As for the Rangers, there are five days until the first round of the draft and eight days until the free agent market opens.
1. The buyout period began Wednesday and runs through June 30, but after contacting several sources around the league, there is no indication that the Blueshirts are considering buying out Jacob Trouba.
For now, general manager Chris Drury is keeping everything under wraps, but sources are divided on whether the team will seek to move their captain after submitting the 15-team trade no-go list on July 1.
Trouba’s effectiveness was clearly diminished during the playoffs by whether he played or didn’t play with a broken ankle. It’s a matter of words now. It may be fair to question the decision to take Trouba off injured reserve for the final nine games of the regular season after he missed 11 games with the injury sustained on March 4, but that’s a question that falls on Drury, not the player.
It might also be fair to question the decision to start Trouba over Zach Jones as the No. 8’s issues worsened during the playoffs, but that’s the fault of head coach Peter Laviolette, not a defenseman who clearly didn’t have the authority to write his own name on the lineup card.
I don’t see the Rangers wanting to take away the captaincy again after just two years, and there’s no need for them to. Leadership isn’t the issue. Trouba has played a key role in building a pretty good culture here, and all of his teammates respect him.
Ryan Lindgren, who is going to be a restricted free agent, is a strong guy. Braden Schneider, who is going to be a restricted free agent, is a strong guy. But neither of them are a threat. You know who is a threat? Trouba. He’s dangerous.
Adam Fox and Schneider enter camp as the top two on the right side. No one wants a third-pairing defenseman with an $8 million cap charge, which of course goes to Trouba. But the Rangers don’t have a viable replacement, meaning if the team were to trade Trouba, they would have to acquire a replacement in a trade or in free agency.
But Trouba isn’t a typical third-pairing defenseman in that he’s the primary member of the penalty-killing unit. In fact, Trouba is sixth-best among defensemen in penalty-killing goals conceded per 60 minutes with 5.47, while his partner Lindegren was fourth with 5.2 per 60.
Veteran right defenceman Chris Tanev, who was acquired from Calgary to Dallas at the transfer deadline, is reportedly highly rated by Rangers personnel officials, but the Stars are expected to make a strong offer to retain the rental player, who will soon be a free agent.
Tanev, who turns 35 in December, just finished a contract that paid an average annual salary of $4.5 million. So how much do they need now? Maybe $6 million, for how long? If the club really does move Trouba, would that really be the solution? Would it make the Rangers any tougher or more threatening on the defensive line?
The goal is to be more difficult. To be more threatening. I’m not sure how moving the troubadour accomplishes those goals.
2. But the one-year, $2.4 million contract signed with Kaapo Kakko a few weeks ago was actually a trade proxy, and there are multiple indications that the Blueshirts were actively marketing the 23-year-old Finnish player.
This is more of a sell-low scenario, but sources say Drury is also looking to pair Kako with the team’s own 30th overall pick to move up in the first round.
The biggest mistake the Rangers made with Kako was not adding a Finnish veteran NHL player to ease the 2019 No. 2 overall pick’s entry into the league. They didn’t add one (until they added Niko Mikola at the 2023 deadline).
I couldn’t understand it at all.
3. I recognize that it’s essentially impossible to quantify the value of a franchise goaltender, and I recognize that there are big teams like Toronto and Carolina who routinely have the second-best goaltender in playoff series these days, and I also recognize that not having a reliable goaltender can weaken a franchise for years.
But I think this should be part of the calculation from a management standpoint as Drury enters into contract extension negotiations with Igor Shesterkin.
If Shesterkin earns $11 million a year, he would break Kelly Price’s record of $10.5 million a year for a goaltender, but the Rangers would pay just under $45.767 million in cap hits across five players: Shesterkin, Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibaginjed, Adam Fox and Vincent Trocheck.
That doesn’t include the roughly $15 million combined that will be paid out on Alexis Lafreniere and Qu’Andre Miller’s next contracts, meaning that’s roughly $60.767 million for seven players, leaving roughly $31.2 million of the projected $92 million cap space to fill the 15 spots on a roster that will be in Stanley Cup mode.
The question for Drury is whether the Rangers can acquire a Cup-caliber goaltender for under $5 million and then add a few more players to bolster the team with the remaining $6.5 million.
Maybe for the first time in the hard cap era the Blueshirts won’t be goalie-centric. Just a thought.
