Multiple players publicly complained about their usage, playing time and role. There was constant drama around trade rumors and speculation regarding several veterans. Outside of a small handful of players, most notably defenseman Adam Fox and goalie Igor Shesterkin, nobody really improved or played up to their level of expectation.
None of that looks good on the coaching staff, and a change was necessary. Especially when Laviolette and his coaching style have a history of quickly wearing thin on teams.
The problem for the Rangers is that, in the short term, this is simply a band-aid and does not fully address the deeper issues in the organization and on the roster. There are several of them that have remained constant through all of the different head-coaching cycles the team has gone through in recent years, from Alain Vigneault, to David Quinn and now to Laviolette.
At the top of the list: The team is just far too dependent on their goaltending and has not adequately addressed their defensive shortcomings.
Outside of Fox, there is not another high-end defenseman on the roster, while the Rangers consistently finish near the bottom of the league when it comes to allowing scoring chances. Even worse, general manager Chris Drury has locked in most of this current defense on long-term contracts and is going to have to get very creative when it comes to moving some of them out and fixing the position.
At forward, they are still lacking the type of top-tier, No. 1 center that every contending team has to have.
Mika Zibanejad has played in that role, and while he has had his moments over the years, his overall play has rapidly deteriorated. Especially during 5-on-5 play. He is just not a difference-maker and is making $8.5 million against the cap for another five years, while he has trade protections in his deal. Moving him would be extremely difficult.
They made a blockbuster move for J.T. Miller at the trade deadline, and while he has been a very productive forward he is also going to be 32 next season and already saw some decline in his production this season.
As if all of that is not enough, the Rangers have also failed to develop pretty much every top forward prospect and draft pick they have had over the years and have already moved on from almost all of them.
Players like Alexis Lafreniere, Kaapo Kakko, Filip Chytil, Lias Andersson and Vitali Kravtsov were supposed to be the core of a championship team after being high first-round picks during their rebuild. Lafreniere is the only one still remaining on the roster, and his 2024-25 season was extremely disappointing and a big step backward.
These are not new problems. They are not problems unique to Laviolette’s tenure. Even when the Rangers were winning and competing in recent seasons, these flaws and questions still existed and limited their ceiling. They were just masked by elite goaltending and a dominant power play. This season, the goaltending was merely really good instead of elite, and the power play struggled. Those two developments just magnified the flaws that already existed.
The Rangers need a new coach. They also need a lot more.
