How Chris Drury avoids failing grade despite atrocious Rangers season
The day he fired Peter Laviolette as coach on April 19, New York Rangers general manager Chris Drury took his fair share of the blame for an absolutely atrocious 2024-25 season, perhaps the most disappointing in franchise history.
'Leading into the season, given the success we had the last few years, we had high expectations. Quite simply, we fell short across the board,' Drury told reporters that day. 'Nobody here takes it lightly. We know our fans are frustrated and they deserve a better season than this. It starts with me. I need to do a better job and give the staff and players the opportunity to succeed.'
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He is right, of course. It always starts at the top of the organization, and this season is no different. Drury's fingerprints are all over this mess
But that doesn't mean Drury deserves a failing grade, even if the season itself was an epic fail.
Let's break it down.
Related: J.T. Miller weighs in on Mike Sullivan hire, after participating in U.S. Open golf qualifier
Grading Rangers GM Chris Drury: The bad
Peter Carr/The Journal News / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Might as well start with the negative. And there's no hiding from the fact that there's plenty of it.
First and foremost, Drury miscalculated how much he'd disrupt the locker room with how he handled the departures of respected veterans Barclay Goodrow and Jacob Trouba. He placed Goodrow on waivers to get past his no-trade clause and didn't communicate his plan in advance to the two-time Stanley Cup winner, who was claimed by the San Jose Sharks, one of the teams on his no-trade list.
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But that was just the start.
Drury mishandled trying to trade Trouba last summer, and was misguided in bringing the captain back to start this season. That was painfully evident at the start of training camp and in Trouba's lackluster effort and admitted lack of leadership, his biggest strength to the team.
True, not many of us could've predicted that the whole house of cards would fall inside the Rangers room because of the GM's heavy-handed approach in dealing with Goodrow and Trouba. But the bottom line is, it did. Drury didn't have a good read on his own players and it blew up in his face big time, not to mention submarined the season.
Then there was the leaked memo to the other 31 GMs in the League, saying that the Rangers were open for business, specifically naming Trouba and the longest-tenured Rangers player, Chris Kreider, by name. How exactly this became public is a great question, because Drury is notoriously private and tight-lipped about everything. But, again, bottom line, this backfired badly on the GM and his team.
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Kreider had a litany of injuries this season. But it was clear that one of the great goal scorers in franchise history was gutted by his name being dropped by Drury in trade talks. It was just another messy situation that caused more dissatisfaction and lack of motivation within the room.
That he botched these three things, and did so in such a public manner, certainly makes his grade this season trend down, way down. Complaints from Mika Zibanejad about lack of communication from management appear to be more on the player than Drury, so that shouldn't affect his final grade here.
Hamstrung by a tight salary cap, Drury's biggest move last offseason was trading for veteran forward Reilly Smith, with the Pittsburgh Penguins retaining some of his salary. That move didn't move the needle at all, both at the time of the trade and for the brief stretch he played for the Rangers before he was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights ahead of the deadline in March.
It's too early to grade New York's 2024 draft class. But top pick E.J. Emery clearly has a ways to go to develop his game after a so-so freshman season at North Dakota.
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Related: Key takeaways from 1st Mike Sullivan press conference as Rangers coach, including 'partnership' with GM Chris Drury
Grading Rangers Chris Drury: The good
One thing that gets overlooked is that Drury, no dummy here, recognized during and after the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs that the Rangers needed to shake up their core. To do so, he needed to create more room under the salary cap. That's why he waived Goodrow and tried to get Trouba's no-trade list early on.
Drury clearly had eyes on a big move or two, either in free agency July 1 or via trade — or perhaps both. Without more available cap space, his hands were tied. Trouba and his agent didn't submit the no-trade list until the required July 1, leaving Drury no time to move the captain and his $8 million AAV in order to make a splash when free agency started.
Jessica Alcheh-Imagn Images
Though he erred badly in not moving Trouba at some point over the summer, Drury did well once he finally did trade the veteran defenseman Dec. 6 to the Anaheim Ducks. Drury got the Ducks to take on all of Trouba's contract, which carries through the 2025-26 season. That alone was a home run. But the Rangers also got serviceable defenseman Urho Vaakanainen back in the trade, as well as a fourth-round draft pick in 2025. Well done.
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In removing the contracts of Goodrow and Trouba, Drury created nearly $12 million in cap savings. A small part of that went to Smith and veteran center Sam Carrick, a free-agent steal with an AAV of $1 million.
Another chunk went to J.T. Miller, whom the Rangers acquired from the Vancouver Canucks on Jan. 31. It can be argued that you or I could've made that trade, since Vancouver was backed into a corner with limited options where to deal the contract-protected Miller, who was in a messy feud with Elias Pettersson. Miller wanted New York and got it when Drury shipped Filip Chytil, rookie defenseman Victor Mancini and a conditional first-round pick this year out west.
Miller's arrival begins the re-shaping of the Rangers core. His style of play and no-nonsense direct approach as a leader are a good fit for the Rangers. Though 32 years old, Miller was a solid add by Drury. And the fact that Chytil again sustained a head injury in Vancouver further justifies why it was important to move on from him, and get something of true value in return for the oft-injured center.
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To make this an even better trade, Drury needs to make the right decision on the conditional pick. The Rangers must decide 48 hours before the draft begins June 27 whether to keep it and give the Penguins their first-rounder in 2026, or retain next year's selection and pass along the No. 12 overall pick this year to Pittsburgh.
Drury also acquired rugged defenseman Will Borgen to fill Trouba's vacated spot on the right side of the defense corps. Borgen was a pleasant surprise, and landed a multi-year contract worth $4.1 million. Time will tell if Drury rushed too quickly into that extension for Borgen or if surrendering Kaapo Kakko in this trade was a big mistake. This season, though, Borgen's emergence made this move a net positive.
Adding more draft picks and young forward Juuso Parssinen ahead of the trade deadline in moves to unload pending UFAs Smith, Ryan Lindgren and Jimmy Vesey made sense. Adding defenseman Carson Soucy for a third-round pick was more of a head scratcher, though he remains under contract for next season.
On the prospects front, it was good to see two of Drury's first-round picks play some in the NHL this season. 2023 top pick Gabe Perreault got his feet wet over five games with the Rangers after he finished up strong sophomore season at Boston College and won another gold medal with the United States at the 2025 World Junior Championship (along with 2023 third-round pick Drew Fortescue).
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Brennan Othmann, the 2021 first-round pick, showed flashes in 23 games with the Rangers, largely in a bottom-six role. However, he didn't score a goal and finished with just two assists. Next season is a big one for the 22-year-old.
And a couple of Drury's later-round picks emerged. Mancini (fifth round 2022) made the big club out of training camp and then was a trade chip used to acquire Miller. Dylan Roobroeck (sixth round, 2023) led Hartford of the American Hockey League with 20 goals in his rookie pro season.
Final 2024-25 grade for Rangers GM Chris Drury: D+
Drury doesn't deserve nor receive a good grade for being in charge of this trainwreck of a season.
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But he doesn't get a failing grade either.
D+ sounds about right.
Now, let's see if he learned from his mistakes and can right this ship again in 2025-26.
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NBC Sports
an hour ago
- NBC Sports
Luckiest man alive? After conquering Oakmont, it's irrevocably J.J. Spaun
OAKMONT, Pa. – J.J. Spaun's closing pursuit of major glory began at 3 a.m. Sunday in, of all places, a CVS in downtown Pittsburgh. Spaun's almost 2-year-old daughter, Violet, had woken up with a stomach bug, and mere hours into Father's Day, dad duty called. 'Rough start to the morning,' Spaun admitted. 'But it kind of fit the mold of what was going on, the chaos.' Little did he know then just how chaotic the finish to this 125th U.S. Open would be. But whatever mean, ol' Oakmont decided to throw his way on Sunday afternoon just outside the Steel City, Spaun would be ready. His coach had made sure of it. Spaun had long possessed the talent to win majors, one of the world's best ball-strikers who could get hot with the putter every now and then; he just needed to first conquer his mind. Before Spaun's run and eventual loss to Rory McIlroy at The Players earlier this year, Spaun was frustrated by recent close calls, bemoaning bad breaks and wondering if he'd ever ascend into the sport's elite class. That prompted Spaun's instructor of nearly three years, Adam Schriber, to pull his pupil aside and deliver a healthy dose of reality. The 63-year-old Schriber, best known for coaching Anthony Kim, usually travels to events in a beat-up motorcoach that too often breaks down, but he's also 11 years older than his dad was when he died of leukemia. Spaun, a 34-year-old husband and father of two, overcame a diabetes misdiagnosis a few years back to win on the PGA Tour, and after briefly contemplating retirement last season following a down year, he had bounced back with arguably the best golf of his career. How could they possibly be the unlucky ones? In fact, Schriber posed to Spaun, 'What if you and I are actually the two luckiest motherf---ers in the world?' Spaun calls those motivational dialogues, Schriber's 'Lou Holtz talks,' coined after the former football coach with whom Schriber has traded wisdom. 'He once told me, either you give your guys a hug, or you put your foot up their ass; nothing in between,' Schriber recalled. Spaun needed his latest Holtz talk while walking to the first tee on Thursday morning. After a few days familiarizing himself with Oakmont's punishing landscape, Spaun's hopes had dwindled again. 'I feel like I have to play perfect golf out here,' Spaun told Schriber. 'No,' Schriber quickly interjected, 'what you need is a perfect attitude. You're going to hit good shots that are going to get f---ed because that's how this place is, and you can either react or respond. You know what you need to do.' And so, through rain, mud, wrist-breaking rough and a little early vomit, Spaun outlasted it all, stepping over his competitors' beaten remains before slaying Henry Fownes' beast with a 64-foot dagger on the final hole to finish as the only man under par and a major champion for the first time. 'I tried to just continue to dig deep,' Spaun said. 'I've been doing it my whole life.' WHAT A PUTT!!!! J.J. SPAUN WINS THE U.S. OPEN!!!! The thing about Oakmont is there's nowhere to hide – and it's not just because of the thousands of trees that have been removed from the sprawling property in recent decades. William C. Fownes Jr., the son of Oakmont founder and architect Henry C. Fownes, lived in the clubhouse during those summers in the early 1900s and was known to keep a watchful eye on the course. Fownes Jr. famously said, 'a shot poorly played should be a shot irrevocably lost,' and when he'd witness what he believed to be a crack in the course's defense, he'd fix the problem to ensure that such shots were never found again. At one point, Oakmont had 330 bunkers. Gil Hanse and the USGA are responsible for this current iteration, with Hanse having recently completed an extensive renovation and the governing body instructing the club to grow 5-inch rough everywhere. With Oakmont's fairways and greens softened in the run-up by record precipitation, such growth was deemed necessary to stymie the likes of Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau. For the most part, it worked, as DeChambeau, the reigning champ, joined several top players – Ludvig Aberg, Shane Lowry and Justin Thomas among them – in hacking their ways to missed cuts, while Scheffler grinded out a T-7 finish but not without a couple club slams. Rory McIlroy smashed a tee marker into pieces on Friday. Corey Conners might've even broken his wrist. And that pesky Spaun? He opened with a 4-under 66, just the eighth bogey-free round in what has now been a decade's worth of U.S. Opens at Oakmont, and followed with solid rounds of 72-69 to enter Sunday's final round trailing leader Sam Burns by just a single shot. But Oakmont, of course, still had some tricks for the once aspiring professional skateboarder: A flighted sand wedge from 93 yards that clanged off the flagstick and back off the green at the par-4 second. A drive that ricocheted off a bunker rake and into a gnarly lie near Oakmont's famed church pews on the par-5 fourth. Through five holes, Spaun had carded five 5's and was 4 over – and a mis-club by Spaun's caddie, Mark Carens, contributed to another bogey at the par-3 sixth. On his way to a front-nine 40 – something no winner on the PGA Tour, let alone a major, had done in the final round since 1993 – Spaun would need a miracle. Carens knew just where to look. It was a year ago on Father's Day that Carens' father, Eddie, died after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer's and dementia. At one point on the front side, Carens looked skyward and pleaded, 'What are you doing, Ed? Pay attention, man!' Then the heavens opened, and it poured harder than it had all week, stopping play for nearly two hours and providing Spaun, eight holes in and now four shots back of Burns, a chance to regroup. He grabbed some food, swapped his soaked Puma polo for a dry one and huddled with his coaches for some extra encouragement. The kick came from Schriber, and the hug from Josh Gregory, the short-game guru who had officially joined Spaun's stable this week, teaching Spaun, among other things, how to better judge lies in the rough. Their message was the same. 'They were just like, 'Dude, just chill. Just let it come to you, be calm. Stop trying so hard,'' Spaun recalled. Added Gregory: 'I looked at him as he went to the tee and I said, 'Bud, you're a dad, this is Father's Day, you've got two beautiful babies, and you've got a chance to win the U.S. Open. You would've signed for this on Monday.' Spaun then stepped up on the par-4 ninth and flushed one, a perfect, little cut up the left side. Eddie didn't let him down from there. 'On the back nine, he was definitely there,' Carens said of his pops, 'and we didn't get a bad lie in the rough coming in.' Jun 15, 2025; Oakmont, Pennsylvania, USA; JJ Spaun celebrates with his caddie Mark Carens after putting on the 18th green to win during the final round of the U.S. Open golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images Bill Streicher-Imagn Images Spaun recounted a recent lunch with Max Homa back home in Arizona, during which Homa shared some advice from Tiger Woods, who told him the key to winning major championships was just sticking around. Spaun birdied the par-5 12th to join a five-way tie for the lead, then added another two holes later with a 22-foot make to claw back to even par and take a one-shot lead. That's when dreams began to wash away. Scheffler bogeyed his last hole to finish at 4 over. Carlos Ortiz doubled the par-4 15th to drop out of contention at 3 over, where he'd finish along with Cameron Young and Tyrrell Hatton, the latter of whom bogeyed each of his last two holes. Viktor Hovland seemed stuck in neutral all day and eventually placed third at 2 over. Burns' denial of relief from what seemed to be temporary water in the 15th fairway encapsulated his round, which included 78 strokes and as many doubles as birdies (two). He and Adam Scott combined to shoot 17 over in the final pairing, with Scott's 79 dropping him to T-12. 'It just wasn't easy out there,' Scott said. 'All things being equal, it's Sunday of the U.S. Open, one of the hardest setups, and the conditions were the hardest of the week. Thank God it wasn't like this all week.' Spaun's last challenger was a man who, by his own admission, didn't need any pep talks. 'I'm just a guy who believes,' Robert MacIntyre said, safely in the house at 1 over. When he wrapped up his final-round 68, MacIntyre had about a 60% chance to win, per the live betting odds. But as MacIntyre spoke with the media, a nearby television displayed Spaun hitting two of the best drives of his life – the first one at the short, par-4 17th, where his tee ball raced past the hole before Spaun two-putted from 18 feet for birdie; and the second at the par-4 finishing hole, where he split the fairway to leave himself 190 yards in. The wet turf was no issue for Spaun, whose feet, Schriber says, are his 'superpower.' As Spaun landed his approach on the left side of the green, MacIntyre finally was able to retreat to the scoring area, away from the still spitting rain, to watch the drama unfold on television. 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'… About 8 feet out, I kind of went up to the high side to see if it had a chance of going in, and it was like going right in. I was just in shock, disbelief that it went in, and it was over.' J.J. Spaun carries his daughter away from the 18th hole while celebrating his US Open Championship win at Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, PA on June 15, 2025. Michael Longo/For USA Today Network / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Spaun's bomb, which capped a final-round 72, wasn't just the longest putt made all week at Oakmont; it was nearly 30 feet longer than anything Spaun had converted all season. When the ball disappeared, so, too, did Spaun's putter, which was launched into the misty air, freeing up Spaun's right fist to do its thing. As chaos ensued, Spaun then hugged Carens, still holding his umbrella as the two twirled around in celebration before Carens stopped to point to the sky. 'Just to finish it off like that is just a dream,' Spaun said. 'You watch other people do it. … To have my own moment like that at this championship, I'll never forget this moment for the rest of my life.' Inside but only about 100 yards away, MacIntyre heard the roars early and then could only applaud as he watched what they were for. 'He won the golf tournament,' MacIntyre told afterward. 'I mean, he's dreamed of it. I've dreamed of it. Everyone's dreamed of that moment. For him to pour in the winning putt, nothing I can do. Fair play.' Once Hovland finished out, Spaun rushed to his family – Violet appeared to be feeling much better – and grabbed his 4-year-old daughter, Emerson, lifting her into his arms as he walked up the catwalk to sign his scorecard, passing over a throng of fans chanting, 'J.J.! J.J.! J.J.!' Streaming down Spaun's face were a mix of rain and tears, mostly tears. Almost always, when Spaun returns from playing golf, Emerson asks him, 'Were you the winner today?' But not on this day. 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San Francisco Chronicle
4 hours ago
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Bay Area sports calendar, June 16-17
BASEBALL COLLEGE BASEBALL MAJOR LEAGUE CRICKET NBA FINALS TUESDAY BASEBALL BOWLING 4p U.S. Women's Open CBSSN COLLEGE BASEBALL College World Series 11a Louisville vs. TBD ESPN 4p Teams TBD ESPN HORSE RACING 5:30a Royal Ascot Peacock MAJOR LEAGUE CRICKET 6p Washington vs. Los Angeles, at Oakland Coliseum SOCCER SOFTBALL STANLEY CUP FINALS 5p Game 6: Edmonton at Florida TNT TruTV (1050) WNBA
