A few days ago, Jeff Marek floated the Rangers might be a possible landing spot for Pierre-Luc Dubois. The Dubois rumors have started and ended with Montreal as the clear destination, but for some reason the Rangers got floated as a team “Dubois might be okay playing for.” Which, suffice to say, isn’t much of a rumor. That said, news is light. So let’s dive into why the Dubois rumors don’t make sense for the Rangers.
Dubois is a top-six center, and at worst he’d be a second line center on any team he goes to. The Rangers are pretty locked up at that position, with three long term contracts taking up the top three center positions. Mika Zibanejad is signed for $8.5 million until the end of time, Filip Chytil just signed a four year deal at a very team friendly price, and Vincent Trocheck carries another six years on his $5.625 million deal. So unless the Rangers want to cut bait with one of them, Dubois has no spot to go.
The question about moving one of them to wing has come up, with Chytil being the fan favorite to move to right wing, a noted hole on the Rangers right now. The Rangers have tried that before, and it never worked. Faceoffs are the only area that people point to when it comes to Chytil moving to wing, and the center position is far more than just faceoffs. Center has far more defensive responsibilities, and Chytil is a very good two way player. Moving him to wing, even for Dubois, makes no sense.
Cost is the major factor in the Dubois rumors
While the Rangers could, in theory, find a way to make these Dubois rumors work for them, cost is the other big factor. Acquisition cost and salary cost is going to be sky high, likely costing the Rangers more than they want to part with. Evolving-Hockey has Dubois projected at around 5 years and $6.5 million, and their contract projects are usually within 10%, so that’s as accurate as we can get at the moment. Without sending salary back to Winnipeg, the Dubois rumors don’t make sense with the salary cap.
In addition, landing him in a trade is going to be a tough proposition. True top line centers, which Dubois is, don’t get moved that often. The cost, pre-draft, would definitely include the 23rd overall pick in this year’s draft. Given Dubois’ contract status (unsigned RFA) and endless rumors that he will wind up in Montreal, Chris Drury might deem that to be too expensive, given the likely need to also shed Trocheck’s salary or move on from one of their key restricted free agents.
The salary cap cost doesn’t work, nor does the trade acquisition cost. So, these Dubois rumors should be dead in the water when it comes to the Rangers. It seems like it is simply lazy spitballing when these “insiders” suggest the Rangers for almost everyone. Just one look at a CapFriendly or PuckPedia page and you know the Rangers can’t make it work. So the Dubois rumors will continue, and hopefully it will end up with the Rangers being removed from the conversation.
These Dubois rumors are just noise for now. That can change, but it doesn’t seem likely.
Share:
More About:Irresponsible Rumormongering