Trade Deadline Primer: Winnipeg Jets
With the Olympic break upon us, the trade deadline is under a month away. Where does each team stand, and what moves should they be looking to make? We continue our look around the league at teams on the playoff bubble, next up: the Jets.
The Jets entered this season with the loftiest expectations after capturing the Presidents’ Trophy last year. Unfortunately, injuries and inconsistency have set the club back, and it is well below .500, struggling to climb the Western Conference standings. The playoffs look unlikely at this point, but with most of their stars signed long term, the Jets aren’t likely to push the button on a rebuild. A small retool in the offseason seems probable, and the Jets do have the personnel to turn around their fortunes in a hurry. The deadline feels like a good time to begin the retooling, and it seems likely they will move on from their pending UFAs.
Record
22-26-8, 7th in the Central (5.5% playoff probability)
Deadline Status
Seller
Deadline Cap Space
$17.44MM on deadline day, 0/3 retention slots used, 45/50 contracts used, per PuckPedia.
Upcoming Draft Picks
2026: WPG 1st, WPG 3rd, WPG 5th, WPG 6th, WPG 7th
2027: WPG 1st, WPG 3rd, WPG 5th, WPG 6th, WPG 7th
Trade Chips
Winnipeg has yet to define itself as a seller, but it will need to pivot to that mindset, barring a miraculous short-term turnaround. The Jets want to win and were presumably built to win this season, but things haven’t panned out. If the team does begin a mini selloff, it has some desirable veteran pieces, particularly on the backend.
Big Logan Stanley is a pending UFA and would surely draw interest from any team looking to beef up their blueline. The 27-year-old couldn’t have picked a better time to have a career year, and he is sure to get paid when he hits the open market. He and the Jets haven’t engaged in contract talks, which is a strong sign he is done in Winnipeg after this year. If the Jets do indeed punt on the season, Stanley could net them some decent assets. At 6’7” and 230 lbs, Stanley will have multiple suitors, which could create a bidding war for Winnipeg to cash in on.
Another defenseman who could net some assets is Luke Schenn. The 18-year NHL veteran isn’t having a great year, but that doesn’t mean he won’t have suitors. Schenn still blocks shots and hits a ton, both desirable traits in the eyes of most NHL GMs. A year ago, the Jets acquired Schenn from the Pittsburgh Penguins for a second-round pick, but it’s hard to envision them getting the same return this time around. That being said, the Jets should be able to nab a similar pick if Schenn is made available, as right-shot defenseman almost always go for a premium.
Up front, Winnipeg has a couple of forwards who would be in demand despite their own poor seasons. Jonathan Toews was brought in to potentially serve as Winnipeg’s second-line center, but he hasn’t been close to the player he once was. He has just 19 points in 56 games this year, but could still serve as a fourth-line center on a solid playoff team. Toews remains elite in the faceoff circle, winning 61% of his draws, and he hasn’t been a drain on possession, even though he’s clearly not the skater he once was. He would need to waive his no-movement clause to facilitate a deal, but if he wants one more shot at a Stanley Cup, it could be possible for him to do so.
Another forward who could fetch a draft pick for the Jets is veteran Gustav Nyquist. The 36-year-old has had a dreadful season with the Jets, tallying just nine assists in 35 games while averaging almost 13 minutes per game of ice time. It’s a sharp drop from two seasons ago, when Nyquist had 23 goals and 52 assists in 81 games and was a key contributor for the Nashville Predators. Nyquist has been fairly inconsistent offensively since crossing the 30-year-old mark, and it looks as though he is a 20-30-point player at this stage of his career. Given the teams that are looking for help offensively, there should be a small, lukewarm market for Nyquist, but if the Jets are selling, there is really no reason to hang onto Nyquist past the trade deadline.
The Jets also have veterans Tanner Pearson, Cole Koepke, and Colin Miller on their roster, but none of those three are likely to fetch much at the deadline other than a low-level prospect or a very late draft pick. Miller is currently dealing with a knee injury, but if he can return to health, he could command the highest return given the robust market for right-handed defensemen.
Team Needs
A Second Line Center: The Jets hoped Toews could recapture the magic from his early Chicago days and fill the void at second-line center. However, Toews’s limited playing time over the last few years has been a glaring issue, and he is no longer a top-six fixture, likely best suited to fourth-line duties. It was a worthy gamble for Winnipeg, given that the market for second-line centers wasn’t exactly a buyer’s market. The Jets need to fill that role going forward, and it likely won’t be easy. Top-six centers don’t grow on trees, and the cost in both the trade market and free agency will be high.
The Jets don’t need to address the issue before the deadline, but if they can trade pending UFAs and stack draft capital and prospects, they could use those assets to try to be buyers in the trade market this summer. There will be options available, likely for veteran players such as Nazem Kadri or Tyler Seguin. While these players have had great careers, the Jets would be better served by targeting a younger player, though it will certainly cost more.
More Depth Scoring: The Jets have relied heavily on their stars this year, which has put a lot of pressure on the likes of Kyle Connor and Mark Scheifele. If those players don’t score, the Jets generally don’t produce offense, since their bottom-six forwards haven’t been able to provide consistent point production. It’s not something Winnipeg is likely to address before the trade deadline. Still, it could be something they target if the right move presents itself, similar to how the Penguins brought in Thomas Novak at last year’s deadline, even though they weren’t a playoff team. Winnipeg needs another playmaker in its middle-six group, and given that playoff teams will be vying for exactly that kind of player, Winnipeg might find better prices in the summer.
If they can find someone to fill that void, particularly on the second forward unit, it could push everyone else down in the lineup, which might allow for better balance and team play five-on-five, something that is lagging well behind other playoff teams.
Photo by Perry Nelson-USA TODAY Sports
The Danger Of Signing Goalies To Lucrative Contracts
The New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks are two of the NHL’s worst teams this season and are both on the verge of massive roster changes. While both teams face unique challenges, one parallel is that they’ve made a mess of their goaltending finances with pricey extensions that were miscalculations.
The Rangers and Canucks are far from alone in this predicament. High-priced extensions have also burned several other teams at the bottom of the standings, leaving them with goaltenders who had been performing well but whose play fell off a cliff after signing their new deals.
That isn’t necessarily the case for Shesterkin, however, it is the case for Linus Ullmark of the Ottawa Senators, Juuse Saros of the Nashville Predators, and Jacob Markstrom of the New Jersey Devils, who are all making big money on recent contract extensions, with no guarantees their play will turn around. This has left three teams with win-now rosters featuring goaltenders who are vastly overpaid.
It’s become a trend over the past five-plus years that teams signing goaltenders to expensive deals must be seriously concerned about their performance throughout the term of the agreement.
There is concern about every player’s performance after they sign a lucrative long-term deal. However, goaltenders have become a unique cause for concern lately, and it’s hard to say why.
In the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s, many veteran goaltenders on the wrong side of 30 would sign expensive long-term deals without so much as a second thought from their new teams. In July 2002, for example, goalie Curtis Joseph signed a three-year, $24MM contract with the Detroit Red Wings, even though it wasn’t the best offer on the table.
Joseph had a three-year $26MM offer from the Toronto Maple Leafs but opted to move to Detroit. Toronto then pivoted and signed Ed Belfour to a two-year, $13.5MM deal.
By today’s standards, those contracts aren’t eye-popping, and the term is relatively short. But Belfour and Joseph were 37 and 35, respectively, and there was a chance their play would drop off significantly during the brief time they were signed.
Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine a team giving $8MM a season to a 35-year-old goaltender, and Joseph’s deal was inked 23 and a half years ago. The Senators gave Ullmark four years and $8.25MM annually just last year, but he had just turned 32 and was two seasons removed from a Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goaltender.
It was a pricey gamble for Ottawa and hasn’t looked like good value this season, but Ullmark has been dealing with personal issues, so it’s hard to project how the deal will work out long-term.
Circling back to the Rangers and Canucks, they are a tale of two teams whose expensive goaltending has led to team-wide issues, but for wildly different reasons. In Vancouver, Thatcher Demko was signed to a lucrative three-year deal at the start of free agency, worth $8.5MM annually.
It was a gamble by Vancouver, as they hoped the former Vezina Trophy finalist could bounce back from a poor showing last season. Had Demko had a good year, he would have been a candidate to get $9MM or more on a new contract, but Vancouver thought it was wise to jump the queue. It has not turned out well.
If Demko had played well, Vancouver likely would have paid him an AAV slightly higher than the $8.5MM they gave him, but would’ve been on the hook for more term, which would’ve been riskier. Instead, Vancouver made a different bet and is now on the hook for more term than Demko would’ve received in free agency. But hindsight is 20/20, and for the Canucks, they are stuck with the Demko deal, one they’d love to have back.
In New York, it was a different calculation. Rangers’ general manager Chris Drury believed he had a Stanley Cup contender on his hands, which meant doing everything he could to retain his Vezina Trophy-winning goaltender, Igor Shesterkin. Drury moved out his captain, Jacob Trouba, to open up space to sign Shesterkin to a record-breaking eight-year, $92MM contract.
While it was the right on-ice move given Trouba’s cap hit relative to his play, the Rangers have never been the same since the trade. New York fell off a cliff last season and has remained at the bottom of the league this year, despite Shesterkin being good.
But that is the issue: Shesterkin has only been good. In the years leading up to his extension, Shesterkin was elite.
His play in those seasons masked many of the Rangers’ problems and led Drury and New York management to think the team was much better than it actually was. Shesterkin’s goaltending was a mask, hiding the fact that Drury had built a fatally flawed roster that relied too much on out-of-this-world netminding, which was clearly unsustainable.
While the Rangers, Canucks, Devils and Predators aren’t the only teams with pricey goaltending, they are the most apparent examples of paying a premium for goaltending. But even middle-of-the-pack teams can run into issues where their extensions turn into disasters.
There are good examples in Washington: a few years ago, with Darcy Kuemper, who had just won a Stanley Cup, and Philipp Grubauer, who had been solid for years before signing as a free agent with Seattle and becoming unplayable in the NHL. Matt Murray in Ottawa was the same story, but none is more egregious and obvious than Tristan Jarry in Pittsburgh, who was recently dealt.
Pittsburgh is a relevant example because of Stuart Skinner, who has been a revelation with the Penguins but is a UFA at the end of the season. Pittsburgh already has its goalie of the future in tow in Sergey Murashov, and the Penguins would be wise to ride Skinner into the playoffs and then let him walk in the offseason if his salary demands exceed $5MM annually, which they surely will. It should be interesting to see the Skinner story unfold, but there is plenty of evidence that the Penguins would be wise to avoid giving term to a netminder who is unpredictable.
Who Could The Penguins Target Before The Trade Deadline?
The Penguins appeared to fall back to earth in December after a strong start had them in playoff contention. A ten-game stretch dropped Pittsburgh to the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings. However, since the Christmas break, the Penguins have been on a tear, going 14-3-3 and climbing to second place in the Metropolitan Division.
No one expected Pittsburgh to be in this spot, but that’s where they are, and it is likely changing general manager Kyle Dubas’ long-term plans. Pittsburgh was expecting to sell at the trade deadline, but now there is talk of potential additions, as Josh Yohe writes in The Athletic.
But what exactly would the Penguins add? The truth is that Dubas probably isn’t looking for short-term answers and isn’t going to give up previous picks and prospects for rentals.
He might send out a late-round pick for a player or two, but his big moves, if he makes them, will not be short-sighted. So, given that he is armed with a ton of cap space and a plethora of draft picks in the subsequent three drafts, who could Dubas target?
Some people might see a player like Blues forward Jordan Kyrou as a fit, but Pittsburgh’s GM has a type. For the past two years, it’s been clear he’s targeting high-ceiling, (mostly) young players who have fallen on hard times, need an opportunity to showcase their skills, and come at a discount.
Egor Chinakhov, Arturs Silovs, Philip Tomasino, Cody Glass, and Stuart Skinner were part of a couple of trades Dubas made to acquire young talent with a ton of upside. Most of those moves have worked out, with Tomasino being the exception.
Then there is the free agency market, where Dubas’s work is very impressive. Justin Brazeau, Parker Wotherspoon, Ryan Shea, and Anthony Mantha were all brought in for a song. Now, they are all contributing significant minutes in key roles for Pittsburgh, and the team is reaping the benefits.
Kyrou could be considered a fit, but given the price tag and the money he is owed, it doesn’t feel like a Dubas target heading into the trade deadline. He has been burned by significant acquisitions before, both in Pittsburgh and Toronto, so he could be tepid when it comes to big-game hunting, especially if he is eyeing the Penguins’ long-term prospects. But like Kyrou, there are many players who have fallen on hard times and are available, with the upside Dubas might be looking for.
What about a Shane Wright in Seattle? Would Dubas be willing to move some of his picks and prospects to acquire the former fourth-overall pick in 2022, or even go so far as to move a player from the Penguins’ current roster?
Wright looked like he’d found his NHL footing last season, but an uneven start to this year has him on shaky ground. Seattle is putting out feelers to gauge the market for the 22-year-old.
Pittsburgh needs young, high-end talent to add to its young core of Benjamin Kindel, Sergey Murashov, Harrison Brunicke, and Rutger McGroarty. Could Wright be a fit? There is nothing to suggest Pittsburgh has interest, but given Dubas’ track record, it’s hard to ignore that there could be a fit there.
What about another top pick, Alexis Lafrenière, who is reportedly not a significant part of the New York Rangers’ retool? The former first overall pick in 2020 looked to have turned the corner two years ago, when he tallied 28 goals and 29 assists in 82 games.
However, last season was a setback offensively, and this season has been an even steeper drop. His assist numbers remain stable, but the finishing just hasn’t been there. He has a two percent drop in his shooting rate and isn’t generating the same shot volume as in 2023-24.
It’s hard to believe the Rangers would trade with the Penguins given the bad blood between the two sides, but they’ve done business before, as recently as 2024, when Pittsburgh sent forward Reilly Smith to New York for two draft picks. This would be different, though, as Lafrenière is in the first year of a seven-year, $52.15MM contract. And make no mistake, that contract could be a barrier to the Rangers moving him, although with a rising cap, it could be worth taking on, given Lafrenière’s potential.
At 24 years of age, Lafrenière has yet to live up to the billing that made him a first-overall pick. He was touted as an offensive wizard, drawing comparisons to another former first-overall pick, Sidney Crosby.
Now, in his sixth NHL season, it doesn’t appear he will morph into an offensive wizard anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t value to be had. Lafrenière could be a good long-term option to play on the wing with Kindel in Pittsburgh’s top six.
Lafrenière is a smart player. Like Kindel, he has a high hockey IQ and is an excellent passer who handles the puck well. There could be a match there if the Penguins are looking for younger players who have underperformed.
Given Dubas’s previous connection in Toronto, it’s hard to believe he wouldn’t be interested in right winger Nicholas Robertson, a pending RFA next summer who has been on the trade block for what feels like forever.
Robertson wanted out of Toronto 18 months ago and never got his wish. However, the Maple Leafs have moved him up the lineup this season, with varying results, thanks to the injuries the team has dealt with. Would Toronto move him now? It’s hard to say, but for the right price, anything is possible.
It’s not certain that Robertson would be a fit in Pittsburgh, as he likely wouldn’t be in their top nine. The Penguins’ fourth line of Blake Lizotte, Noel Acciari and Connor Dewar has been highly effective this year, meaning there might not be a place for Robertson with the Penguins. Things could change in the summer, when the Penguins have more slots open up due to departures, but for now, it seems unlikely that they would acquire the 24-year-old forward.
At the beginning of the season, the Penguins were widely regarded as having the worst left-side defensive unit in the league. No one could have predicted the emergence of Shea and Wotherspoon, who have become solid defensive options, while Brett Kulak was still playing in Edmonton with the Oilers.
At the time, Penguins fans were discussing the possibility of acquiring Anaheim Ducks defenseman Pavel Mintyukov, the 10th overall pick in 2022. Reports from Elliotte Friedman at the time indicated that Mintyukov wasn’t happy with his playing time, and Penguins fans rightly saw him as a potential solution to their defensive woes. But now, with the Penguins’ current depth, it’s hard to say whether it would be a move for Pittsburgh to make. Dubas always likes to stockpile NHL defensemen and has at least a dozen of them right now, but would he put together a 22-year-old defenseman who would be a heck of a buy-low option?
Make no mistake, Mintyukov can play and would be a great long-term option for the Penguins alongside Brunicke on the back end. This season, Mintyukov has six goals and eight assists in 48 games, buoyed by a career-high shooting percentage of 12%. Pittsburgh is being cautious about how it spends its future assets and may not want to roll the dice if the price gets too high. But if Anaheim is looking to move on from Mintyukov, the Penguins could likely put together a competitive offer for the pending UFA.
NHL Teams Continue To Avoid Roster Re-Starts
Several NHL teams have been major disappointments this season, particularly the New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks. While the Rangers have made it clear they intend to retool, the Canucks have refrained from labelling their plans, possibly due to ongoing roster assessments or other internal considerations. Even teams that have entered clear rebuilds have become apprehensive about fully starting over (e.g., the Calgary Flames), for various reasons. PHR had a piece last year that addressed why teams are choosing a retool over a rebuild, but this piece will focus on why teams have shied away from ever starting over.
The reluctance to start over makes sense from the team’s perspective, even if it hinders the team’s long-term prospects of becoming competitive again. The Rangers are a perfect example, having invested a pile of past development years into players such as Igor Shesterkin and Alexis Lafreniere. This is common among NHL teams, who constantly fall into the sunk-cost fallacy of continuing to throw money and time at a player, even though he will never be what they were hoping for or effective enough to justify the costs they’ve paid.
Beyond past costs, teams are also trapped by future expenses from contract extensions given to players who are not performing up to their AAV. This is something the Rangers are arguably dealing with in the cases of Shesterkin and Lafreniere, another bitter pill for management to swallow, as they are now in a position where they feel as though they are throwing both past and future years away on a player they piled so many resources into.
Those extensions were signed by Rangers general manager Chris Drury, and his fingerprints are all over this team. Drury has invested everything into his current club, from draft picks to term to cap space to his public messaging. It’s part of the reason he has recently talked of pivoting to a retool. Walking away completely from this core would signal a massive failure on his part. Even if the pieces in place probably aren’t the ones you’d want to retool around, Drury will likely keep a lot of them, because he staked his reputation on acquiring them.
GMs who build a team and then have to blow it up are essentially admitting they were wrong in their roster construction. Few NHL GMs want to do that, and most front offices would rather be a consistent disappointment than openly admit they are wrong.
And therein lies a big problem in the NHL. Executives aren’t necessarily rewarded for championships; they are rewarded for not collapsing. Making the playoffs is safe; finishing just outside the playoffs shows stability, but tearing down a roster and rebuilding it is a considerable risk, one that can cost you your job. A full-scale rebuild requires several ugly seasons. It means fans with brown paper bags on their heads attending games, and it means an impatient owner circling the offices, wondering when the team will turn the corner. Rebuilding is brutal and ugly, and it requires patience. Retooling is more manageable, quicker, and often leads to immediate, albeit tepid, results.
Retools can also sell hope, and teams can see it in a retool. Owners prefer hope to being told they have to tear down their team, and hope sells more tickets than telling fans you are going to start over. That matters more to owners: a full building over a full draft-pick ledger. A middle-of-the-pack team with designs on limping into the playoffs is easier to market than a disciplined rebuild with zero guarantees.
So, NHL teams opt for the theatre of optimism over meaningful structural change, and it’s tough to fault them given the incentives at play. One of the most famous examples of this is the Toronto Maple Leafs of the late 2000s, who were managed by Brian Burke. The management group had assembled a promising prospect pool but grew impatient in September 2009 and made the trade with Boston to acquire Phil Kessel. The rest, of course, is history: Tyler Seguin was drafted in 2010 with the Maple Leafs’ first-round pick, and defenseman Dougie Hamilton was drafted a year later with Toronto’s 2011 first-round pick. Had Toronto simply been patient, there is no telling where that iteration of the Maple Leafs would have ended up.
Front offices dread wasting years, and in the early stages of a rebuild, there will be wasted years. It’s also why teams rush rebuilds and mess them up. That is effectively what Drury did. He became impatient and made bold moves to bolster his lineup, which ultimately blew up his prospect system and, eventually, his NHL roster. The Ottawa Senators are guilty of the same thing, taking wild swings early in their rebuild on Alex DeBrincat and Jakob Chychrun. Teams trade their future away and call it supporting the core. They extend players to justify their original bet on a player (see last week’s piece on this). They shift their own goals from winning the Stanley Cup one day to simply not having to start over.
Again, it’s hard to fault GMs for doing this. The NHL’s structure used to encourage full-scale rebuilds, but now the rules discourage them. The draft lottery has made it harder to build through top picks; the salary cap floor requires acquiring veteran players; and some high draft picks take longer to develop. All of that has made the retool, or stated differently, the half-rebuild, safer. Even if the retool leads nowhere, which it often does.
The Pittsburgh Penguins are a prime example of this. In the 2022-23 season, it became clear the Penguins needed to get younger, but general manager Ron Hextall doubled down on his roster, trading for veterans such as Nick Bonino, Mikael Granlund, and others. He also sent Brock McGinn, Kasperi Kapanen, and Teddy Blueger out the door. It was a clear case of doing something now to change the furniture, hoping it would improve. It failed miserably. Hextall had stood still for most of his tenure in Pittsburgh, and while his flurry of moves that year showed urgency, he accomplished nothing and was fired at the end of the season.
The complex reality in the NHL is that teams can’t rebuild under current management, not in any meaningful way, because it would expose all of management’s mistakes. Bad drafting, poor development, bad signings, cultural rot in the dressing room, the list goes on. Starting over requires a top-down reset, from the president of hockey ops and general manager on down to the players, and most teams can’t stomach that kind of carnage or don’t have the humility to admit things aren’t working. This is why teams don’t rebuild until it’s five years too late, and the only choice they have is to start over and wait five to seven years for results.
The Maple Leafs are currently at that point. They can retool around Auston Matthews, William Nylander, and Morgan Rielly, or they could begin the painful teardown and build a whole new culture in Toronto. Given the incentives at play, it’s hard to believe they would choose the latter over the former, even if it might be the better choice for the franchise long term.
Trade Deadline Primer: Dallas Stars
With the Olympic break approaching, the trade deadline is about a month away. Where does each team stand, and what moves should they be looking to make? We begin our look around the league with teams that have clear plans at the extremes of the standings, next up with the Stars.
This season has been what you would expect from a roster as talented as Dallas’. Despite their success, they sit third in the very gifted Central Division and would face the Minnesota Wild in the first round if the season started today. That kind of series could be a coin flip and might be the kind of matchup that forces Dallas to add to an already talented roster. The Stars have only a few more kicks at the proverbial can in this contention window, and with a significant extension for Jason Robertson looming, this could be the year they go all in.
Record
33-14-9, 3rd in the Central
Deadline Status
Buyer
Deadline Cap Space
$3.267MM on deadline day, 0/3 retention slots used, 47/50 contracts used, per PuckPedia.
Upcoming Draft Picks
2026: DAL 2nd, SEA 3rd, DAL 5th, DAL 6th, DAL 7th, TOR 7th
2027: DAL 1st, DAL 2nd, DAL 4th, DAL 5th, DAL 6th, DAL 7th
Trade Chips
Dallas doesn’t have a lot to work with in terms of prospects and picks, which is the cost of being a consistent Stanley Cup contender over the past half-decade. The Stars do have some young pieces they could move, though, if they go big-game hunting on the trade market. Defenseman Lian Bichsel was a first-round pick in 2022, and at 6’7”, he is the kind of hulking presence on the blue line that teams line up for. His transition to the NHL hasn’t been smooth, as the 21-year-old has dealt with injuries and inconsistency this season. Bichsel appeared ready to break out last season, but he hasn’t delivered this year and has struggled through 26 games, failing both the eye test and the analytics test. Bichsel has a lot of upsides, though, and could be the centrepiece of a much bigger deal if Dallas goes all in.
Another prospect Dallas could look to move is right winger Emil Hemming. The 19-year-old was selected in the first round (29th overall) of the 2024 draft and is having a strong offensive season with the Barrie Colts of the OHL. Hemming is a potential NHL power forward with a good shot and isn’t afraid to get dirty at the net. He also plays a solid two-way game, which should endear him to teams seeking well-rounded wingers. The Stars could pair Hemming with a second- or third-round pick if they are on the hunt for trade deadline candidates that aren’t in the upper tier of trade targets but are solid NHLers.
Another potential trade piece for the Stars is young WHL forward Cameron Schmidt of the Seattle Thunderbirds, who was recently involved in a significant trade in that league. The Stars took Schmidt in the third round of last year’s draft (94th overall) and might have gotten a steal given his performance in the WHL thus far this season. Schmidt is currently third in league scoring and likely would’ve been a first- or second-round pick had it not been for his size (5’8” and 161 lbs). Dallas had no problem rolling the dice with Schmidt after succeeding with small centre Logan Stankoven, who is now in Carolina, and they could go that route with Schmidt as well.
Now, the Stars might have a pretty barren prospect cupboard, but they do have another promising young player on the NHL roster in Mavrik Bourque, who, at 24, is far from a finished product. Bourque was a late first-round pick in 2020 (30th overall) and has blossomed into a depth scorer, but there is still untapped potential in his game. Bourque tore up the AHL in 2023-24 with 77 points in 71 games, but struggled through his rookie campaign last year, finishing with just 11 goals and 14 assists in 73 games.
This year, Bourque’s offensive numbers have ticked up slightly, a good sign, especially given that many of his underlying numbers are also moving in the right direction. It’s hard to say whether Dallas is willing to part with Bourque, as they have been patient with his development, but if they have a chance to acquire a player who pushes them over the top, one would have to believe they would part with him.
Team Needs
Right-Shot Top Four Defenseman: The Dallas Stars will be joined by several teams seeking a right-shot top four defenseman. The Stars are solid on the top pair, but Thomas Harley has had a tough year on the second pairing, paired with depth options, and the results have been underwhelming to say the least. Harley’s offensive numbers are only slightly off his usual pace from the past two years. Still, his underlying numbers and on-ice results have taken a steep drop, likely due to instability on the right side and playing with depth options such as Ilya Lyubushkin and Nils Lundkvist. A stable right-side partner, such as Dougie Hamilton, would go a long way toward alleviating some of the pressure on Harley. However, the math doesn’t exactly work with Hamilton unless Stars general manager Jim Nill gets extremely creative with the accounting, or forward Tyler Seguin is, in fact, done for the season and the playoffs.
A Top Nine Forward: The Stars would likely look to add a top-nine forward to improve depth up front, ideally on the left wing. Currently, the Stars are deploying Justin Hryckowian on the top line alongside centre Wyatt Johnston and Mikko Rantanen. Hryckowian is solid defensively and has some playmaking ability, but he is unlikely to be a top-six player for a team that fancies itself a Stanley Cup contender. There is some versatility with Hryckowian, as he can play centre, so the Stars have options to add a winger and shift the 24-year-old down the lineup and over to centre, depending on their configurations.
Dallas could also opt for a right winger on the trade market and bump Bourque down the lineup, if they want, or perhaps Sam Steel. Given the players currently in the lineup, there is significant shuffling that could occur, but Dallas likely wants to add one more piece to that group so it can place all of their remaining depth into roles that better suit their skill sets.
Photo by Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
Assessing The Blues’ Direction
The Blues are in a strange spot. They’re 31st in the league with a record of 20-26-9 and a goal differential of -54, tied for the worst in the NHL.
They’re very close to having the best odds to win the draft lottery, and while they aren’t technically out of the playoff hunt, they’re 10 points back of the Kings for the final Wild Card spot, and Los Angeles has games in hand. The Blues are likely finished for this season, and despite that, they haven’t fully committed to a rebuild, though they’re clearly not close to contending at the moment.
They have some good young players and a mix of veterans, some on bad contracts and others they probably want to trade, especially as the playoffs grow further away with each game.
St. Louis’ roster construction has been disjointed over the last few years with a mixed bag of moves. They’re far from alone in that regard. But what has been missing is a clear direction on how to sell to Blues fans, who are hoping for some signal that the team has a plan.
Entering the season, it looked as though the Blues were hoping to compete for a playoff spot, as they did last season. Those hopes have been dashed by inconsistent play and the struggles of core players Jordan Kyrou, Robert Thomas, Colton Parayko and Jordan Binnington. You either sell winning or you sell hope, and this season the Blues haven’t been able to sell either. That will need to change in short order, and a clear direction needs to be established.
Of the players listed above, Thomas is the only one who hasn’t been constantly linked to trade rumours this season, but that has changed as of late. Kyrou, Parayko and Binnington have all been fodder for trade board segments across the hockey media and have been joined by teammates Brayden Schenn and Justin Faulk.
In a perfect world, St. Louis would have a clear choice about who to move and who to keep. Still, some of the team’s previous moves have left them in a precarious spot, with their only real option being to retool rather than bottom out. They aren’t anywhere close to being a contender and already have several talented players and a very skilled coach in place.
Therein lies a big problem for the Blues. How do you tell Jim Montgomery that the team plans to sell off its veterans and go with younger players who are still finding their way in the NHL? It probably wouldn’t be popular with the veteran head coach.
The alternative is to continue pushing an aging roster into the playoffs and finishing in the middle of the standings, outside the postseason. Montgomery doesn’t need to look far to find a coach who was stuck in that spot for several seasons: Mike Sullivan, formerly of the Penguins.
Sullivan’s final three seasons with the team saw him try to will an aging lineup over the finish line, only to fall just outside the cut when it came to playoff time. Interestingly enough, Sullivan left the Penguins last summer to pursue a better opportunity with the Rangers, only to end up in the same position he had been in with Pittsburgh.
At the end of the day, for general manager Doug Armstrong, his job isn’t to please his coach; it’s to put together the best roster for the team he can and put the players in a position to win. Adding to an old, slow roster does nothing to accomplish that, and the Blues can’t make that the direction they go.
If there is anything we’ve learned in the last half-decade, it is that teams can remain competitive and retool on the fly by surrounding older talent with fresh legs and young energy, brought in by calling up skilled, speedy prospects. The Washington Capitals proved it last season; the Penguins are showing the same thing this year; and the Blues have to look at that model and see how best to apply it to their own roster construction.
The Blues have some pieces in Philip Broberg, Dylan Holloway, Jimmy Snuggerud, Jake Neighbours, and Dalibor Dvorsky. Now they need to figure out which veterans to keep around to guide them and which to let go to acquire more young talent to insulate the core.
It makes sense to move Binnington, given that Joel Hofer is waiting in the wings and probably deserves the bulk of the ice time. The issue for St. Louis is that they missed the best time to trade the 32-year-old: last March, before the trade deadline, or this past summer.
This year, Binnington’s game has fallen off a cliff, and he is dead last in the NHL with -24.4 goals saved above expected in 31 games (per MoneyPuck). Add to that the fact that he is counting $6MM against the salary cap and has a 14-team no-trade clause (per PuckPedia), and you have a player who is close to impossible to move.
Moving Faulk would also be a step in the right direction, as the 33-year-old makes $6.5MM this year and next and is having a reasonable offensive season with 11 goals and 13 assists in 52 games, while cleaning up the turnover issue that plagued him last year. The Blues are reportedly looking to strike while the iron is hot and are asking for a premium package to move the right-shot defenseman. If the Blues can move Faulk and get a return even remotely close to their ask, it would be good business and could set them on a path to retool sooner than later.
Outside of those two, Schenn, Thomas, and Parayko remain options to be moved, and it’s hard to say whether the Blues want to turn their roster over completely. The Penguins tried to move Rickard Rakell, Bryan Rust, and Erik Karlsson last year but couldn’t find anyone willing to meet their asking price. Perhaps the Blues will chart a similar course and try to move those three veterans if they get the right price. If not, they’ll wait to see how their own roster shakes out over the next six to 12 months. In any event, St. Louis has to show direction sooner rather than later if it hopes to position the team for improvement in the near future.
The Trade-And-Extend Move Is Becoming A Gamble
Stars forward Jason Robertson is having another terrific season at just the right time. He’s set to become an RFA this summer and should be handsomely rewarded on his next contract.
One wrinkle with his next contract is that it could come with a team other than Dallas, given that they already have so much big money committed to members of their core (just $16.4MM in cap space available next year, per PuckPedia). If Robertson is moved, it would likely be via trade to a team hoping to sign him to a long-term deal. But given that many of these types of transactions have failed in the past, should teams be doing it?
The trade-then-sign isn’t an official title for a series of moves in which a team trades for a player and then locks them up shortly after the trade, but that’s effectively what it is. A few recent examples include the Senators trading for Linus Ullmark and then signing him shortly after, or the Flames and Panthers linking up on the infamous Jonathan Huberdeau-for-Matthew Tkachuk trade that launched Florida on a potential dynasty while effectively slamming the door on Calgary’s contention window.
Therin lies the risk with these kinds of moves. Trading for a player and then signing them immediately to an extension leaves you open to the possibility that they aren’t a good fit, and you end up with a Huberdeau situation instead of a Tkachuk one.
The Flames and Senators are hardly the only teams to fall victim to this kind of thing. In fact, the Senators have dealt with it before with Bobby Ryan. Ottawa traded for Ryan in 2013, a move in response to Daniel Alfredsson leaving the franchise to sign with Detroit. The trade effectively boxed the Senators into signing Ryan to a long-term contract, which they did, resulting in an albatross contract that was eventually bought out.
Vancouver is learning a similar lesson with defenseman Marcus Pettersson, who was a top-pairing defenseman in Pittsburgh but was dealt to the Canucks last year, before the trade deadline, and has never been a fit. Vancouver was quick to ink Pettersson to a six-year deal last year, shortly after acquiring him, and, like Ullmark, Huberdeau and Ryan, he has not worked out as planned.
The list could go on and on. Timo Meier in New Jersey, Seth Jones in Chicago, Matt Murray in Ottawa, and Pierre-Luc Dubois in Los Angeles. All of these moves had a few things in common. The teams signed the players to extensions before the fit was ever stress-tested.
Take Huberdeau, who was acquired in late July 2022. Within two weeks, he signed an eight-year, $84MM extension to remain with the Flames. Pettersson had a similar trajectory in Vancouver, as he was acquired in early February 2025 and signed his six-year extension less than a week later. The same story with Murray and the Ottawa Senators, as he was acquired in early October 2020 and re-upped within two days, having never played a game in Canada’s capital city.
Again, the examples are endless, and the failures in these situations appear to share several common traits. In the three examples of Huberdeau, Pettersson, and Murray, they had essentially never played for the teams they were signing with, meaning no one knew whether they would work out with their new teams, making it a gamble for the acquiring team. But the trades themselves, and the players’ contractual status, essentially forced the team that gave up the assets in the trade to lock up the player or risk “losing the asset for nothing.”
It’s something that happens in every sport, where teams acquire pending UFAs. For whatever reason, some teams have felt compelled to extend the player before they even have a look at how the player will work out with their new team. And make no mistake, most of the teams that have extended the player right away probably regret their decision. There is no way Ottawa was happy with the Murray era, and Calgary has another five years of headaches with the Huberdeau deal.
Often, a player’s signing is a move to protect a GM’s short-term reputation rather than to focus on long-term projections. In fact, most of the time, the GM never lasts the length of the deal he is handing out, as was the case with Brad Treliving in Calgary and Pierre Dorion in Ottawa.
The thing about rushing to sign a player you really don’t know, beyond scouting their on-ice performance, is that once you ink the deal, there is no easy escape, or do-overs. You are locked into a player you don’t really know, and outside of asking mutual friends, acquaintances, or previous employers, you don’t have first-hand experience with the person in most cases. It would be like running a business and then hiring an employee you’ve seen on television but never spoken to.
But in hockey, as in all sports, market and ownership pressures, egos, and reputations can all play a role in transactions, contracts, and player management. As much as it probably stings for GMs to ink a bad contract with a player, they would probably all do it again if given another opportunity.
The truth is that trading for a player is always risky, while trading for a player and immediately extending them is often how NHL GMs try to save their jobs. Usually, it’s the move that leads them to the unemployment line.
The NHL Is Ripe For A Big Change Of Scenery Trade
The classic change-of-scenery move was once standard in the NHL. Still, with the emergence of the salary cap, analytics, and entire departments dedicated to player projections, the number of big-name change-of-scenery trades has declined.
These deals were often made in hopes of inspiring two struggling players to return to their career averages or better. The most recent example of this kind of deal is the goalie trade between the Penguins and Oilers earlier this year, which involved Tristan Jarry and Stuart Skinner.
Another recent example came at last year’s trade deadline, when the Sabres sent Dylan Cozens and a draft pick to the Senators for Josh Norris and Jacob Bernard-Docker. This season, there are multiple change-of-scenery trade candidates, with the biggest names being forward Elias Pettersson of the Canucks and Andrei Svechnikov of the Hurricanes.
Don’t get it wrong. There are still plenty of change-of-scenery trades in the NHL involving fringe and depth players, and some don’t work out, but some do in a big way. Egor Chinakhov of the Penguins is a glaring example of a change-of-scenery move that has worked out thus far, as he is playing with more confidence and fire than he has in years.
In addition to the Chinakhov and Skinner moves, the Penguins have made several low-end versions of these trades this season, most recently this week’s deal with the Avalanche, which sent forward Valtteri Puustinen to the Avalanche in exchange for defenseman Ilya Solovyov. The trade barely made waves around the NHL, but it does provide an example of two players who need fresh starts being swapped by teams in the hope of reigniting their play.
Outside of the aforementioned Pettersson and Svechnikov, who are some other big-name players who could use a change of scenery? The big name has to be defenseman Dougie Hamilton of the Devils, who was a healthy scratch last week and hasn’t produced nearly the way you would hope from a $9MM offensive defenseman.
Hamilton has dealt with a couple of injury-riddled seasons and has just five goals and 12 assists in 46 games this year. While Hamilton’s play hasn’t been great this season, that hasn’t stopped the Devils from upping his usage from 19:51 a game last year to 21:33 this season.
Hamilton is still a good player and would be a likely candidate to bounce back in a new environment. But would any team want to take a gamble like that on a 32-year-old making $9MM annually over the next two and a half years?
There is interest, and why wouldn’t there be? Hamilton is a talented player who could very well thrive on a new team, but the Devils aren’t going to just give him a way or retain half his salary in exchange for peanuts. The best course of action for New Jersey might be to try to find a hockey deal for another player in need of a change.
Pivoting to the Western Conference, the Blues look to be going nowhere fast and have a few players who could use a fresh start, including forward Jordan Kyrou and defenseman Colton Parayko. Kyrou is probably the most intriguing name on this list, a 27-year-old with a healthy track record of success.
His decline this season (11 goals and 13 assists in 42 games) isn’t overly complicated. His shooting percentage has dropped almost a full six points from last year, and with it, so has his goal-scoring production. Kyrou has another five years on his contract after this season at an AAV of $8.13MM, and he could be a bargain depending on how motivated St. Louis is to shake things up.
The Blues are in no rush, though, and might hold firm on their asking price if they don’t get reasonable offers. From Kyrou’s perspective, this year has been one to forget offensively. However, many of his underlying numbers remain strong, and he should still be productive for the majority of his contract. The Blues have been a bad team this year, and without much support, Kyrou hasn’t been as effective as he was in years past, when he was a consistent 70-point threat.
Another Blues player who could use a new look is Parayko, who has been a mess this season after a good year last year. Parayko has never been an analytics darling, but some of his underlying numbers are ugly this season. Now, in fairness to the 32-year-old, he is being asked to shoulder a very heavy defensive load on a bad team that is going nowhere. It can’t be easy for the veteran to go in night after night knowing he’ll spend most of the game working in his own zone, but that is his reality in St. Louis. A fresh start in a less stressful role could be precisely what Parayko needs at this stage of his career, but he won’t come cheap, as St. Louis likely still views him as a premium asset.
Moving back east, the Devils paid a premium three years ago to acquire Timo Meier from the San Jose Sharks and hoped he would become a force in their top six as they entered their window of contention. Meier quickly signed a pricey extension with the Devils worth $8.8MM annually (on an eight-year deal), and it looked as though it was an excellent match for both sides.
Since joining New Jersey, Meier hasn’t been the same offensive contributor he was in San Jose, and some of his underlying numbers have taken a hit as well. Offensively, he is still a 50+ point player, but that likely isn’t what the Devils had hoped for when they made the moves to bring him in long-term. Meier just ended a six-game pointless drought the other night and has been dealing with personal matters on the side, taking a leave of absence last month to attend to a family health matter.
It’s hard to say whether he would welcome a move or not, but it probably wouldn’t be the worst thing for the 29-year-old or the team. Once again, the Devils aren’t going to give Meier away, as he remains an effective player, but given how rough the last 18 months have been for the team, it might not be the worst thing to shake up the roster by moving on from Meier, Hamilton, or perhaps both players.
The Penguins’ Evgeni Malkin Dilemma
If you’ve been checking the NHL’s Eastern Conference standings, you’ll notice a surprising team near the top of the Metropolitan Division. The Penguins, who entered the season as a first-overall pick favorite, have shocked everyone by remaining in the hunt to this point in the season.
Your eyes aren’t deceiving you; the Penguins have been that good this year, despite a disastrous stretch in December that saw them drop nine of 10 games and blow multiple three-goal third-period leads. But with every Penguins win, it becomes clearer that many of the veterans on the trading block will be sticking around for this year and perhaps beyond.
One of those veterans is 39-year-old Evgeni Malkin, who at the start of this year seemed like a potential trade candidate, or at the very least, a player who wouldn’t play in Pittsburgh beyond the 2025-26 season. With the Penguins in the hunt, young prospects turning to NHLers, the team holding onto other veterans, and Malkin turning back the clock, is it possible the Penguins offer Malkin an extension to stick around beyond this season?
The Blake Lizotte signing last week reveals a lot about where the Penguins’ general manager, Kyle Dubas, feels the team is right now. If he thought the team wasn’t a playoff team this year, he likely would’ve been working the phones to move the depth center for picks or prospects, as he has been collecting those types of pieces for the better part of two years.
But Lizotte’s extension signals a change in philosophy, sort of. Dubas has been a bargain shopper for the last two summers, and even though Lizotte received a raise in his new deal, it could turn out to be a bargain if he plays the way he has this season.
That leads us back to Malkin. When Dubas spoke about the future Hall of Famer before this season, he likely believed he would be selling off assets towards the trade deadline and overseeing the third and possibly final year of the Penguins’ retool.
But the team and Malkin have surprised everyone thus far, and as the Penguins play more hockey, it becomes increasingly clear that Malkin can still produce. Just look at the ten-game stretch in December when they couldn’t buy a win.
Who wasn’t in their lineup for that? Malkin.
Malkin returned to the Penguins lineup on Jan. 8 and made an immediate impact, scoring a power-play marker on a one-timer from Sidney Crosby. He missed over a month with a shoulder injury, and Pittsburgh badly missed him on their second line.
His return didn’t exactly spark the team, as they had won five in a row leading up to it, but he certainly didn’t hurt, and Pittsburgh has gone 4-2-2 since he’s come back.
Then there’s also the optics of signing Malkin. With Kris Letang and Crosby still in the fold, signing ‘Geno’ would mean the big three playing another season together in their record-setting run, which would surely be a feel-good story, especially if more young Penguins graduate to the NHL and make an impact.
Pittsburgh could see Rutger McGroarty, Harrison Brunicke, Sergey Murashov, and Tristan Broz all jump to the NHL next season, which would be a massive youth movement for the team.
With these young pieces mixed in with Pittsburgh’s big three, as well as Erik Karlsson, Bryan Rust, Rickard Rakell, and Thomas Novak, there is the potential to make some noise in the Eastern Conference. Especially for a team that is armed with over $50MM in available cap space and an army surplus store full of draft picks in the subsequent three drafts.
The last time the Penguins had this level of youth in their pipeline was 2015, when Rust, Matt Murray, Conor Sheary, Tom Kuhnhackl, Scott Wilson, and eventually Jake Guentzel all jumped to the NHL, and Pittsburgh won back-to-back Stanley Cups. That’s not to say Pittsburgh is on the verge of a mini-dynasty in the twilight years of Malkin’s career.
Still, if they are on the verge of being competitive at all, which it looks like they could be, Malkin deserves to stick around with his buddies, especially if he can contribute rather than just partake in a nostalgia tour.
So, what should the Penguins do with one of the most beloved Penguins ever? It feels like it’s time to sign him to an extension.
Pittsburgh has the cap space, Malkin isn’t going to ask for the moon, and there really isn’t a Malkin replacement available in free agency. He also doesn’t need to be a center at this stage of his career and is quite competent on the wing, as he showed last season playing alongside Crosby on the top line.
It was reported last summer by Penguins play-by-play voice Josh Getzoff that Pittsburgh GM Kyle Dubas planned to meet with Malkin during the Olympic break, and as of right now, that appears to be the plan. But what could a Malkin deal look like?
It could be pretty straightforward. Take the framework of the Jonathan Toews contract with the Winnipeg Jets this season and perhaps double the guarantee.
Would that get it done? Hard to say, but according to Josh Yohe of The Athletic, Malkin is willing to take a pay cut and a one-year deal.
Pittsburgh gets a top-six forward, Malkin adds to his legacy, and Pittsburgh avoids painting itself into a long-term predicament, remaining fluid for future moves. Everybody wins, especially the fans in Pittsburgh and, most importantly, Malkin’s teammates, including Crosby.
Rangers GM Chris Drury Should Be On The Hot Seat
The New York Rangers’ communications release last week showed the world a couple of things. The first was that the team was headed towards a retool, which was pretty evident to anyone who has watched them this season.
The second was that the team needs to move on from the current general manager, Chris Drury, but it’s doubtful they will. The current predicament the Rangers are in can’t be placed squarely at Drury’s feet, but many of the issues the team is going through were the result of his roster management, and the fans have let him and the team know it.
When Drury first took on the role of associate general manager in February 2021, it was clear he would eventually run an NHL team. It didn’t take long.
He was handed the job as president and general manager in May 2021 after the Rangers missed the playoffs and fired president John Davidson and GM Jeff Gorton. That was a banner day for Drury, but it came at a strange time for the franchise, which had been building a solid core of young players and was close to pivoting into a contender.
At the same time, they had missed the playoffs four years in a row and were just two days removed from the notorious Tom Wilson incident at Madison Square Garden. Drury took control and hit the ground running in the summer of 2021.
His summer was clearly shaped by what had happened to the Rangers during the Wilson incident on May 3, 2021. Drury single-handedly re-configured the team, and not in a good way, although they would enjoy some short-term success in 2022 and 2024.
Drury fired head coach David Quinn and replaced him with Gerard Gallant. There was nothing wrong with that move, but Drury then spent the rest of the summer setting fire to the Rangers roster and ultimately a lot of cap space and assets.
Drury started his summer by signing forward Barclay Goodrow to a six-year deal carrying a $3.64MM AAV, meant to bring toughness and grit to the Rangers lineup. It was a massive overpay, panned by many, who agreed that Drury gave too much term and money to a player who wasn’t productive enough.
A week later, Drury moved Pavel Buchnevich to the St. Louis Blues for Sammy Blais and a 2022 second-round pick. The move, which might go down as one of the worst so far in the 2020s, effectively opened a massive hole in New York’s top six that they didn’t have a player to fill.
As if the Buchnevich deal wasn’t bad enough, Drury then signed Patrik Nemeth to an ill-advised three-year deal worth $7.5MM, which the Rangers had to burn two second-round picks to dump on the Arizona Coyotes a year later. At the time, some folks might have claimed it was a good move to move on from Nemeth and open up cap space for other moves (which it was). However, eventually burning through cap space and assets catches up to you, as the Rangers have found out over the last year and a half.
Right after signing Nemeth, Drury made another move to add toughness, trading for Ryan Reaves of the Vegas Golden Knights (for a third-round pick) and giving him a contract extension. Much like with Nemeth and Goodrow, Drury eventually realized he had made a mistake in acquiring the player and had to pivot. Reaves was shipped to Minnesota 16 months after he was acquired for a fifth-round pick.
The summer of 2021 began with Drury significantly misreading the Rangers’ roster. Still, his poor work during that time is often forgotten because he made some good moves the following season at the 2022 trade deadline, acquiring the likes of Andrew Copp and Frank Vatrano and leading the team to the Eastern Conference Finals.
The summer of 2022 and beyond saw better work from Drury, as he traded Alexandar Georgiev for draft picks, moved on from Nemeth and Reaves, sent Nils Lundkvist to the Dallas Stars for a first-round pick, and signed Vincent Trocheck as a UFA. Trading Georgiev was necessary and was probably the best long-term move for the team, while sending Lundkvist to the Stars was a gamble for both sides, but given his poor performance to this point, it was probably a clever play for Drury.
There have been solid moves by Drury, but unfortunately for the Rangers, the wins have been far outweighed by the losses. The rest of 2022 saw the Rangers claim Jake Leschyshyn off waivers and sign defenseman Ben Harpur. They also locked up forward Filip Chytil to a four-year deal that seemed fine at the time but would eventually be moved in the 2025 J.T. Miller trade.
The Trocheck signing yielded immediate results, as the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native was a seamless fit with the Rangers, providing two-way play and offensive numbers above his career average. Trocheck has offered tremendous value to the Rangers as he crosses the halfway point of his seven-year deal, and he is in the midst of a solid season with New York despite the team’s poor play. Given the rising cap, Trocheck could be a valuable trade chip, although it’s likely the Rangers will want to hang onto him if they are, in fact, completing a retool.
The 2023 trade deadline was one to forget for Drury, as he went all in, trading for Vladimir Tarasenko, Niko Mikkola, Patrick Kane and Tyler Motte. The moves for Mikkola and Motte didn’t push many assets out the door, nor did the Tarasenko trade. But trading for Kane was a move that probably didn’t need to happen after the Tarasenko trade, and it relieved the Rangers of another three draft picks in exchange for a Kane who wasn’t playing at full capacity due to a hip injury.
The wheels came off for the Rangers in the first round of the 2023 playoffs, as they fell to the New Jersey Devils in seven games, in what could best be described as an uninspired performance that showed a lack of leadership.
Drury spent the summer of 2023 overcorrecting this issue, but it appeared to work as the team reached the Eastern Conference Finals once again in 2024. Drury signed aging veterans Blake Wheeler, Nick Bonino, Jonathan Quick, Riley Nash and Erik Gustafsson to low-cost short-term contracts, which produced mixed results. Quick and Gustafsson played well for New York, while Bonino, Wheeler and Nash had minimal impact and didn’t finish the year on the playoff roster. Given the low cost of acquiring the players, they were worth the gamble and, once again, provided Drury with some small wins.
However, in 2024, the wheels really began to come off for the Rangers shortly after they signed goaltender Igor Shesterkin to a record-breaking, $92MM, eight-year extension.
The deal came on the heels of the team trading captain Jacob Trouba to the Anaheim Ducks to create cap space to sign Shesterkin. Trading Trouba made a lot of sense given his high cap hit and minimal production in New York. He’d become a lightning rod for criticism, and it became apparent that the team wanted to get rid of him the prior summer, which they eventually did.
For whatever reason, that series of events appears to have fractured the Rangers’ dressing room, and they’ve never been the same since that fateful weekend in December 2024.
The team has fallen off considerably, and Drury has shown little direction, at times appearing to rely solely on gut instinct. This is, of course, the perspective of an outsider, but the results are what they are. This is a flawed hockey team that has always been flawed, even when it reached the conference finals. Shesterkin’s play masked many of the team’s shortcomings, and Drury overvalued his own roster as a result. Perhaps Drury can lead the Rangers back to contention, but given his work over the past five years, it doesn’t seem likely.
It’s tough to evaluate the last 12 months in a vacuum. Still, Drury has made some franchise-altering moves, including trading for J.T. Miller, moving Chris Kreider to Anaheim, trading K’Andre Miller to Carolina, and signing Vladislav Gavrikov. It’s tough to gauge how everything will work out, but Kreider is flirting with a 30-goal season in Anaheim, while Miller could set a career high in points with the Hurricanes. Miller and Gavrikov have struggled this year, leading to a negative early return on some significant moves Drury made.
Also, the strange Calvin de Haan situation from last spring raises questions about morale within the Rangers organization right now. You either sell winning or you sell hope, and right now the Rangers don’t have either to sell. Drury is locked in under a contract he signed less than a year ago, but given how things have worked out, the Rangers probably need to look elsewhere for someone who can build a championship roster.