When all-time Rangers great Henrik Lundqvist put on his Hall of Fame ring for the first time in 2023, he etched his name into a club where only the very best players go. However, when Lundqvist entered the Hall of Fame, he did so without a Stanley Cup.
From 2005 to 2017, the Rangers made the Stanley Cup playoffs every year but once, making the second round seven times, the Eastern Conference Finals three times, and a Stanley Cup Final once. But not once did the Blueshirts find a way to capture Lord Stanley’s Cup. Something that has eluded them for 30 years.
After missing the playoffs from 2018-2020, the Rangers have made the postseason every year since. But even after two Eastern Conference final appearances in three years, they still haven’t found a way to get back to the top of the league. And in a city and a building where winning isn’t just expected but demanded, is history set to repeat itself again?
Rangers fans will long remember the letter that then-president Glen Sather and former general manager Jeff Gorton sent to them ahead of the 2018 trade deadline. It marked the end of one of the longest windows of contention in the franchise’s history.
That year, the Rangers sent Rick Nash, who played 315 games and scored 127 goals with the team, to Boston and traded captain Ryan McDonagh and forward JT Miller, two players who helped New York reach the Cup Final against the Kings in 2014, to Tampa. One year later, the Rangers traded fan favorite Mats Zuccarello to Dallas. They finished the 2018-19 season with 78 points, and the team’s future looked bleak.
However, during the 2019-20 campaign, with the end of Lundqvist’s career seemingly on the horizon, the Rangers received a glimmer of hope in the form of Igor Shesterkin. It was midway through that season that the newly established core of Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, Adam Fox, and second-overall pick Kaapo Kakko looked to be turning the corner. When, all of a sudden, the world stopped.
COVID-19 shut down the NHL for nearly five months, and the Rangers hot streak was put into pause. When the season eventually began, while they were swept in the qualifying round by the Carolina Hurricanes, they earned the best consolation prize possible, winning the lottery and the rights to draft Alexis Lafreniere.
Everything was coming up Rangers, and after missing the playoffs in a shortened 2021 season, they looked set to finally put their short rebuild to an end. The 2022 season saw them make a run all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals. However, after taking a 2-0 series lead, they couldn’t hold off the reigning two-time champion Tampa Bay Lightning, who reverse swept the Rangers, ending their Cinderella season short of a Stanley Cup.
While many were shocked to see the deep run the Blueshirts took in 2022, expectations were much higher for them in 2022-23. Panarin was fresh off of a season in which he recorded 96 points, Fox was two years removed from a Norris Trophy, Zibanejad was coming off a year in which he scored 39 goals, while Kreider was coming off a year in which he scored a career-high 52. To top it all off, Shesterkin was the reigning Vezina Trophy winner.
At the 2023 trade deadline, looking to make two big splashes, the Rangers did just that, bringing in a pair of superstars in the hockey world in the form of Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko. Both men had cups under their names and would provide scoring and a veteran presence to what was still a largely young Rangers team. However, despite what was a super team on paper, the Rangers couldn’t even make it out of the first round, falling to the up-and-coming New Jersey Devils in seven games.
In 2023-24, with a largely similar roster, the Rangers set the NHL on fire in the regular season, recording 114 points and winning the Presidents Trophy. But like in many seasons before, they fell short, losing to the eventual champion Florida Panthers in six games in the conference finals. Year after year, the Rangers put one of the best teams in the league on the ice, and year after year, they fell just short.
Now in 2024-25, the Rangers are 15-13-1 (as of Sunday evening), and would miss the playoffs if the season ended today. Luckily for them, it doesn’t, and there’s still plenty of hockey to play. However, having already traded captain Jacob Trouba to Anaheim, change is on the horizon for the Rangers. Will the Rangers be able to turn what has been a difficult season around, or will history repeat itself yet again?
