Kreider, who will not play Wednesday against the Carolina Hurricanes due to back spasms, told Mollie Walker of New York Post that he remained fully committed to the concession.
“I think it’s pretty obvious that there’s frustration and anxiety and tension within the team,” Kreider said of the feeling in the Rangers locker room right now.
“We only played 20 games. Let’s review this situation and find out who we are. We had the best regular season in the history of a very old team, we won the Presidents’ Trophy, but we didn’t go as far as we would have liked. The teams have analyzed our game system and our flaws are visible at the moment. We need to get back to basics and the little things we do well. »
Kreider has scored nine goals in 19 games this season and is under contract until the end of the 2026-27 season at a salary of $6.5 million.
“We don’t necessarily know what it is yet, do we? This slump could simply be part of the story and we could reflect on it and tell ourselves that it made us better. »
The informant of TSN Chris Johnston reported Tuesday, in Early Tradingthat Rangers general manager Chris Drury was open to trading his veterans “under the right circumstances.”
The 33-year-old winger said he remained focused on the ice despite the storm Drury caused.
“You shouldn’t trivialize other people’s feelings, but how you feel doesn’t affect your ability to do something you’ve done your whole life – unless you let it,” Kreider said.
“There are guys here who will say there are games where they feel good and they don’t play well. There are games where they are not in good shape, where they are sick, maybe a little banged up and all of a sudden, the puck follows them everywhere. The body knows what to do, you just have to do it its way and let it do it. »
The Rangers have lost their last three games and have been outscored 11-4 in their last two outings. The team is 12-7-1 this season and currently sits as the No. 1 drafted team in the East.
Led by a group of players including Kreider and Trouba, the Rangers have made the playoffs in each of the last three seasons, reaching the Eastern Conference Finals twice.
The team bounced back from a first-round elimination in 2023 to reach the conference finals again last year in its first season under Peter Laviolette.
Selected 19th overall by the Rangers in the 2009 draft, Kreider spent his entire career with the Blueshirts. He scored 313 goals and 561 points in 834 games.
