It's up to Hank again this year.

It’s up to Hank again this year.

The first two days of free agency are over, and the Rangers –to everyone’s expectations at this point– stayed relatively quiet. Many, including most of us here at BSB, expected the Rangers to make a big trade at the draft. When that didn’t happen, a quiet July 1 was all but assured. The Rangers did just that, stayed quiet. July 1 is a nice tradition of GMs spending way too much money, so let’s jump into some thoughts following the first two days.

1 – First and foremost, the Rangers did the right thing by staying out of the madness. The dollar amount on most of the contracts wasn’t bad, and it can be argued that a lot of players received fair market value. However term was insane. Seven years for Andrew Ladd? Six for David Backes? The Rangers already have two terrible contracts that are already in “regret” years. Be happy they didn’t add another.

2 – With so little cap room, it’s not surprising that the Rangers didn’t make more moves. We knew they were going to make some changes to the fourth line, and that’s pretty much what they did. Michael Grabner is probably going to shift between third and fourth line duties, while Nathan Gerbe is going to shift between fourth line and the press box. That’s all we should really expect, both in roles and in production.

3 – It’s important to note that Grabner isn’t going to score 30 goals. He probably won’t score 20 goals. Heck, be happy if he gets to 10 goals. He’s going to be a guy that is used in one of two ways: In sheltered starts on the third line, or in defensive starts on the fourth line. In either even strength scenario, he’s getting a lot of penalty kill time. Same with Gerbe. Whether or not this helps the powerplay remains to be seen. Which brings me to…

4 – The Rangers still haven’t addressed the elephant in the room that is the blue line. This is a major problem, and as great as it is to address the bottom six and penalty killing issues with Grabner/Gerbe, it means diddly if they don’t address the defense. The position has evolved from bruising and shot blocking to getting the puck and transitioning to offense. As is, even with improvements on last year’s performances, the current crop won’t get it done. If the front office really thinks that replacing Dan Boyle and Keith Yandle with Brady Skjei and Nick Holden is an improvement, they have a disappointing reality coming straight at them. Say what you want about Boyle, Holden likely is on par with that style of play. And as hyped as Skjei is, expecting Yandle production is unfair. Skjei is solid, don’t get me wrong, but expecting Yandle production isn’t going to work out.

5 – I honestly think that Jeff Gorton tried to move Marc Staal and/or Dan Girardi. He still may do it. But the question is about return. If he is expecting top-pairing return, or even top-four return (which is apparently Taylor Hall), then he’s going to be disappointed. They may be untradeable at this point. We don’t know.

6 – Hot take alert. As currently constructed, this team is a borderline playoff team. The forwards got a needed boost. However the defense is a wreck still. And we also don’t know if the full issues on the fourth line are resolved, and won’t until the season starts. Assuming the same deployment as last season, then this team is on the bubble for the playoffs.

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