Let’s bring this forward before taking a look in the rearview.
As the Rangers and president/general manager Chris Drury embark on a search for a successor to head coach Gerard Gallant, who parted ways with the organization in what has been framed as a mutual decision, The Post has learned that Joel Quenneville will not be among the candidates.
Quenneville, the three-time Cup-winning coach in Chicago, is under unofficial and open-ended suspension by the NHL for his failure to act responsibly in connection with the Kyle Beach sexual assault issue.
We were told late Friday by an NHL official that Quenneville, who has been out of the league since he was permitted to resign as Florida coach in late October 2021, has not been cleared for a return. Saturday we were told that the Rangers will not pursue the matter with commissioner Gary Bettman, who is the sole arbiter in this matter.
Gallant, who steered the Blueshirts to 110- and 107-point seasons while compiling a .662 point percentage that is the best in franchise history among coaches with at least 100 games behind the bench, was exactly as advertised.
When he was hired to succeed David Quinn after the 2020-21 season, Gallant came with a reputation as an old-school players’ coach who was lacking in X’s and O’s and motivational skills. That is exactly how it played out.
The 59-year-old was an instant breath of fresh air in the room the way he dealt with the veterans who had felt smothered by Quinn’s style and personality that he had developed at Boston University. Gallant treated his players like professionals. He was protective of his athletes, rarely singling out any for public criticism. He believed in keeping everything within the room. He was appreciated for his approach.
Gallant was not a rah-rah motivational speaker, preferring to leave that assignment to the leadership group within the room. After Game 1 of the Devils series, the Rangers scored one first-period goal the rest of the way, that by Chris Kreider at 19:35 of Game 6. The Blueshirts came out flat in all three games at the Garden and in Games 5 and 7 at the Rock.
And Gallant was not a wizard when it came to X’s and O’s. He did not make in-game or game-to-game strategic adjustments quickly or effectively enough. The Rangers’ breakout system was wanting. They lacked structure in their own end. Their forecheck was, well, there is no need to belabor the point, but there effectively was none against New Jersey after appearing intermittently during the season.
A year ago, Gallant was a good enough leader to take the Rangers to the conference finals in a Cinderella run. The glass skates no longer fit this spring. Other than for Igor Shesterkin and to an extent Chris Kreider, not a single one of the Marquee Rangers played up to par. That may be reflective of a coaching issue, but that surely does not absolve the players, who one after another failed to produce.
“We win as a team and lose as a team,” Drury said in a Saturday evening conference call. “But if I could reference the exit meetings [with the players], the good thing is that no one wants to be let off the hook.
“Everyone throughout this last week has been taking a good, long, hard look in the mirror and using it as motivation and a learning experience.”
Drury said the decision to move on was a mutual one following a series of meetings between the two men. The Post has confirmed SportsNet’s Elliotte Friedman’s report of a heated conversation following the team’s Game 4 defeat. There have been several times during the last two years that the GM and coach have had differing opinions on personnel and player usage, but that is not at all unique around the league.
This is a challenging group to coach, the roster up front loaded with expensive, talent-oriented, introspective veterans with no movement clauses who are prone to playing a finesse game. The Rangers have to become a much harder team to play against. That was true even after last year’s run.
The Blueshirts have bounced between personalities and approaches with their coaching hires since late in the 2008-09 season in going from Tom Renney to John Tortorella to Alain Vigneault to Quinn to Gallant.
Drury and his staff have begun to compile a list of candidates. There is no obvious contender out there who is head and shoulders above the rest. It is unclear whether candidates such as Patrick Roy who did not get an interview two years ago would be in the mix now.
But it is clear that this group needs a coach who combines motivational abilities with X’s-and-O’s technical prowess. The players need help. The team needs structure.
What a strange trip it was with Gallant, who oversaw two of the most successful regular seasons in franchise history but could not make it to Year 3.
But that is life in the big town leading a franchise that is back on a 29-year championship drought and has won one Stanley Cup since Pearl Harbor.
Who’s next?
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