Fixing the Rangers won’t be as simple as shedding dead weight contracts
The smoky remains of the 2015-2016 season are beginning to clear and the Rangers front office must begin sifting through the wreckage and addressing the various questions that surround the team’s future.
Given New York’s cap crunch, it’s going to be a monumental task to diagnose what went wrong, develop a go-forward plan and reevaluate and retool the roster.
The process must start with getting rid of not just one, but both Marc Staal and Dan Girardi. Each has a no-movement clause, but recent history shows that those hold very little weight when it’s made clear to a player that he’s no longer wanted. It will be very difficult to show these long-time loyal soldiers the door, but it’s in the best interest of the team to rip the Band-Aid off as quickly as possible.
Staal likely still has some trade value, so his entire $5.7 million cap hit could be made to disappear – regardless of the return. Assuming there’s not much interest in Girardi, a buyout would result in cap penalties through 2023-2024 – a tough but necessary pill to swallow.
Moving both Staal and Girardi would give the Rangers the funds to secure Keith Yandle long-term – an obvious and important starting point. The foundation of the new blueline would be Yandle, Ryan McDonagh and Brady Skjei, a very strong trio to build around.
Next comes the trickier part. By stopping with Staal and Girardi, the Rangers could make the case that they responded to an underwhelming season with decisive and drastic action. But simply clearing bodies, keeping Yandle and retaining the RFAs is not enough to return the team to contention.
Unfortunately, the team’s problems go far deeper than any one player, and simply ditching any combination of Girardi, Staal, or Tanner Glass won’t be enough to change the club’s fortunes.
This is no longer the time for a small tinker – a comprehensive retool to develop a new formula is needed. And for me, that means the next domino to fall is to trade Rick Nash.
Nash is an extremely polarizing player and actually played very well during the playoffs – better than most Rangers, in fact. But he’s also soon to be 32 years old, with two years left at a huge $7.8 million cap hit. And unlike Staal and Girardi, who would be dismissed solely to save money – Nash still has major trade value.
The Rangers need to get younger and faster across the board and trading Nash would be the easiest means to that end. The Blueshirts could obtain a couple of very quality young pieces in exchange for Nash and redistribute Nash’s allocated cash towards additional players via trade or free agency.
There are other players on the roster that could be moved to the same effect – Derek Stepan and Derick Brassard chief among them – but they are younger, cheaper, still peaking, and more likely to be a part of the long-term plan than Nash.
Moving Staal, Girardi and Nash could create enough cap space to allow the Blueshirts to make a run at top UFAs Alex Goligoski, Jason Demers or even Steven Stamkos. That would of course be very tempting for New York, but the better play would be to inject multiple new quality pieces into the lineup around the existing core, rather than just taking yet another big swing at an expensive star player that would put the Rangers back where they started.
Here’s how things could look if the Blueshirts began their offseason planning around these three moves:
Granted, there’s plenty more tinkering that would need to follow. Ideally Tanner Glass will be long gone and obviously the Blueshirts would need to add a couple solid defensemen and some talent up front.
But look at all that cap space! Don’t get bogged down by the RFA numbers or even the potential need to retain salary in the Staal and Nash trades. Kicking off the offseason with a bang by moving on from the three veterans would give the Blueshirts plenty of money to play with and GM Jeff Gorton a fighting chance to position the team for better results moving forward.
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