All you need to do is look at the plus/minus stats.
Mika -22 (team worst - I think at one point he was -30). A major regression. He's not the same player he once was. No longer a force on the PP. Not the same from his wheelhouse, where he either completely missed shots, shanked shots, or missed the net. The amount of turnovers, especially the ones that led to goals against were alarming. The big problem is, we are stuck with this albatross of a contract until 2030. It's funny how PuckPedia uses the anchor symbol for NMC contracts.
Laffy -13. Another contract that Drury will need to use the same magic on that he used with Trouba's. I see a slow skater with a weak shot. Not a top 6 player IMO.
Panarin -9. Doesn't seem bad, but a minus from a guy who led the team in scoring (again) with 89 points is alarming. 97 giveaways tied for the team lead with Kandre Miller. Why am I not surprised?
Cuylle +12 (team best). Rangers need to resign him, and hope no other team gives him an offer sheet.
Borgen +9. Pleased with his play and the Kaako trade.
Vaakanainen +8. To get anything back for Trouba was a plus.
Othmann +7 in just 22 games. Was surprised to see how well his defensive game is. Hope to see more offense, but at less than 10 mintes a game, what do you expect? His offense will come with more minutes. Needs to play more next season.
Rempe +7. One of the biggest silver linings on this team. He has shown immense improvement. He's going to need more than 8:30 per game. Needs to keep his elbows down.
Brodzinski +6. Carrick +5. Pleased with both players.
Robertson +3. I liked what I saw in just 2 games.
What else could Kreider say? It is the politically correct move to blame the Drury the bogeyman. CK still has to walk into the locker room. He is not going to throw other players/coaches under the bus. It also seems he was injured for large parts of the season. That would help explain his absurd season where he averages over 16 minutes per game and mostly primary time on the PP and comes away with 8 (EIGHT) assists???????Interesting in Kreider’s interview he talked about losing two Massive leaders. Goodrow and Trouba. And personally no doubt in my mind losing them hurt the Rangers. The rest of the disruptions and coaching question marks finished them off.
I do think he was impacted by the general feeling in the overall organization. I had read rumors that Dolan was the one that fired Jim Ramsay, and did it because he'd "replaced everyone else", or something to that effect. This was something I came across early in the season and could not find any substantiation for, so don't take it as confirmed.
There was also this article from Vince Mercogliano Do the Rangers have a culture problem? A look behind the scenes at MSG back in December and echoed many of the things I had begun talking about in terms of turning blame on Drury, though if you read it you could say it's Drury AND Dolan.
They've created a culture more akin to where the Senators were under their previous owner, rather than a smoothly run organization where everyone was pulling in the same direction.
Mika Zibanejad also hinted in his exit that there needed to be better communication in the organization, including from the players. Trocheck mentioned about lifting players up in his interview, which suggests perhaps there were breaks in the team itself, as well as limited communication between Drury and the players.
Add in the directives that staff aren't allowed to interact with players (apparently a PR person had dinner with a player, plus of course we now know the Panarin thing, which may very well have been the impetus).
Anyway, sounds like a lot of people in the organization at large are disgruntled, upset or just not communicating
Which is to say...I do think all this impacted Kreider as well
All you need to do is look at the plus/minus stats.
Mika -22 (team worst - I think at one point he was -30). A major regression. He's not the same player he once was. No longer a force on the PP. Not the same from his wheelhouse, where he either completely missed shots, shanked shots, or missed the net. The amount of turnovers, especially the ones that led to goals against were alarming. The big problem is, we are stuck with this albatross of a contract until 2030. It's funny how PuckPedia uses the anchor symbol for NMC contracts.
Laffy -13. Another contract that Drury will need to use the same magic on that he used with Trouba's. I see a slow skater with a weak shot. Not a top 6 player IMO.
Panarin -9. Doesn't seem bad, but a minus from a guy who led the team in scoring (again) with 89 points is alarming. 97 giveaways tied for the team lead with Kandre Miller. Why am I not surprised?
Cuylle +12 (team best). Rangers need to resign him, and hope no other team gives him an offer sheet.
Borgen +9. Pleased with his play and the Kaako trade.
Vaakanainen +8. To get anything back for Trouba was a plus.
Othmann +7 in just 22 games. Was surprised to see how well his defensive game is. Hope to see more offense, but at less than 10 mintes a game, what do you expect? His offense will come with more minutes. Needs to play more next season.
Rempe +7. One of the biggest silver linings on this team. He has shown immense improvement. He's going to need more than 8:30 per game. Needs to keep his elbows down.
Brodzinski +6. Carrick +5. Pleased with both players.
Robertson +3. I liked what I saw in just 2 games.
+/- is still misleading, particularly because a few games can misrepresent. For instance, Robertson's +3 was as much a product of playing a couple of teams who were looking at the playoffs rather than needing points from the current game, especially the Tampa game which he was a +2 in. It doesn't hurt, but doesn't necessarily prove anything.
You also have to factor the strength of opposition, which certainly helped Rempe, Brodzinski and Vaakanainen...though that's not to dismiss those values entirely.
You could even allow that Zibanejad, Lafreniere and Panarin were all part of the really dark days in December which really shifted their numbers the other way, though not entirely.
The two I think that stand out the most are Cuylle and Borgen. Cuylle really progressed this year, though there were definitely flat periods, but I'll take that season from him for sure. Borgen too has been a good surprise. I thought they weren't really getting much back for Kakko, but Borgen has really proven to be a pretty good value guy, playing against top 2 lines of the opposition.
Vaakanainen is a fair 3rd pair guy, who as you say, has been a nice add given that we weren't expecting anything back.
I've been impressed with Rempe's growth as a player, surprised too. Othmann ultimately will need to put up points to stay, but it was a fair performance from him. If I recall though, there was one game where her was a +4 so that kind of overstates the +/-
Thought Carrick was a great add, and really helped solidify the 4th line.
What else could Kreider say? It is the politically correct move to blame the Drury the bogeyman. CK still has to walk into the locker room. He is not going to throw other players/coaches under the bus. It also seems he was injured for large parts of the season. That would help explain his absurd season where he averages over 16 minutes per game and mostly primary time on the PP and comes away with 8 (EIGHT) assists???????Interesting in Kreider’s interview he talked about losing two Massive leaders. Goodrow and Trouba. And personally no doubt in my mind losing them hurt the Rangers. The rest of the disruptions and coaching question marks finished them off.
If losing those two players had no effect why was he talking about it, as more than a couple other players are also. And he's not the only NHL player to play hurt, but joins the small group that do, that blame their lack of performance on their injuries. If his injuries alone are responsible for his point decline then Trainers, Doctor's, and coaches were derelict.
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