As we close out our 2025-2026 report cards, we focus our attention on Chris Drury and the mess he created last season. Drury had a strong July, but that is for next season’s report card. July 1 is generally viewed as the start of the season, as that’s when contracts expire and teams truly begin building for the upcoming season, so the 2026 NHL Draft falls in scope for Chris Drury’s report card grade for 2025-2026. I don’t make the rules, that’s just how it is. For consistencies sake, let’s make the date range from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026.
Chris Drury’s offseason wasn’t enough
The Rangers made a bunch of signings in the offseason, with the biggest splash being the Vlad Gavrikov signing. Gavrikov took a bit of a discount to come to New York for what he thought was a winning situation and to play with Artemi Panarin. The cap space was made available by trading Chris Kreider to Anaheim for pennies on the dollar, but that came before July 1.
The roster space for Gavrikov came from trading K’Andre Miller to Carolina for a 2026 1st round pick and prospect Scott Morrow. On the ice, we all knew that was going to come back to haunt the Rangers, and it clearly did. Carolina won the Cup with Miller as their 1D. Morrow barely played, but the 1st round pick help land Pavel Dorofeyev from Vegas, which we will get to in a bit. Off the ice, it was clear Miller was never going to hit his potential in New York. The trade had to be made, but boy does it look bad right now.
Chris Drury added some veteran depth in the offseason with Taylor Raddysh’s two year contract and Conor Sheary’s PTO. But for the most part, the offseason was essentially replacing Kreider and Miller with Gavrikov and…hopes and dreams? Drury didn’t do enough to replace Kreider’s production, and it showed as the Rangers simply couldn’t score last season.
In-season moves were fine, but not great
Chris Drury saw the writing on the wall right after the Winter Classic. The Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin injuries accelerated a sell off at the trade deadline. Those injuries likely cost the Rangers a minimum of 8-10 points in the standings, possibly more. Funny enough, that might put them at 24th in the NHL, right where San Jose moved up to 2nd overall. But the injuries happened, and the sell off started in January by sending Carson Soucy to the Islanders for a 3rd round pick that turned into Charlie Morrison.
The Artemi Panarin trade was the big move of the season, sending him to the LA Kings for an underwhelming return of Liam Greentree and a 3rd round pick, which turned into Tomas Chrenko. The trade was underwhelming as it didn’t include a high pick, but Greentree is legit and the Rangers got tremendous value in Chrenko.
Sam Carrick was sent to Buffalo for 3rd and 6th round picks. The 3rd round pick was used in the Dorofeyev trade. The 6th round pick was used on Andre Mondoux.
There were some other minor trades: Brennan Othmann to Calgary for Jacob Battaglia was the best of the bunch. Sending Derrick Pouliot to Chicago for Aidan Thompson flew under the radar but added to the center depth in Hartford.
Chris Drury’s in-season moves weren’t bad, but they weren’t homeruns either. There’s a strong argument that the Rangers never should have acquired Soucy and that the Panarin trade should have yielded a better return. The end result of both trades turned out to be fine, but it does make you wonder what goes through Chris Drury’s mind when he makes these trades.
On the bright side, the Rangers may have found a diamond in the rough on waivers with Tye Kartye.
The draft is where Drury started to turn a corner
Maybe Chris Drury realized that brute forcing your way to a Stanley Cup doesn’t work anymore. People seem to forget how talented the Florida Panthers actually are, after all. Drury has since pivoted to adding more skill, and the 2026 NHL Draft was where we started to see plans set in motion.
The Pavel Dorofeyev trade was very opportunistic, if risky. Vegas needed to unload their star winger and the Rangers had the cap space to make it work. Two 1st round picks is steep, but any trade of this magnitude will have a steep cost and significant risk. Such is life. It’s the type of move we want the Rangers to make, a swing on big time skill and scoring. The contract is a bit high right now, but could be a bargain as the cap increases and, hopefully, Dorofeyev continues to improve on his back-to-back 35+ goal seasons.
Dorofeyev was the big fish for Chris Drury at the draft, but he also had a very solid draft as well. Alberts Smits could be the best defenseman in the draft at 5th overall. Drury also swung for the fences with high end talent like Chrenko, Morrison, and Ben MacBeath in the early rounds. Even the “questionable” goalie pick in the third round had a high ceiling.
Chris Drury’s draft week was a stark reversal of approach, for the better.
Summary
It’s hard to absolve Chris Drury of all the bad he’s done since taking over as GM of the Rangers. The 2025-2026 season is no different, as his summer plans blew up in his face and the Rangers finished 30th in the NHL. But we also can’t ignore the pivot away from grit and more to skill at the draft. The approach has changed for the better. He’s not done yet, as this is a multi-year process to get the Rangers back to true Stanley Cup contenders. That said, he did his job in June.
Unfortunately his July through May were brutal.
