New York Rangers mailbag, part 1

While you Rangers fans sit in limbo and wait for the team’s coaching search to conclude, here’s the first part of our offseason mailbag. We’ll get to the many, many roster questions next week but since Gerard Gallant’s departure and Chris Drury’s current hunt for the next Rangers coach is front and center, we’ll kick off today with all the questions about Gallant’s departure and who might be on the radar to succeed him.

First, we’ll dig in on some questions about the Gallant move.

Do you have any insights into who some of the voices in the locker room who didn’t support Gallant were? If not, can you comment on which players you think might be glad to see him go? (Panarin, Lafrenière) — Sheila O.

Don’t think you’re too far off with those two names. Artemi Panarin’s inability to mesh with Gallant was pretty well-known around the locker room and Lafrenière’s inconsistency — plus his relative lack of playing time — probably didn’t do the Laf-Turk relationship much good. Whether those two spoke up in the exit meetings isn’t clear — and whether Drury would have heeded negativity from two top-nine forwards that combined for two points in the playoffs isn’t clear either — but a fresh start for Panarin and Lafrenière under a new coach will be intriguing.

Hearing Kaapo Kakko say he wants more ice time, especially power-play time, on breakup day was noteworthy too. Like many NHL coaches, Gallant defaulted to going with his experienced guys most times. We’ll see who comes in next and whether Lafrenière, Kakko and Filip Chytil have different roles once the change happens.

Why did Drury hire Gallant if Gallant wasn’t Drury’s first choice to be the head coach? Was Gallant Drury’s second (or third? fourth?) choice? Or was the head coach hiring decision not exclusively Drury’s to make (and if so, who else was involved in the decision)? How unusual was the “heated” post-Game 4 exchange for them? — P.

From what I understand (and have written), Drury made a play for Mike Sullivan two years ago but was rebuffed. Same with Rod Brind’Amour. After that, it became more of a search for a veteran coach and Gallant was top of the list at the time. It was definitely Drury’s show, as it’s believed to be now. James Dolan is not a passive owner, so one would think he has an interest, but Drury calls the hockey shots.

As for the exchange after Game 4, I’ve heard it was about the team’s lack of cohesion and style in that blah loss. There was some mention of Patrick Kane and that most or all of the staff and players could hear it. I don’t think it was the norm. The relationship between Drury and Gallant wasn’t particularly close, from what I understand, but there wasn’t animosity.

While I know the players forced Torts out in 2013, did players do the same here and what else is the same about that firing? — Matthew F.

The John Tortorella move was more Glen Sather being caught off-guard by the uniformity of the comments from players. I think the majority of that team’s core spoke up, which prompted Sather’s move. This time there were surely grumbles to Drury but this move came from the top — Drury has a team that he believes can win now and he clearly felt the Rangers could do better with someone other than Gallant behind the bench. Also considering Drury was 20 minutes away from making a similar change in December, this wasn’t any kind of surprise.

Was it the right thing to fire GG? I have been a Rangers fan for over 50 years and truly am puzzled over this! I feel that Drury changed players and style of players on him and not for the better. Don Cherry once stated, “ If you can’t beat em in the alley, you can’t beat em on the ice.” I realize the game is different now, but however I still feel the way Cherry does! The team didn’t win puck battles in all areas of the ice and rarely hit first! We didn’t have those type of players and it showed! GG was not the right fit for this roster I guess. However, I would hold Drury equally accountable! It’s a shame a real guy like Turk gets canned because of organizational issues! — Eric E.

Drury hired Gallant and must have known what he was getting. What didn’t he know then that he knows now and how much blame, if any, should be assigned to Drury? — David H.

There’s definitely some responsibility for Drury here and if he makes the wrong pick, you can fairly assume that Dolan won’t have much patience for anyone in the organization, Drury included. That’s the gig. Going with an experienced coach to counter-balance the David Quinn era — and also going with a “players’ coach” after some felt Quinn was too tough on members of this current group — meant the pickings in the summer of 2021 were relatively slim. Joel Quenneville was still employed, as was Barry Trotz. Coaches that will likely get interviews or strong consideration now (Peter Laviolette, Bruce Boudreau) also had jobs.

Now, there’s a much wider field for Drury to choose from, but whether he’s willing to go out on a limb and choose a younger, less experienced coach with more pressure on him now to succeed remains to be seen. It’s hard to bet on Drury and the Rangers choosing to go down that road.

On to the coaching search:

Toronto loses round two in 5 games…Dubas leaves for Pittsburgh…he brings Keefe…Mike Sullivan is relieved of his duties…the Rangers interview him and offer him the job…he takes it…Is this really what we’re pinning our hopes on? — Bob C.

About the only thing that’s a real possibility in this set of circumstances is the Leafs losing in 5. Everything after that is pretty farfetched. I’m told the Kyle Dubas-Leafs situation is not as dire as some make it out to be, though he could certainly opt to leave after the Leafs get eliminated. He could also opt to take the Penguins job which, despite their incredible run of success, seems like a very difficult situation to dive into right now — the next GM or team president is basically the guy who has to tell Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang that it’s time to break up the band, and good luck with that.

OK, so let’s say Dubas leaves Toronto for Pitt. The Leafs are just gonna let him take their coach, even if they might not be so high on Keefe anymore? Uh… sure.

We’re already at 0.00001% probability here. You can add about 10 more zeroes with the idea that the Penguins, who gave Sullivan an extension last year and are including him in their front-office search, would dump him and let him go coach one of their fiercest, in-division rivals.

Now, if all this happens, then yes, the Rangers would happily hire him and I bet Sullivan would be happy to come back to New York. But don’t pin your hopes on it.

Do you think the new coach will be a retread or a rookie? I think it will be a rookie because the retread candidates don’t seem that compelling, Drury already tried a middling retread candidate with known issues and it didn’t work so he can’t really try that again, and Drury strikes me as a control freak and having a rookie would allow him to impose his will on his coach, at least to some extent — Duncan M.

Drury is the same as the vast majority of GMs — he’s in charge and makes the decisions. I don’t think he’s so hands-on that he needs to “control” his coach, especially since he controls the process to bring in that coach. I’ll refer to one of my answers above as to why I don’t think it will be a first-time coach: Quinn was a first-time coach and many of the guys currently on the roster bristled at his ways. You have a team with some young guys, yes, but way more veterans who want a coach that knows his way around the pro locker room and how to handle players that aren’t kids.

And you have a GM who might not get to hire a third coach if this choice goes bad. Will he stake his job on a first-timer? Hard to picture that happening.

Would the Wolf Pack winning the Calder Cup make Kris Knoblauch the odds-on favorite for the NYR gig? — Michael L.

I would think he’s considered, but I’m not sold on the idea that Drury has Knoblauch as his head coach-in-waiting. Hartford is having a nice playoff run but it was a mostly blah season for them before Drury and assistant GM Ryan Martin spruced up the AHL roster with several veteran pros. Zac Jones hasn’t progressed to the point of being a regular NHLer and neither have any of the homegrown forwards (pickings are slim there, admittedly). Rookie pro goalie Dylan Garand is having a breakout playoff but I hear the Rangers are pretty set in goal.

So we’ll see how it progresses, but I would not label him the front-runner.

What do you think of Rikard Gronborg as an option for the Rangers? He is someone that you don’t hear a lot about yet everyone seems to think very highly of him. — Justin A.

Gronborg is considered the best coach outside of North America but again, is this the right time and the right team for not only a first-time head coach but a first-time-in-the-NHL-at-all coach?

Is Devils associate Andrew Brunette or Kraken assistant Jay Leach a target? Maybe getting a modern coach involved in analytics will help with the 5v5 offense. — Marc S.

The Rangers have a reasonably deep data team, like most NHL teams do. Even old-school guys like Gallant have adapted to using data and integrating it into their systems, even if they don’t talk much about it. Much as it may have seemed at times, I don’t think the Rangers were all about vibes and winging it. Gallant’s biggest failing in that area was not adapting well to changing tactics, but also, he had the guys he had — a hobbled Kane, a frustrated Panarin, a tired Adam Fox — and that doesn’t mean you can cycle in new players in the playoffs.

So any coach, whether he’s new school or old, is going to a) use data, because every team does to different extents and b) coach the team they have. The Rangers have a top-heavy team that relies too much on soft skill and goaltending. Brunette might bring some innovative ideas. Leach might. Laviolette might. Unless Drury has something major up his sleeve to alter the roster, it’s more about whether the next coach can get the Rangers to adhere to a style that’s successful.

Gallant’s system worked pretty well until it didn’t. In the end, it seemed more about what the Rangers weren’t willing to do than what Gallant wasn’t willing to do.

Who do you think are Drury’s top three picks for new head coach and why? And if YOU were GM, who do you think would be best?! Do you think any of them will be strong enough, like Iron Mike was, to bench veterans if needed — who can demand greatness? And will this coach be involved in making decisions in the draft and with trades? — Samuel F.

Total stab in the dark on the top three, but right now, based on the little I’ve heard, I’d go with Laviolette, Mike Babcock and Leach. I believe the Rangers are doing their homework on Babcock, who hasn’t coached since the Leafs fired him three years ago and has serious questions about his behavior and interactions with past players. He is, however, an Xs and Os guy. If that’s what you want after Gallant, Babcock has those skills.

Can’t say who I’d go with. Laviolette was said to have embraced data and what it offers during his time in Washington but the Caps didn’t exactly prove that on the ice during his tenure. And if you want a stern taskmaster, that’s unlikely to be a first-timer behind the bench.