James Guillory-Imagn ImagesWith New York Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury out of sight, it was the onus of Mike Sullivan to be the first one to answer questions regarding Drury’s letter that was issued on Friday afternoon, discussing the team’s intentions to retool, as he put it.
The letter was headlined with Drury’s desire to retool the roster, which he emphasized could mean “saying goodbye to players that have brought us and our fans great moments over the years” (a.k.a. trading prominent veteran players).
The Rangers are currently in last place in the Eastern Conference standings and have essentially accepted the obvious fate that they are not a Stanley Cup-contending team and will likely miss the playoffs entirely for the second consecutive season.
For Sullivan, who was made the highest-paid coach in NHL history by the Rangers in May and was brought in to make an immediate impact on the franchise, this must be a tough pill to swallow.
While stating that he didn’t necessarily anticipate a retool before joining the Rangers, he notably refused to shy away from the clear fact that the team is not in a contending state due to the construction of the roster and where some of the core’s players are at in their respective careers.
“I don't know that I can sit here and say that was on the the forefront of my mind, but I think when you look at teams, and teams go through cycles, just as far as where core players are at in their career span, and where you think they're going to be moving forward,” Sullivan said about weather if anticipated the Rangers retooling.
“This is a competitive league. There's a lot of parity in the league. I think this group has had a pretty solid run. They went to two conference finals. They gave themselves a chance to win the Stanley Cup, which is the ultimate goal. Teams go through cycles, and so the way I look at it right now, at this point, is this is just part of the process. I'll do everything I can do to be the best coach I can be for this organization. I'm completely invested in trying to help this organization have success.”
Despite showing strides in their overall game, specifically from a defensive standpoint to kick off this season compared to the 2024-25 campaign, those strides have suddenly gone to the wayside, as the Rangers are in the midst of a five-game losing streak and have plummeted in the standings.
It has been evident for a while, but especially at this current point in time, that change in the form of roster personnel was desperately needed.
“It's probably a fairly common-sensical statement to suggest that, when you don't meet expectations or you don't have success, that change is inevitable in pro sports,” Sullivan said. “I think our team is well aware of that, and that's, to a certain extent, what we all sign up for. We're all human beings. We all understand the business, and we all understand the game.”
The rest of the season will not be about winning games; it will be about the next steps Drury opts to take in terms of who he is looking to trade, on top of the future direction of the franchise, which could be viewed as a distraction from a team standpoint.
It’s on Sullivan to weather the storm and try to maintain a competitive mindset through this stretch, even if staying competitive is not in the organization's best interest moving forward.
“We're going to try to put our best team on the ice, or our best game on the ice every night,” Sullivan emphasized. “We're going to control what we can, and the things that we can't control, are things that we can't allow to affect our ability to play the game. From my experience, when you do that, and you put your best game on the ice as an individual, as a group, things tend to take care of themselves.”