New York Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury accomplished everything he wanted to do during the 2025 offseason.
Drury called these past few weeks“busy and exciting” as the Rangers have made a slew of moves over the past few weeks.
What exactly has made this offseason such a grand success so far?
The Blueshirts opened the summer with arguably the most monumental choices by trading longtime Ranger forward Chris Kreider.
It seemed at one point that Kreider would finish his career in New York, but it didn’t quite work out that way.
Kreider struggled with injuries and saw a steep decrease in his overall stats during the 2024-25 season. On top of it all, he was the subject of trade rumors throughout the year, which certainly didn’t help make matters any better.
While the 34-year-old should still have some quality hockey in his arsonal, Kreider’s decline was obvious to all watching the Rangers and he’s still under contract for another two seasons at an average annual value of $6.5 million.
Drury is no stranger to dumping salary as he traded Jacob Trouba without retaining any of his salary and waived Barclay Goodrow when he was still under contract for another couple of seasons.
The goal was not to retain any of Kreider’s salary, and that’s exactly what Drury did, trading him to the Ducks, who took on his entire contract.
Speaking to the media on Wednesday, Drury confirmed the Kreider trade had a lot to do with the ability to have more cap space.
“It’s not always the easiest thing to do,” Drury said about trading Kreider. I could tell you that Chris himself and his agent were terrific to deal with in trying to figure out a solution here… A big piece of it was salary cap. There’s only so much to go around in trying to figure out the pieces that fit under the cap as we tried to rework the roster.”
The next big decision came at around the time of the 2025 NHL Draft when the Rangers had to decide whether to keep their 12th overall pick this year or 2026 first-round pick.
As part of the J.T. Miller trade, the Rangers had to relinquish either their 2025 or 2026 first-round pick.
Drury ultimately decided to keep his 2026 first rounder and transfer the 2025 12th overall pick to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Despite not holding a selection in the opening round, the Rangers were able to draft forward Malcolm Spence with the 43rd overall pick, a player many predicted would be off the board by the end of the first round, further validating New York’s big decision.
“Malcolm is an excellent winger, power play, PK (penalty kill), plays the game the right way,” Rangers director of player personnel John Lilley said. “He doesn't cheat the game. We’ve valued him for a few years now… I think he was projected to go quite a bit higher, so when the opportunity presented itself, we were thrilled to get him in that spot, and we think he's got a lot of potential and a high-character player.”
When it came to free agency, the Rangers were able to fetch one of the most sought-after players available on the market.
There’s no doubt that the Blueshirts struggled from a defensive standpoint this past season, which is why the team went out and gave Vladislav Gavrikov a seven-year, $49 million contract.
“It starts in our D-zone,” Drury said when explaining the Gavrikov signing. “We have to be better in our zone, we have to be better in front of (Igor Shesterkin) and (Jonathan Quick). To me, that’s the mindset he shows up with every single day.
Vladislav Gavrikov Is The Most Important Piece Of The Rangers' Massive Defensive Reconstruction The New York Rangers made a substantial financial commitment, giving defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov a seven-year, $49 million contract.
“The size, the reach, the competitiveness, the way he defends and the way he is able to complement his partner, whether that’s Fox or any other of our right-shot D that we have, that’s what excited all of us in targeting this player. Thrilled to be able to have him as a key part of that D corps.”
The addition of Gavrikov made K’Andre Miller more expendable whom the Rangers were hesitant to give a long-term contract extension to.
K’Andre’s lack of growth made it difficult for the Rangers to fathom committing a large amount of money to him.
The Hurricanes were interested in the 25-year-old defenseman, and the two teams completed a sign-and-trade where the Rangers were able to acquire Scott Morrow, a conditional 2026 first-round pick, and a 2026 second-round pick.
“With a young player that’s a year or a couple years away from free agency, it’s not always the easiest thing to come to an agreement on a long-term contract,” Drury said about Miller. “We just felt at this time it was best to allow him to explore a different opportunity.”
The last major order of business was to sign Will Cuylle to a two-year contract extension worth $3.9 million per season.
Cuylle is an emerging young talent for the Rangers who has shown a lot of potential. The Blueshirts were able to escape not giving Cuylle a long-term contract extension just yet, while no other teams attempted to offer-sheet him.
Now, the Rangers will be able to evaluate Cuylle’s progression even further and assess whether they want to commit to him long-term.
So to recap it all, the Rangers dumped off some necessary salary, keeped their 2026-first round pick while drafting a high-quality prospect in the second round, signed a defensive anchor, got a quality return for a player they did not want to give a long-term extension to and, signed one of their most high-coveted young players to a team-friendly deal.
All of Drury’s goals have been fulfilled, and now the Rangers will have to build upon this impressive offseason.
