The New York Rangers are in the midst of an agonizing season of unmet potential. It’s so bad, even John McEnroe was left to moan about it in the midst of his job.
During ESPN’s coverage of the Australian Open men’s singles first-round match between Carlos Alcaraz and Yannick Hanfmann, commentator Mike Monaco did a promo for a pair of the network’s upcoming NHL broadcasts later in the week.
Neither of those games featured the Rangers, a team that is sixth-worst in the league and dead last in their division.
Monaco offered up easy bait for McEnroe – a New York native and a lifelong Rangers fan – that the tennis icon ate up.
‘Sounds like the Rangers are gonna be in sell mode,’ Monaco said, referring to a letter published by Rangers GM Chris Drury earlier this week which promised an effort to ‘retool the team’ for future success.
A depressed-sounding McEnroe responded, ‘I saw that, that’s really depressing. What is going on with the Rangers?’
John McEnroe took a break from calling the Australian Open to bemoan the New York Rangers
The Blueshirts are the sixth-worst team in the NHL and dead last in their division
McEnroe and commentary partner Mike Monaco even mocked Rangers coach Mike Sullivan
Rather than stop there and continue calling the match, the pair stayed on the subject of New York’s woes.
‘To me, when they traded [former defenseman Jacob] Trouba, I was bummed. They’re getting rid of all their guys. He was their captain,’ McEnroe moaned.
Monaco agreed, referring to it as ‘the big drama’ from the previous season while also pointing out how the Blueshirts traded another captain, Chris Kreider, to the Anaheim Ducks and hired a new coach in Mike Sullivan.
Monaco then tried to bring things back to the present with the match in front of them on Rod Laver.
But McEnroe went back to address Sullivan’s job: ‘They do a lot of re-cycling, the coaches in the NHL, don’t they?’
After his partner noted that the average coach stays for an average of ‘three years tops,’ McEnroe then quipped that coaches then ‘go somewhere else, fail up.’
The Rangers have been in a remarkable slump. After winning the Presidents Trophy as the top points-earners in the league in the 2023-24 season, they missed the playoffs last year and on track to miss them again this campaign.
The Blueshirts haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1994 and have not reached the Stanley Cup Finals since 2014.
