ICEBREAKERS
Rangers aware that big roster changes are coming
Fundamental changes are more than likely to come to the Rangers’ roster in the coming months, and they know it. The core group that has been together for this six-year run, which has been a success in every way except actually winning a Stanley Cup, is now standing on shaky ground.
Following a secondround series loss to the Senators in Game 6 on Tuesday night at the Garden, general manager Jeff Gorton has all his options on the table, and he is going to do whatever he has to in order to try to push his team over that edge.
So the collection of Dan Girardi, Marc Staal, Derek Stepan, and Ryan McDonagh — adding Chris Kreider, Rick Nash and Mats Zuccarello along the way — more than likely isn’t going to be fully intact when training camp starts. That is something those players are trying not to think about, but it is absolutely unavoidable.
“We’ve been here a long time, the core of us,” Stepan said at the team’s breakup day Thursday in Tarrytown. “We understand this world is about winning. As a group, we haven’t been able to do it. We’ve been real good and real close, but that doesn’t do us any good.
“It’s our lives. It’s part of the business, it’s part of the job. It’s all these things that are out of our control. So you think about it, but at the same time, why stress yourself about something you can’t control?”
The reconstruction that awaits the Rangers isn’t veiled, either. Exactly how they’re going to do it is still up in the air, and a plan likely will be hatched when all of the front office, coaching staff and scouts meet for their big year-end summit in just over a week. But whether the core group is good enough to remain together is a question that has one pretty clear answer.
“That’s a good question, it’s a valid question,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “It’s something that I don’t think I have an answer for you today. But I do think it’s something we’re going to look at.”
There will be a con- stant in nets, after 35-yearold Henrik Lundqvist watched as another year of his prime went by without a championship. As Vigneault called it, Lundqvist’s season was “up and down,” but he still had moments of brilliance, especially in the f irstround series victory over the favored Canadiens.
But it still fell short, and just two days later — as Lundqvist prepared to leave for the world championships to represent Sweden for the first time in nine years — the loss still stung.
“I look at this team and
if you ask me, ‘Did we have a chance to win this year?’ Absolutely,” Lundqvist said. “Of course, I believe in this group, I believe in what we have in this room. But we came up short.”
As for Vigneault himself, his own self-evaluation couldn’t happen right away. Having now completed his fourth year behind the Broadway bench, he also was recovering from the painful loss, and one he seemingly didn’t see coming.
“At this time right now, I’m still shocked we’re not playing hockey right now,” Vigneault said. “It’s going to take me a little bit of time to get over this one.”
But it is really Gorton who can’t wait too long to start s eriously contemplating changes. Whether that will be buying out a veteran defenseman such as Girardi or Staal, or trading away such an integral player and leader like Stepan, all options are being considered.
In the wake of another loss, the players who do return are aware that this team is going to look different — one way or another.
“We have been together for a handful of years and have come close, but this is a results-oriented business,” McDonagh said. “You’ve got to get results. You want to get that ultimate prize. You know that [front office] is going to do whatever it can to put a team on the ice they think can win. There’s no question it’s something you think about. But it’s out of my control. Over the course of the summer, we’ll see what happens.”