Rangers’ loss at Carolina puts them out of playoff contention

RALEIGH, N.C. – In two of the last three seasons, the Rangers knocked the Carolina Hurricanes out of the playoffs in this very building, known then as the PNC Center. On Saturday, the Hurricanes got them back.

Carolina’s 7-3 victory over the Rangers in the building known as the Lenovo Center, in front of a national TV audience, officially ended the Rangers’ playoff hopes for 2024-25, completing a stunning fall from grace for a Blueshirts team that won the Presidents’ Trophy a season ago, and made it to the Eastern Conference finals before falling to eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida.

This will be the first playoff-less season for the Rangers since 2021. They had made the playoffs in each of the last three seasons, accumulating over 100 points in each of them, and they reached the conference finals in 2022 and 2024. Both times, they beat Carolina in the second round to reach the conference finals.

With the failure to make the playoffs, second-year coach Peter Laviolette, who guided the Rangers to franchise records of 55 wins and 114 points last season in his first year behind the bench, is expected to be fired. And GM Chris Drury – presuming his own job is safe – will have a lot of work to do in the summer to try and make sure this turns into just a one-year absence.

The Rangers (37-36-7, 81 points) still have two games left in the regular season. They visit Florida on Monday to complete the current road trip, and close the season with a home game Thursday against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Rangers went into Saturday hoping for a victory and a Montreal loss later in the day, which would have extended their season. But they trailed 4-1 after two periods before making things interesting in the third with a couple of goals and some increased physicality.

First, Carolina captain Jordan Staal made it 5-1 with his goal at 3:45 of the period, but then J.T. Miller scored on a power play at 6:07 and Adam Fox scored on a backhander at 9:02 to make it 5-3. After that goal, a scuffle broke out when Vincent Trocheck, who’d been battling with defenseman Sean Walker in front of Carolina goalie Pyotr Kochetkov, cross-checked Walker, starting a melee.

Trocheck and Jordan Martinook ended up with penalties and Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour challenged the goal, alleging goaltender interference. Brind’Amour failed the challenge, but the Rangers couldn’t score on the resulting power play. Carolina got empty-net goals by Martinook and Logan Stankoven to close out the scoring.

Carolina (47-27-5, 99 points) took a 4-0 lead on goals by Jalen Chatfield, Seth Jarvis, Jackson Blake and Mark Jankowski, before the Rangers got on the board with Will Cuylle’s 20th goal of the season with 15.5 seconds left in the second period.

Once Drury settles on Laviolette’s replacement (who would be his third coaching hire in four-plus seasons on the job), his top priority will be figuring out how best to remove veteran forward Chris Kreider, the longest-tenured Ranger and one of the franchise’s greatest players, from the roster.

Kreider is third on the team’s all-time goals list, with 325, and is tied for first (with Camille Henry) on the team’s all-time power-play goals list with 116. Kreider, who turns 34 on April 30, and has two years left on his contract at a cap hit of $6.5 million.

Drury also has to decide what to do with defenseman K’Andre Miller, a restricted free agent-to-be who has had an up-and-down year but still is clearly the No. 2 defenseman on the team, behind Fox. Does he sign Miller, who has seven goals and 17 assists this season, or does he trade him and try to find a replacement for him as the top left-side defenseman on the roster?

And the to-do list doesn’t end there. Since the arrival of J.T. Miller from Vancouver in February, Mika Zibanejad has apparently lost his position as the No. 1 center, though he did seem to enjoy some success as a right wing on Miller’s line. Zibanejad is under contract for five more seasons, and has a full no-move clause.