If The Rangers Can't Buy Out Chris Drury, Why Not Just Shoot The Useless Bastard?

So the news broke Friday that the Rangers will not, as planned, be able to buy out team captain and He Who Is Responsible For All The Team's Problems, Chris Drury, due to a degenerative knee condition that will cause him to be unable to play this season. Ooh, something else to hate Drury for? Sweet!

Seriously, people who are actually angry with Drury about this - and they are out there - boggle the mind. It's just a continuance of the same theme among a faction of Ranger fans - we know better, we care more, than anyone actually within the organization. Drury is a useless player, the worst captain in the history of professional sports, and deep down he just doesn't care about the Rangers at all. He's probably a terrible father, too. Oh, and I bet his pizza sucks. Honestly, the fact that this dude gets so little respect or consideration from so many Ranger fans flabbergasts me. His career has, overall, been exemplary. He is still the only player in NHL history to win both the Hobey Baker and the Calder, and will long be remembered as one of the most clutch players in the game. The Stanley Cup that the Colorado Avalanche won in 2001 would almost certainly never have been won without him (and as shitty of hockey fans as most people in this great state of Colorado are, rest assured that they remember that well. He remains a beloved, almost iconic, figure in Denver sports.) Off the ice, he has been a humble, likable, admirable guy, well liked and respected by his teammates. Has he been the most vocal or charismatic of captains? No. Was Brian Leetch? They can't all be Mess, folks.

Ranger fans have a long history of deciding how a player will be treated based on his pay. If a guy's salary is deemed too high, he is expected to somehow become a better hockey player, fundamentally, than he is capable of being. In Drury's case, he was somehow expected to become a point-a-game guy - which he never was (as evidenced by his career stats of 615 points in 892 NHL games). It's just not his game. The same thing happened with Michal Rozsival, a perfectly serviceable (if unremarkable) defenseman with a little offensive skill who was nonetheless never going to morph into Sergei Zubov just because Glen Sather - shockingly - gave him too much money. In the case of someone like Wade Redden, perhaps the recipient of the worst contract in Sather's notoriously awful history in New York, things were a little different, as there was both more of a precedent in his career for the kind of play New York fans expected from him, as well as what certainly appeared to be a lack of effort and/or investment in the team. And anyone who knows me as a fan at all knows that because of that, Redden never got the same slack from me as Drury and Rozsival. I love to root for an underdog, yes, but if you look like you just don't give a shit even I will gladly throw you to the wolves.

There is also a tendency among some Ranger fans to posit that if one guy was gone - and this is the case with Drury just as it was with Redden, Rozsival, and others (Scott Gomez comes to mind) - everything would suddenly become sunshine and lollipops on 8th Avenue. As Mr. Hand might say: what are you people - on dope? The reality is that each time a scapegoat leaves, another invariably arises. Marek Malik left; Rozsival took his place. Then Redden came along and started sucking ass game in and game out, taking the bulk of the heat off Rozsival; when Redden moved on to Hartford, Rozy moved back into the line of fire. And inevitably, after Rozsival was traded, Drury became the goat (Rozsival was vocal about being disappointed to leave New York; Drury was probably even more unhappy about his departure, if only because he knew he was next in line). If and when Drury goes, the target simply moves elsewhere - my guess is onto the back of Marian Gaborik, who will likely find himself dodging torches and pitchforks if he doesn't net roughly 17 goals in his first 5 games next season. (Incidentally, if there has to be a scapegoat on the roster, I'd like to nominate Erik Christensen. He doesn't make that much money, I know, but damn I hate that soft little bastard.)

The ideal outcome of this situation for us as fans would be for Drury to retire, knowing he can't play next season no matter what and will be 36 years old at the start of the following season. That would relieve us of his salary without the team having to pay anything to get his contract off the books. And make no mistake - I want Drury off the team just like everyone else, because I think it's what is right for the team I love. But I hope that however that ends up happening, he will get a fonder farewell than most of the poor bastards who preceded him in the thankless role of scapegoat. Because however you feel about Drury, the fact is that he's a classy guy, a good guy, who's had a great career and has always put forth the effort. It simply did not work out for him in New York. That in no way denotes that he didn't try, didn't care, or does not deserve our respect or well-wishes. And if he doesn't retire... sadly no, we can't actually take him out behind the Garden and shoot him. So put the guns away, you trigger happy assholes.