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Former Rangers coach explains why last season was ‘much tougher battle’
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- Former Rangers coach explains why last season was ‘much tougher battle’
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The New York Rangers are on the brink of being eliminated from playoff contention for the second consecutive season. With 10 games left to play, they trail the New York Islanders by 20 points for the second wild card in the Eastern Conference.
Do the math. It's not pretty for the last-place Rangers .
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Of course, that fate became an inevitability long before a 2-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Monday, when the Rangers mustered just 10 shots in Mika Zibanejad's 1,000th career NHL game .
General manager Chris Drury shipped away defenseman Carson Soucy and star winger Artemi Panarin before the Olympic break and dealt gritty center Sam Carrick right before the trade deadline March 6 — all part of New York 's decision to embrace a retool, as announced in a Jan. 16 letter.
The Blueshirts showed renewed life after the Milan-Cortina Olympics, earning points in eight of nine games, including their first four-game winning streak since October 2024. That spark was short-lived. New York followed the win streak with five consecutive losses (0-4-1), plummeting back to the second-worst record in the League with 65 points (28-34-9).
Former Rangers coach Peter Laviolette knows a thing or two about finishing an unsuccessful campaign, most recently experiencing it last season before he was fired following two seasons on Broadway.
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"There's a lot of things that become obvious at some point in the season," Laviolette said last week on the Tri-State Hockey Podcast. "Even when you're not eliminated, it would be miraculous for anybody that's 12 points out or 15 points out at this point to make the playoffs. Even though it's not mathematically over, it's near-impossible — 99.9 percent, it's not going to happen."
The Rangers might not be battling for a playoff berth, but the final three weeks this season are not inconsequential. Chief among New York's to-do list is seasoning its young talent — notably 2023 first-round pick Gabe Perreaul t.
"It's about looking in the mirror, it's about blocking out the noise, and it's about playing hard," Laviolette explained. "Those situations are tough. It was tough in the second year when I was there, and we're trying to still push towards the end for a playoff spot."
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The 2024-25 Rangers came up six points shy of a wild-card berth in Laviolette's second season, becoming the fourth team in NHL history to miss the playoffs after winning the Presidents' Trophy the year before.
"Every year is different. There's no question that one year is not the same as the next, and you have to work every year towards being the team that you want to be," Laviolette stated. "And if you don't, you find yourself slipping down the standings, and you can head to the bottom pretty quick."
Laviolette led the 2023-24 Rangers to a franchise-record 55 wins and 114 points in his first season at the helm. New York reached the Eastern Conference Final, falling in six games to the eventual Stanley Cup-champion Florida Panthers .
Things rapidly took a turn for the worse the following season, amid locker room turmoil and a steep decline in production across the board.
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"I thought that we did a really good job of just working at becoming a team, playing hard for each other in that first year, and then there was a lot of change," he continued. "There were things that definitely changed inside the room. I'm not necessarily sure that was exactly from the room, but there was just noise that became around our team, and things did change a little bit. For me, it was a much tougher battle in the second year."
Said noise stemmed from Drury's decision to waive alternate captain Barclay Goodrow in the 2024 offseason, a failed attempt to trade captain Jacob Trouba that summer — ultimately culminating in a December trade that sent him to the Anaheim Ducks — and a memo sent to opposing GMs floating the longest-tenured Blueshirt, Chris Kreider , as a potential trade asset.
The roster turnover continued into 2025-26. Drury dealt Kreider to the Ducks in the 2025 offseason and traded New York's leading scorer, Panarin , to the Los Angeles Kings in February.
Peter Laviolette explains how Rangers can craft 'culture' in lost season
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Resurrecting a flailing team culture is easier said than done.
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"To try and describe what culture is, somebody laid it out for me one time to understand it a little bit better," said Laviolette. "You have to talk about it. You have to communicate it inside of your team.
"I think that there's things that you talk about leading into a season on what it is that you want to be, and how you want to be perceived, not only on the ice but in the room. What kind of a team do you want to function as?"
New York named J.T. Miller the 29th captain in franchise history ahead of the 2025-26 season after Drury acquired the former Rangers center in a trade with the Vancouver Canucks last January. Miller championed a "No B.S" slogan in an effort to wipe the slate clean — although the results are mixed.
"There's things that go on through the course of the season that maybe happen, and it could be unexpected, and you have to react on the fly a little bit," Laviolette explained. "And sometimes it happens automatically, and then sometimes maybe it needs a boost or a reminder."
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In an ideal world, that accountability comes from the top. Laviolette cited alternate captain Vincent Trocheck as a player he leaned on last season.
"It is about connecting with your leaders. And when you mentioned 'Troch,' you're talking about one of the best leaders in that room," Laviolette lauded. "Whether he's playing in a summer league game, or whether he's playing to win the Stanley Cup, or he's playing and he doesn't have a chance to make the playoffs — I think you're going to get a lot out of him."
Trocheck has 48 points (15 goals, 33 assists) and a minus-16 rating in 58 games this season, missing some time in October and November with an upper-body injury.
"It reveals character, but you hope that your leaders — and a guy like Troch — continue to lead by example, not only in the room and what he says and what he does, but also on the ice," said Laviolette. "And so that doesn't surprise me that he's still pushing hard."
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Laviolette also pointed to another alternate captain, Zibanejad, who's enjoying a bounce-back campaign in 2025-26.
"It's really good to see Mika having a strong year and coming back and putting up a lot of points," said Laviolette. "He's a terrific person and terrific player. There was a lot of weight on everybody in that second year. That's good to see."
Zibanejad recorded 62 points (20 goals, 42 assists) in 82 games in 2024-25, playing to his lowest point-per-game pace since 2017-18. He notably struggled to replicate his typical production on a Rangers power play that sank to fifth-worst in the League .
It's been a different story in 2025-26. Zibanejad paces New York with 30 goals and 67 points in 70 games, as well as 14 goals on the man-advantage. He reached the 30-goal mark for the fourth time in his 15-year NHL career.
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"It's good to see guys doing well. I'm sure there's a lot of frustration still," noted Laviolette. "It's New York, and the fans are great, they're passionate, they want to win. And if it's not happening there, it becomes a tougher situation."
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