The Rangers were sellers before the NHL Trade Deadline, shipping out Ryan Lindgren, Jimmy Vesey and Reilly Smith after earlier trades involving Jacob Trouba and Kaapo Kakko in December.
“In my mind, something broke during the season and went the other way and we couldn’t handle it,” Shesterkin said at the end of last season.
Sullivan’s job is to fix all of it because the Rangers are still a win-now team.
Their core players are all between the ages of 23 and 33, and they have young, skilled forwards — 20-year-old Gabe Perreault, and 22-year-olds Brennan Othmann and Brett Berard — working to become full-time NHL players this season.
“There’s a mix of veteran guys that are still in the prime of their careers and young guys that are pushing to establish themselves in the NHL,” Sullivan said. “My experience being around a number of different teams over the years is that a combination of youth, energy and enthusiasm with a veteran presence that has accomplished what this group has accomplished is pretty good. It creates a healthy, competitive environment and I think we’re all at our best when we have internal push. I think we have that with these guys.”
The group has changed.
Gone are Kreider, who was the Rangers’ longest tenured player (since 2012), and K’Andre Miller. Both were traded this offseason — Kreider to the Anaheim Ducks and Miller to the Carolina Hurricanes.
New York signed defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov to a seven-year, $49 million contract ($7 million average annual value) with the intention of playing him with Fox to give it a defense pair capable of playing big minutes against top lines.
Cuylle is expected to take on a bigger role, filling some of the minutes and expected production the Rangers were getting from Kreider. He had 45 points (20 goals, 25 assists) in 82 games last season after 21 points (13 goals, eight assists) in 81 games as a rookie in 2023-24.
“His power game, his ability to go to the net, his physical edge that he brings to the line that he’s on is impressive,” Sullivan said. “He’s a different player than ‘Kreids,’ so I don’t know it’s going to be an identical role, but it’ll be similar.”
The Rangers need more out of Zibanejad, whose 20 goals in 82 games last season were his fewest since scoring 14 in 56 games in 2016-17, his first season in New York.
Sullivan said he’s going to push Lafreniere to be better. He scored 17 goals in 82 games last season, an 11-goal drop from his NHL-high of 28 in 2023-24. There will be the same push for Shesterkin, Panarin, Miller, Trocheck, Fox, Braden Schneider and Will Borgen to be more impactful. Perreault, Othmann, Berard, Matt Rempe and Adam Edstrom will be given opportunities to play bigger roles.
“I know what our challenge is and that’s part of the conversation I’ve had with some of the players throughout the course of this offseason,” Sullivan said. “When you look at the roster on paper it’s a very talented group. There is, I think, the makings of being a real competitive team.”
