NHL Trade Rumors: New York Rangers’ Rick Nash on the trade block

The Rangers are reportedly considering trading Rick Nash this off-season, according to Elliotte Friedman. 

The New York Rangers face a very important off-season after their all-in bid for a Stanley Cup failed miserably and ended with a first round exit in the 2015-16 Stanley Cup playoffs.

Making matters more complicated is that their salary cap situation is terrible. They only have 14 players signed and they only have $17,925,000 of cap space. Most of that is likely going to have to be committed to signing restricted free agents Kevin Hayes, J.T. Miller, and Chris Kreider.

To create more cap space, the Rangers are allegedly considering trading star forward Rick Nash.

Trading Nash right now might be the best decision if the Rangers want to begin to rebuild. Their farm system is among the worst in the NHL. It will only get worse as Pavel Buchnevich and Brady Skjei are likely going to be on the NHL roster for most of the 2016-17 season, if not all of it. Their recent moves have left their prospect system barren. While Nash is productive, his $7.8 million cap hit is a bit of a burden to the Rangers.

The Rangers would likely prefer to trade either Dan Girardi or Marc Staal. However, do any of those two defensemen have trade value at this point? Girardi is on the wrong side of 30 and has been declining over the past few seasons. Staal isn’t even 30 years old and he’s already declining.

If the Rangers want to create cap space to make more moves, such as re-signing Keith Yandle, trading Nash might be their only option.

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