3 things Knicks can learn from Rangers’ run in NHL playoffs

The New York Rangers are everything that the New York Knicks want to be. A thrilling, young team – defying expectations and not only making an incredible run deep into the playoffs but a team that has all but cemented a foundation that they will be contenders for years to come. Sustained success is on the horizon, and it’s what the Knicks so desperately want.

It’s a team that has captured the heart of the city. From fanbases of other sports coming together to root for the Rangers, or actual players from the Jets, Giants, Mets, Yankees, and Knicks all coming out to Madison Square Garden to show their support, this is the kind of team that New Yorkers dream of.

Can the New York Knicks replicate the Rangers’ success?

Comparing teams across different sports is, for the most part, silly. I always find the NBA the most difficult to compare to other professional team sports just because of how centered it is around individual star players — it’s a much smaller roster than most team sports.

You can still, however, compare and analyze the “team-building” aspect of it in broad strokes. Sports cliches may be cliches, but they always seem to ring true at the end of the day.

The Rangers may have not won a Stanley Cup since 1994, but they have had a lot of sustained playoff success in the past 15-20 years. They’re about to enter an entirely new era of success as they’re currently competing for a championship. The Knicks can absolutely learn a thing or two from their Madison Square Garden roommates.

The Knicks need a long-term plan

Now in fairness to the current Knicks’ front office, they’ve shown a lot more dedication to having a long-term vision for the team than in years past. It’s still not very evident if they can reach sustained success, but they got a taste of it in 2020-21.

That taste of success prompted them to go into “accelerated rebuild” mode until they had to slam the brakes this year. The “accelerated rebuild” is always a dream for any young team. It’s a reality for the Rangers.

From 2006 to 2017, the Rangers went to the playoffs (the same format as the NBA, eight teams make it) 11 times out of a possible 12. They went to four conference semifinals, two conference finals, and one Stanley Cup final. Can you IMAGINE if the Knicks had that kind of success? What kind of dream world is that?

And then, guess what? The era of success began to dwindle. An absolute rock of a franchise player, Henrik Lundqvist, was getting old. The team was getting old. And the Rangers, transparent as ever, literally wrote a public letter to the fans saying “we are going to rebuild.”

They had a plan. They traded away beloved veterans, got a ton of draft capital, made some smart signings, and now… just four years later, they are set to be a playoff team for years to come once again.

How many years have the Knicks been a team without any direction? You cannot change the course of a franchise overnight. It takes a ton of time.

So far, this Knicks front office has, for the most part, seemed committed to long-term success. There have been a few large contracts, a few great trades, and a few iffy ones. For now, they seem much better off than in years past, but they still have plenty more to learn from the Rangers.

Play The Kids!

It’s something that we heard over and over from Knicks fans, begging head coach Tom Thibodeau to play the Knicks’ young guns. No one ever wants to be stuck in “playing veterans while still being a terrible team” purgatory, and the Knicks have been there quite often.

Look, I don’t want to dive into too many specifics with the Knicks players because we’ve all talked about it so much, but there is a potential ending here where the Knicks’ young players do end up being key parts of their team.

Even if their minutes haven’t always been heavy, you can absolutely say Immanuel Quickley and Obi Toppin have gotten better since their rookie season. They’ve “developed” under Thibodeau.

The next step is to ramp up their playing time in year three. Make sure that Toppin and Quickley have consistent roles, get guys like Quentin Grimes more looks off the bench, and simply make sure that you’re actually building through the draft.

The Rangers, even when they were bad in recent years, could still be really fun to watch because you were watching a young team grow. You were getting to see the growing pains of a young team — flashes of elite play, a lot of head-scratching play, but a team that gave you some hope for the future. It’s easy to root for.

Some of the Rangers’ young stars, Alexis Lafreniere and Kaapo Kakko, were playing on the team’s bottom lines for long stretches early in their careers, much to the chagrin of some Rangers fans. But they kept playing. Most importantly, they kept playing in key moments. They learned how to play in the NHL in high-pressure moments.

Now, you’re watching a Rangers team with multiple players under the age of 23 playing MAJOR roles in the playoffs. Kakko, Lafreniere, K’Andre Miller, Filip Chytil, Braden Schneider, and Adam Fox — they’re all significant parts of the team. It’s now time for the Knicks to ensure that their young guys (mostly the players entering years three and four) have cemented their roles.

If it’s broke, fix it

This almost seems like a complete contradiction to the earlier lesson of playing the kids and investing in long-term success as opposed to always making changes. This is true, you want your players to be in a healthy environment and give them multiple chances to succeed. But you want to make sure that the environment stays healthy.

The Rangers have received praise from around the NHL for their impressive rebuild. Winning trades left and right, having draft lottery luck, and being able to make the organization attractive to free agents. And even with all of this success, they’ve had plenty of bumps in the road.

The Rangers didn’t have high expectations heading into the season. The playoffs alone would’ve been a success. They missed the playoffs last year, and they fired their then head coach, Dan Quinn. He certainly received backlash from Rangers fans throughout his tenure, but it wasn’t some sort of clear-cut decision.

This was, again, a young team with no high playoff hopes, so you could’ve just said that was that and given more time.

But the Rangers recognized that the coach was holding this young team back. Not only that, Gerard Gallant, who has an impressive resume, was available. They pounced. They fired Quinn and hired Gallant, and here they are in the conference finals. It wasn’t just the coach, either.

Along this journey, the Rangers have had multiple high draft picks not pan out. They traded away a very young Lias Andersson, who was disgruntled with his progress in the organization. Vitaly Kravtsov, another high draft pick, felt as though he wasn’t being rewarded enough for his pedigree either.

The Rangers made sure to cut ties with their talented, yet cancerous locker room presence, Tony DeAngelo. Essentially, the Rangers were able to accurately sniff out the things that were holding the team back.

I think we can safely say that this current Knicks roster won’t at all be the same roster in two years. The team has plenty of personnel decisions to make — from potential trades to looming extensions. They have to figure out who is part of the winning equation and who is not.

There could be some exciting young players who simply do not fit the team’s long-term vision. There could be veterans who are holding other players back. There could be a head coach who isn’t the right fit going forward.

These decisions aren’t easy to make, but that’s why the front office gets paid so much money — they need to be able to get these things right. Ultimately, it’s up to the talent evaluators and the Knicks’ top decision-makers. Let’s hope they figure this thing out.

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