4 Rangers most deserving of blame during pathetic losing stretch

The New York Rangers entered the 2024-25 season with Stanley Cup aspirations, and for good reason. This team won the Presidents' Trophy last season and fell in six hard-fought games in the Eastern Conference Finals to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers. The core has been in place for a while, and the expectations were understandably cup or bust.

New York began the year with a 12-4-1 record, playing like one of the best teams in the NHL. Since then, though, just about everything has gone wrong. The team has won just three of its last 13 games to fall to 15-14-1 on the year. If the playoffs began today, the Rangers would be watching from home. They're closer to the Montreal Canadiens - the worst team in the Eastern Conference - than they are to sitting in a top-three position in the Metropolitan Division points-wise. That's how bad things are right now.

The Rangers have done things like trade captain Jacob Trouba, give goaltender Igor Shesterkin a massive extension, and even scratch Kaapo Kakko. Nothing has worked.

Virtually everyone deserves some blame for the team struggling as much as it has, but these four individuals deserve most of the blame.

4) Chris Kreider is on the trade block for a reason

Nobody has been more of a dynamic goal scorer in the last three years in a Rangers uniform than Chris Kreider, who scored 127 goals from 2022-2024. This season, though, has been a struggle for Kreider - especially lately.

The 33-year-old has 10 goals and one assist for a total of 11 points in 27 games played. Yes, he has missed three games due to injury, and it doesn't help that he's been in the middle of trade rumors, but to say he has struggled particularly in five-on-five play would be an understatement.

Kreider has a total of four goals and one assist at even strength this season, which for a player who has spent a ton of time on the team's top six this season is jarring. Kreider has only appeared in 10 of the 13 games during this rough skid, but he has totaled one goal and two points while averaging nearly 17.5 minutes of ice time per game.

Thanks to his struggles, Kreider began Sunday's game in St. Louis on the team's fourth line. Predictably, he did not contribute in the stat sheet, and was a -2. The Rangers need a whole lot more than they're getting from him.

3) Igor Shesterkin has not been the dominant goaltender he's supposed to be

This one might be a bit unfair, especially since the Rangers defense has been among the worst in the NHL, but goaltenders like Igor Shesterkin are supposed to overcome bad defense, especially after he inks a $92 million extension.

Shesterkin has gone just 2-7 in the nine games he has started in this 13-game stretch, and he has allowed two or more goals in all nine of those games. To take it one step further, Shesterkin has allowed five goals twice and four goals another two times in those nine games. It's really hard for teams to win when the goaltender allows four or five goals essentially every other night like Shesterkin has been doing.

Yes, he has a .900 save percentage in those nine games, but even that is low for a player of Shesterkin's caliber. He has a .918 save percentage in his career, and had a .911 save percentage in his first 13 appearances of the season.

Again, the team in front of him has not been good, but that does not absolve Shesterkin who has not met his lofty expectations during the team's subpar play.

2) Mika Zibanejad appears to be a shell of his former star-self

There isn't a player out there that Rangers fans are more frustrated with than Mika Zibanejad, especially now with Jacob Trouba being traded. It's hard to blame Rangers fans for feeling that way.

Zibanejad is expected to be the team's No. 1 center, and he simply hasn't played like one all season long. Overall, he has scored just six goals and has 21 points in 30 games while also being a -15. He's run into some bad luck as he's shot just 9.0 percent, his worst mark since 2012-13, but for a guy who has averaged nearly a point per game in each of the last three seasons, Zibanejad's performance this season has been unacceptable. It's only gotten worse during this 13-game stretch.

The 31-year-old has two goals and five assists for seven points in those 13 games. He's been a little more productive than Kreider, but that's not saying much. Sunday's game saw Zibanejad get bumped down to the third line and play just 13:04 - his lowest TOI in a game since 2019 while he was with the Ottawa Senators.

The Rangers aren't going anywhere with this version of Zibanejad. His contract and his no-move clause means he's almost certainly going to be in New York for another while, so all Rangers fans can do is hope something miraculously turns around sooner rather than later.

1) Chris Drury hasn't proven he can build a Stanley Cup winner

The expectations were clear — it's cup or bust in New York. Honestly, these have been the expectations for years now. Drury inherited a core capable of winning now, and he's done very little to impact it in a positive way.

Drury has made some good moves over the years, like giving Adam Fox a team-friendly extension, signing Jonathan Quick to a cheap deal, and even finding a way out of the Trouba contract, but for the most part, he hasn't been able to put the pieces around the core to build a winner.

The Pavel Buchnevich trade was a disaster, the Barclay Goodrow signing was just as bad, and his inability to acquire an impactful right winger to play in their top six has been detrimental.

There isn't much Drury could've done this offseason in New York's financial situation, especially when his expensive players mostly have no-move clauses, but it feels as if he could've done better than Reilly Smith as the right-wing solution when he gave up a second-round pick. It feels like he could've done better than Sam Carrick as a bottom-six forward. He certainly could've handled the Trouba offseason trade talk better.

Drury's job ever since he took over was to get this team over the hump and win the Stanley Cup, yet the Rangers feel further away from achieving that goal than they did when Drury took over. The players have to play better, but this roster doesn't look close to good enough, either.