Fansided

New York Rangers preparing for fire sale at NHL trade deadline

By Griffin Youngs

BUFFALO, NY - FEBRUARY 02: Mats Zuccarello
BUFFALO, NY - FEBRUARY 02: Mats Zuccarello /
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The New York Rangers, despite being in the hunt for a playoff spot, are ready to start selling at this year’s trade deadline in hopes of building a future Stanley Cup contender.

The NHL trade deadline has begun to heat up once again as we are now officially one month away from the Feb.26 deadline, and now a new team has been thrown into the selling category, a team nobody expected when the season began.

According to Larry Brooks of the New York Post, the New York Rangers are ready to begin not just selling at the deadline, but a full on fire sale that could see some of the Rangers most notable players getting dealt to help them start anew again.

For years, the New York Rangers have been one of the NHL’s most consistently good teams, missing the playoffs only once following the 2004 lockout, and even then the Rangers missed in 2010 by the narrowest of margins when they lost in a shootout to the Philadelphia Flyers on the final game of the season. But this year, things have not gone as they have hoped they would, as they sit on the outside of the playoffs looking in at a fiercely competitive Metropolitan division.

This season the Rangers collapsed out of the gate, losing eight of 10 right off the bat. November and December saw a drastic turnaround as they jumped all the way up to second in the Metro division for a brief time, but the performance of Henrik Lundqvist masked many of this teams underlying issues. Now, those issues have been exposed. The Rangers are being plagued by questionable coaching decisions, injuries, and underperforming players. Unless Lundqvist can carry the Rangers more then he already has this season, the Rangers’ chances at making the playoffs are slim.

Rangers owner James Dolan says the priority now is to “build a Stanley Cup winner rather than to simply extend a seven-year playoff streak that is in jeopardy.” It’s a mistake which we have witnessed by the downfall of plenty of great teams in the past, most notably the Detroit Red Wings.

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The Rangers currently have $2,289,360 in cap space and 11 players on expiring contracts. No matter what a decision had to made this season for either one last run at the Stanley Cup, or getting ahead and selling players with value instead of losing them for nothing. The Rangers certainly do not lack valuable players, whom they plan to cash in on at the deadline.

Rick Nash is one of the most enticing rentals on the market this year, and sending him to the right team at a retained salary could be the deciding factor on if this sale at the deadline will be a success. The first overall pick in 2002 came over to the Rangers in 2012 and has been a dependable top six scorer for them ever since, scoring 142 goals and counting in a Rangers uniform.

The possible return for Nash could be significant to the right team, especially if the Rangers are okay with retaining 50 percentof his $7.8 million cap hit. Teams such as the Los Angles Kings, San Jose Sharks, or even Nash’s former team, the Columbus Blue Jacket,s have the cap space for 50 percent of Nash’s contract and the need of his scoring services.

Michael Grabner is another enticing forward on the rental market. With a cheap contract of just $1.65M, plenty of teams can afford his speed and goal scoring ability, not to mention penalty kill contribution. In 125 games with the Rangers, Grabner has accumulated 48 goals and 18 assists for 66 total points.

While Grabner might not get a similar return to Nash, plenty of contending teams will pay a hefty sum for his services. Teams like the Calgary Flames, Anaheim Ducks, San Jose Sharks or any contending team looking for speed and scoring on a low risk high reward player could use him, and he could even come back to the Rangers in the offseason if he’s so inclined.

The biggest name on this list is the captain of the Rangers, Ryan McDonagh. He has not been exempt from having his name thrown in the trade rumor hat, but if he’s really on the market, McDonagh could fetch one of the highest returns of this deadline, especially if sold to the right bidder. Teams all around the league are desperate for a legitimate top pairing defenseman that won’t just be here for this year, but the year after as well, and will pay a big fee to get it.

So if Gorton decides to ship out the captain and fully embrace a fire sale, where could he go? The team that first comes to mind is the Toronto Maple Leafs, a young, offense-heavy team looking for stability on the back end.

The Maple Leafs have been in rumors all year along, but their needs boil down to the necessity of another top four defenseman, and McDonagh is right up their alley with his ability to be on a top pair with young defenseman Morgan Reilly for years to come. The Leafs would be the perfect trading partner for the Rangers in a McDonagh deal with their young talent both on the NHL roster and developing in the minor leagues.

That’s just scratching the surface of players that could be in a different uniform by the time Feb. 26 rolls around. Other names tossed around the trade rumor mill have included fan favorite Mats Zuccarello, David Desharnais, Nick Holden and goalie Ondrej Pavelec.

For the Rangers faithful, this could mark the beginning of some hardships to come, but it is the right decision for management to make. The Rangers reached their peak in the 2013-2014 season, losing in the Stanley Cup Finals to the Los Angeles Kings, then winning the Presidents Trophy in the following 2014-2015 season before being bounced by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Rangers gave it their best shot with the roster they had, but unfortunately just couldn’t get the job done.

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All hope is not yet lost, however, as the Rangers have already taken steps to ease the pain of a retooling process, and it might not take as long as it initially sounds.  Plenty of young pieces are already in place in Pavel Buchnevich, Mika Zibanejab and JT Miller, and a farm system of Lias Andersson, Filip Chytil, and Igor Shestyorkin is no slouch either. The Rangers are doing the right thing here, and the NHL’s most valuable franchise will be back soon enough.

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