There was a rare Chris Drury sighting today, with the Rangers General Manager making a rare appearance in front of the beat writers as Training Camp got underway. By our count, that’s just his third appearance this year following Zoom calls on February 5th and July 2nd. No word on whether he saw his shadow, and whether we’re going to have eight more months of Rangers winter.

You can head over to our video page or see it directly here. Don’t worry, it’s only 21:30 in length, so you’ll still have plenty of time left this evening.

Reporters were even allowed to ask Drury some questions, though aside for his continuing boy-crush on captain J.T. Miller, amounted to the usual generic “checked a lot of boxes” type comments.

Here’s what he had to say about the beloved captain:

On a hunch I prompted one of the AI services with: “What would Chris Drury say about J.T. Miller’s summer if asked about it at a news conference?”. Here’s how the AI version of Chris Drury would have responded:

The conclusion: Either Drury uses AI to prepare for meetings with the press, or in fact Drury is actually an AI bot himself and is no longer human.

SULLY WEIGHS IN TOO

Mike Sullivan, current coach of the Rangers was there too. He had a few things to say as well. Some, like the one below, were basically the same thing that his boss said. Which means they’re either on the same page, using the same AI agent, or did a quick rehearsal before coming out.

I guess we can emphasize the “some priorities” piece, because I imagine they’d hoped to land another top six forward by way of trading Braden Schneider away. They likely were looking for a young top six centerman, someone like Mason MacTavish who ended up going to St. Louis for draft picks.

As to more depth, I do wonder how they rationalize adding Joonas Korpisalo to replace Jonathan Quick has having “more depth”, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see about that one. He did have some nice, albeit non-committal things to say about Dylan Garand:

DO ANY OF THE PROSPECTS HAVE A CHANCE

There was little discussion about prospects making the roster. It’s hardly surprising given how many NHL experienced players Drury added over the summer. One guy whom Sullivan did get asked about in particular though, was Alberts Smits. The coach admitting – is that the right word? – that he “had a chance”.

That of course prompted me to think of this…

I think Smits probably has about as much chance as Lloyd did here. The defense looks pretty set, with Matthew Robertson being the only guy at any kind of risk. That’s not to say he IS at risk, just that he’s the only guy that it’d make sense for Smits to replace. It would seem the risk would be more on that precious depth though, with Drury forced to expose another veteran in order to fit his 2026 first round pick in.

Just doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense

SHORT SHIFT

Maybe if the preseason was another week longer and had a couple more games in it things might be different. But it isn’t, and so it won’t be. Sullivan talked about how the compressed schedule has meant that he’s had to approach this camp differently. No AHL contracted players, no uncontracted prospects. No invites.

It’s 48 players compared to 61 last season at camp. All the 48 contracted players that the Rangers have right now. The coach framed it in the following way:

No doubt it’s disappointing for some of the kids who were here for rookie camp, but it’s the new normal for the NHL. With the league moving towards the 84 game schedule this season, they had to give up something. That something was those two extra preseason games and some time in camp.

Wonder if teams will be rustier to start the season, or will just be better prepared because fewer players are playing in the preseason.

WHAT ELSE

Not much really. Mike Sullivan is aware that Pavel Dorofeyev can play either wing. Drury will not talk about contract related matters – when asked about whether he thought about extending Gabe Perreault. And that they acquired Korpisalo for “various reasons”. Good to know I guess it was more than they liked how his name sounded.

We basically got what you’d expect from Drury, and only a fraction more from Sullivan. The Rangers front office are about as engaging as an Al Gore special on the history of staplers right now, and we just have to survive long enough for things to change.

Meanwhile, here’s some additional AI Drury responses on some popular topics right now:

On Sydney Sweeney’s recent posts about women in sports:

On the upcoming mid-term elections:

And on whether pineapple belongs on pizzas: