At the end of the day, words don’t matter nearly as much as actions and results. Still, when the New York Rangers announced their plan last week to raise a white flag on this season in order to focus on the future, general manager Chris Drury emphasized that this isn’t a “rebuild,” instead choosing the word “retool.”
That’s pretty much semantics. A cynic can argue that Drury and the Rangers are simply trying to soften the blow that changes are coming, some popular players soon will be traded, but, hey, it’s not a complete teardown that can last years.