NEW YORK — Chris Drury doesn’t like talking about timelines.In April, shortly after the New York Rangers’ season ended, the team president and general manager declined to say how close he believed they were to having a playoff roster. Speaking again Thursday after making four trades and signing two NHL free agents the day before, he sidestepped a similar question, this one about whether his win-now moves signified pressure to build a postseason team for this coming year.“I’m not going to sit here and put a timeline on anything,” Drury said on a conference call. “The only timeline I operate on is trying to get better every single day and look at ways to get the team better every single day.”Drury must have a more concrete time table in mind than he’s willing to publicly admit. His flurry of adds around the NHL Draft and free agency — highlighted by the acquisition and $77 million extension of Pavel Dorofeyev, trades for top-four defensemen Sean Durzi and Marcus Pettersson, and the signings of Oliver Bjorkstrand and Joe Veleno — suggest an aggressive one.How to win a Stanley Cup without superstarsHarman DayalAggression comes with risk, even if recent moves have done a respectable job injecting youth into both the Rangers’ NHL roster and prospect pool. Drury has traded away three first-round picks in the last week and, after adding Dorofeyev and Pettersson’s contracts to the books, has committed at least $68.5 million of his salary cap space in each of the next three seasons. Five of the team’s eight players under contract for at least the next three years are also older than 30.The front office is making big bets. Bets that the team will have better injury luck this season; that the likes of Mika Zibanejad and captain J.T. Miller — both 33 — will age gracefully; that Pettersson will bounce back after a rough year in Vancouver; and that the 25-year-old Dorofeyev, a two-time 35-plus goal scorer, will be able to continue producing at a high rate away from Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner and the Vegas power play.There’s reason to have faith in at least some of those things happening. On his Thursday video call with media, which a team public relations staffer cut off after around 13 minutes despite multiple reporters’ virtual hands still raised in the queue, Drury said the organization is “energized with what has transpired in the recent days and the potential of what is in front of us next season.”Led by 2021 Norris Trophy winner Adam Fox, the defensive corps is now above average, and Igor Shesterkin is elite in net. The forward group has holes, but improved puck-moving on the back end could lead to increased scoring. Plus, Drury might not be done adding there. He acknowledged he’s “still tinkering and looking at any which way we can help the team between now and opening night.”Following the moves, the Rangers look like a team capable of pushing for Metropolitan Division playoff spots behind the Stanley Cup-winning Carolina Hurricanes. But the roster also appears far from that of a true contender, and it’s not overtly clear how Drury plans to bridge that gap. This challenge will persist, especially as the club’s top two centers, Zibanejad and Miller, continue to age. To make the leap into the NHL’s upper-echelon, New York will eventually need to add an elite play-driving center: one of the hardest player archetypes to find in the league.Still, the Rangers have a few things going for them. Fox and Shesterkin are about as good a defenseman and goalie combination as any team in the league has to build around. Mike Sullivan, hired last offseason, is a win-now coach with a pair of Stanley Cup titles and an Olympic gold medal. Alberts Šmits, drafted No. 5 overall last month, headlines a prospect pool that has added winger Liam Greentree and center Cole Beaudoin — parts of the Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck trades, respectively — this year.If those and other prospects develop and young roster players like Gabe Perreault and Alexis Lafrenière pop, perhaps it’s enough to make the roster attractive to a star free agent. Drury can certainly hope, but he mustn’t operate as if it is a likelihood. This summer showed as much. A free agent class that at one point was scheduled to feature Connor McDavid, Eichel and Kirill Kaprizov was whittled down by extensions to the point that Alex Tuch and Darren Raddysh were the headliners. Both were eventually acquired in sign-and-trades before even hitting the open market.There’s likely not going to be an easy way out. The Rangers will instead have to nail bets like the Dorofeyev trade, have better developmental success than they did with past top prospects (see: Lias Andersson, Vitali Kravtsov and Kaapo Kakko), and hit on draft picks. The Rangers trading away two of their next four first-round picks (both top-10 protected) doesn’t help with the latter, but Drury felt like those were worthy risks to take.“Our philosophy was if they’re for the right player or players that are at the right age with the right contract, that can help our lineup — not just in the next year or two, but for a number of years down the road — that would be worth it,” Drury said, also mentioning prospect reinforcements that the team received in various trades following his January letter to fans announcing a retool, such as Greentree.The Rangers’ present-day situation looks brighter after this week’s moves, but it’s fair to hold onto some skepticism about the long term. In the meantime, Drury maintains he’ll keep trying to make his team better every day. Any broader timelines will be kept close to the vest.