Chris Drury was always the Rangers’ guy – now it’s time to prove them right
The New York Rangers will continue to be constructed by Chris Drury.
On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli discussed Drury’s contract extension with the Rangers and outlined how the team could rebound next season.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Drury got an extension in New York. You can argue about the way the season went, but giving him the security to say, ‘You have the runway to do this properly and do it your way’, I think it’s a smart move, even if it’s not all that popular amongst Rangers fans. You have to pick a lane. You can’t sit in the middle.
Frank Seravalli: I think the clear, definitive choice from James Dolan and Rangers ownership, the entire time, has been that Drury is their guy. This extension just memorializes that for everyone to see there is zero question about who is in control here. As this season went along and as the team came off the rails as a result of the Jacob Trouba and Chris Kreider memo that went out to the league about their availability, they were 12-4-1 to start and 12-7-1 at the time of the memo. A lot of people were wondering, ‘Is Drury going to survive this chaos?’ They seem to have plunged into that because of that memo. The answer that I got every time the question was asked was, ‘Why even ask? Drury is the guy.’ To see that now, for everyone to see, I think is a really important step. Beyond that, this is a team that went to two Conference Finals in three seasons. They won the Presidents’ Trophy. To think that this team is in complete and utter disarray with one of the best goalies on Earth under contract for the foreseeable future, plus a Norris Trophy-level defenseman in Adam Fox who surely got some votes again this year, and a forward group that, while aging at some points in time, has the potential to really carry this team moving forward, I’m looking at it as the Rangers being a prime bounce-back candidate with a couple of really smart moves this summer.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here: