New York Rangers general manager Chris Drury was at the top of the list when WFAN’s Evan & Tiki show ranked their top 10 sports executives in the New York metropolitan area.
The panel consisting of Evan Roberts, Tiki Barber, and Shaun Morash heavily debated the topic on their 2-6:30pm weekday show and disagreed as to where Drury should be ranked.
Morash said Drury was the best general manager New York had to offer.
Roberts placed Drury in third behind New York Knicks president Leon Rose and New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman.
It’s important to identify the criteria by which sports executives are judged. Is it by how far their teams advance in the postseason? Is it by the quality of talent they bring in?
Morash argues that Drury has done more in his three years of tenure than Rose in his four.
“Chris Drury inherited a rebuild where they were firing John Davidson, Gorton, and he has gotten the team to the conference finals two out of three years… With all due respect to Leon Rose, we haven’t even sniffed a conference final yet … The results for Chris Drury have taken the Rangers further than the Knicks,” Morash said.
It’s a fair point. Drury pulled the Rangers back from the disastrous years in the wilderness spearheaded by Davidson and Jeff Gorton from 2017-2021. In that span, the Blueshirts only made the postseason once as a result of the 24-team COVID-19 playoff structure. They snuck in as the 11th-best team in the Eastern Conference, with a meager points percentage of .564.
Since Drury assumed GM role on May 5, 2021, the Rangers have had three straight 100-plus point seasons. As Morash mentioned, the Rangers reached the Eastern Conference Finals twice in that span. The Knicks have yet to accomplish that feat.
Playoff success can’t be the only criteria, though. The Yankees have won the World Series four times since Brian Cashman became general manager in 1998, and have made the playoffs 21 times in that span. Yet, he’s at the bottom of Morash’s list. He also ranks the Islanders’ GM Lou Lamoriello second-to-last despite making the Conference Finals twice under his stewardship since 2018.
New York Rangers GM’s signings and trades earn him #1 rank on WFAN’s New York sports executive list
If playoff success isn’t the end-all be-all of a GM’s success, then the other aspect is who you bring onto the team to try and get there.
Drury has made some fantastic moves since taking leadership of the Rangers’ front office.
He put on a masterclass in his first trade deadline, inserting the remarkably productive Andrew Copp and Frank Vatrano into his top-six while facilitating a deep run into the Eastern Conference Final where the Rangers would fall to the Tampa Bay Lightning in six games.
Drury’s made some excellent signings as well. Vincent Trocheck joined the team following that Eastern Conference Finals loss on a seven-year, $5.625 million average-annual value deal. He’s turned into the complete package, putting up 103 points in two regular seasons and becoming an integral part of the Rangers’ special teams unit.
The extension of Adam Fox stands out as another great move for Drury. Locking him up after a Norris Trophy-winning season for seven years at age 23 is proving to be a wise investment.
Even smaller moves, like snatching two-time Stanley Cup Champion and future Hall of Fame goaltender Jonathan Quick has paid dividends in the backup role. While Igor Shesterkin was out in November of last season, Quick stole multiple games for the Rangers and was an integral part of their 10-game win streak in the first half of the season.
Critics may point to the failed Patrick Kane trade or the shipping of Pavel Buchnevich to the Blues as some of Drury’s few missteps. Even then, there was no way to predict Kane’s hip injury and Buchnevich was unfortunately traded to help with salary cap issues that Drury played no part in.
While he may not be the winningest GM in the current New York sports market, you can certainly argue that Drury’s made plenty of moves that improved the Rangers’ prospects of winning a championship.
