McKenzie: New York Rangers have interest in Tyler Bozak

In the “oh FFS please don’t do this” department, Bob McKenzie has reported that the Rangers are very interested in Toronto Maple Leafs center Tyler Bozak. Before I go into why this is makes absolutely zero logical sense, let’s look at Bozak the player, independent of his fit in New York. And let me tell you, it’s not pretty.

Everyone is going to look at his close-to-50-points-but-never-got-to-50-points lines from the last three seasons and think this guy is a steal at that price. Here’s the major problem: He doesn’t produce outside of Phil Kessel. Period. End of story. Don’t believe me? Check this out:

Oh boy is this ugly.

Just a reminder that CF/CA is now SATF/SATA.

So, basically, Bozak has been riding the coattails of Kessel for a while. But he wins 51.2% of his faceoffs, which is probably the most overblown aspect of the game nowadays. The Rangers would be wasting assets on a guy that, for all intents and purposes, is useless. It also doesn’t help that Bozak has a line of just 3-4-7 since Randy Carlyle and his all offense/no defense philosophy was let go. That’s over 19 games. His even strength P/60 has been trending down for a while now after a huge swing up last year. It’s barely at 1.0 right now on his rolling 25-game average.

Bozak’s P/60

But when he was scoring, he didn’t score without Kessel and hasn’t scored in a system where defense is actually expected. However it’s not all bad, Bozak has actually put up better SAT/CF numbers since Peter Horachek took over. The improvement, greater than 15%, is very impressive as well. This likely is due to Horachek’s style of play, stressing possession instead of run-and-gun.

Bozak’s SAT%/CF%

That’s a nice spike at the end. However, as noted above, Bozak isn’t scoring. If he’s going to play a top-six role, he needs to score. And it’s not like his linemates stink, he’s still playing with Kessel and James van Riemsdyk.

I honestly have no idea why the Rangers need Bozak. He’s a center, a position the Rangers are actually pretty set at with Derek Stepan, Derick Brassard, and Kevin Hayes manning the top three spots.

Second, he carries a $4.2 million cap hit for the next three seasons. The Rangers can’t acquire him without dumping significant salary this season. And that means more than just Tanner Glass. I’m talking Mats Zuccarello as well. I say Zucc here and not MSL because Toronto isn’t going to trade Bozak to get older. So, basically the Rangers would be dealing roster players and blowing up a team that is currently fighting for a division title.

Since we are talking about how Bozak would essentially replace Zucc, let’s compare the two players using the HERO charts that have become an invaluable resource. As a refresher, this takes the stats listed –adjusted for usage/deployment– and compares them to the rest of the league and ranks the players. First Bozak:

Decent production, terrible possession. Like, awful.

First, how is that Shots/60 even possible as a first line player? Second, that usage adjusted SAT/Corsi against portion is just atrocious. Now Zucc:

Basically a first liner through and through.

It’s not even remotely close. Zucc is far and away the better player. And Zucc is a year younger.

Another thing: Bozak’s signed for the next three seasons. The Rangers are already dealing with dead weight at $1.65 million in Tanner Glass, a rapidly declining Dan Girardi at $5.5 million, and a –for lack of a better phrase– giant question-mark in Marc Staal at $5.7 million. That’s $12.85 million in three guys that are either bad, declining, or not what they used to be. Do they need to add $4.2 million to that?

This is something that makes legitimately no sense, but it is something that has legs to it due to its source. McKenzie doesn’t make stuff up for hits and comments and page views. If he reported this, then it’s real. Couple this with Elliotte Friedman rumbling that the Rangers might be listening in on offers for Zucc, then this becomes very real.

I’m going to close this with a quick note about potential trades: The Leafs won’t do a Bozak for Zucc swap. The Leafs want young roster players or picks/prospects. They also can’t retain salary since they’ve done so twice already (Gunnarsson, Winnik). (oops, can retain salary in 3 deals, not 2) The Rangers would need to clear cap space before trading for Bozak.