New York Rangers
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The Rangers continued to be Cup favorites in the mid-to-late 1990s, even landing an aging Wayne Gretzky, but they would fizzle out. Their 1994 stars were aging and many retired or dropped off in performance. After General Manager Neil Smith ran Messier out of town in the summer of 1997 and failed in a bid to replace him with Avalanche superstar Joe Sakic, the Rangers began a streak of seven seasons (and counting) without making the playoffs.
In March 2000, Smith was fired along with head coach John Muckler, and that summer James Dolan hired Glen Sather to replace him. By 2001, the Rangers had landed a lot of star power. Theoren Fleury joined the Rangers after spending most of his career with the Calgary Flames. Eric Lindros joined the Rangers from the Philadelphia Flyers. They got Pavel Bure late in the 2001-02 season from the Florida Panthers. However, the Rangers still finished out of the playoffs despite having the league's highest payroll. Later years saw other stars such as Alexei Kovalev, Jaromir Jagr, Anson Carter and Bobby Holik added, but in 2002-03 and 2003-04, the team again missed the playoffs. Ranger fans are now beginning to think they might have to wait 54 years for another Stanley Cup. Towards the end of the 2003-04 season, Sather finally gave in to a rebuilding process, and traded away Leetch, Kovalev, and eight others for numerous prospects and draft picks. Bure is now an unrestricted free agent, while Lindros signed with the Maple Leafs prior to the 2005-06 season. Entering the post-lockout NHL, the Rangers have 6 players under contract, of whom only Jagr is expected to remain on the team.