Not for not doing it when the justification just wasn't there.
Let's jump in the Wayback Machine with Mr. Peabody and Sherman for a moment.
The date is May 5, 2021. The Letter is three years in the rearview mirror. Two nights prior, at 7:40 of the second period in a game against the Washington Capitals, Tom Wilson infamously rag-dolled Artemi Panarin. NHL Player Safety, as is too frequently their wont, would look the other way on supplemental discipline. One day prior, the Rangers released a statement taking shots at the league for their failure to do so.
Then came the shocking move: Team President John Davidson and General Manger Jeff Gorton were suddenly and summarily fired, and Assistant GM Chris Drury was elevated to assume both roles. Reporting for ESPN, Emily Kaplan called the dual firings "a stunning move considering the Rangers are on the tail end of a rebuild, one they completed ahead of schedule."
That last bit is the important part for what I want to discuss about Chris Drury's tenure running the New York Rangers.
Let's remember where the Rangers were at the time Drury took over. Gone already in the immediate wake of The Letter were captain Ryan McDonagh, J.T. Miller, Rick Nash, Kevin Hayes, and Mats Zuccarello. The months that followed saw Jimmy Vesey and Vladislav Namestnikov shipped out. Brady Skjei and Marc Staal would follow not long after. The contracts of Henrik Lundqvist, Dan Girardi, and Kevin Shattenkirk were bought out.
The major work of rebuilding the New York Rangers after The Letter was already complete, the timeline expedited by landing the marquee free agent of the 2019 offseason in Artemi Panarin, just a little more than a year after they announced they were blowing it all up.
When Drury took over, the Rangers' roster already had Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Ryan Strome, Pavel Buchnevich, Chris Kreider, and Jacob Trouba, with Kreider and Panarin the oldest of that set at age 29. There was also an influx of youth joining the team in Alexis Lafrenière, Kaapo Kakko, Adam Fox, Filip Chytil, Ryan Lindgren, and K'Andre Miller—all 22-years old or younger. Prospects Vitali Kravtsov and Libor Hájek had yet to bust out. And then, of course, there was Prince Igor Shesterkin inheriting the crown of King Henrik Lundqvist.
The new core of the New York Rangers was already set. Now that we have the benefit of hindsight, we can have mixed feelings about this core, or worse. But you had little reason to have those feelings at that time. The new direction of the Rangers was already firmly established by the time that Drury took the reins.
I recap all of this to remind you of exactly what Chris Drury inherited when Gorton and JD were fired. One of the most frequent lines of criticism I've heard aimed at Drury is that he didn't immediately begin wheeling and dealing in a major way. As a critique of Drury, I think this is wrong on two counts.
