The Rangers offseason changes have reached the AHL Hartford staff.
Head coach Grant Potulny, assistant coach Jamie Tardif and assistant coach Paul Mara were all fired by the Wolf Pack, the Blueshirts announced Sunday.
Hartford finished last in the Atlantic Division with 60 points this season and missed the Calder Cup Playoffs for a second consecutive year, coinciding with a disappointing Blueshirts campaign that ended with the team last in the Eastern Conference and in the middle of a public retool.
Potulny was in charge for each of the last two seasons for the Wolf Pack, taking over following a 2023-24 campaign where Kris Knoblauch left to become the head coach of the Oilers and assistant Steve Smith stepped in on an interim basis.
Prior to that, Potulny coached Northern Michigan for seven seasons.
Tardif had been a Hartford assistant since the 2022-23 season, while Mara joined the staff in December 2023 after initially getting hired as a player development assistant that August.
And now, when the Rangers and the Wolf Pack begin their next season, the Hartford staff will mark the latest layer of the organization’s development that will look different. Jed Ortmeyer left to pursue other opportunities, The Post’s Mollie Walker reported Friday, after serving as director of player development since 2017.
Tanner Glass, who had been an assistant director of player development since 2019, was officially promoted on the Rangers’ website one day after the news of Ortmeyer’s exit broke.
The Blueshirts have mostly struggled to develop prospects in recent years, with the exception of Gabe Perreault (first-round pick in 2023) and Noah Laba (fourth-round pick in 2022) carving out roles with the NHL club last year.
Recent top 10 picks Alexis Lafrenière (2020), Kaapo Kakko (2019) and Vitali Kravtsov (2018) all have underwhelmed, with Kakko and Kravtsov no longer on the Rangers and former top overall pick Lafrenière needing to prove that his recent breakthrough was more than just another flash.
Plenty of the Rangers’ problems start with their NHL roster.
That, more than anything, was why last season spiraled.
But as they stare down a long offseason, their initial moves have focused on the foundation, on the prospects and development, on the staff directly responsible for shaping the pieces set to define what’s next for the Blueshirts.
