On Barclay Goodrow being waived; possible deal with San Jose?

The Rangers surprised many when they waived Barclay Goodrow yesterday, perhaps not with the actual move but the timing of the move itself. Since the buyout window hasn’t started yet, this appeared to be a last ditch effort for someone to claim Goodrow before the Rangers have to eat the buyout cap hit. But it appears there may be a pre-arranged deal with San Jose to claim Goodrow.

1. First on the possible deal with San Jose, the Sharks were probably on Goodrow’s 15-team no trade, which wouldn’t be a surprise since they were atrocious and there’s no sign of it getting better any time soon. By waiving Goodrow, he has no choice where he goes. It’s a poor way to reward someone whose only crime was signing a horrible contract, but if this is the way the Rangers rid themselves of the contract, so be it.

About the talk that there’s some kind of pre-arranged trade for Mario Ferraro, a 25 year old defenseman with 2 years and a $3.25 million cap hit, we shall see. Guessing the Sharks would wait to claim Goodrow, then trade Ferraro to the Rangers for something else (mid-level prospect?).

2. As for Goodrow, we had been theorizing for a while that this was the summer for these contracts to meet their ends, though Goodrow’s contract doesn’t really have any perks since the actual dollars due are higher than the accumulated cap hit over the next three seasons. Regardless, assuming the San Jose claim rumor is true, it helps them get to the cap floor with a player that was popular while he was there.

3. The contract he signed wasn’t his fault, it was Chris Drury’s, but $3.64 million was far too much for a fourth line player that is fading fast. His 40% shooting rate in the playoffs gave him one hell of a send off, and he was easily one of the Rangers better players throughout all three series. Yet it’s still too much. Assuming the entirety of his cap hit is gone, it gives the Rangers that much more wiggle room to add a big name winger instead of trying another Blake Wheeler experiment this summer.

4. With Goodrow gone, the Rangers 4th line will include some combination of Matt Rempe, Jimmy Vesey, Adam Edstrom, Jonny Brodzinski, and possible rookie Brett Berard. The role of the line is still up in the air though. That combination of players doesn’t exactly scream shutdown line, but it doesn’t exactly look like a tertiary scoring line either. It looks more like an energy line, which can be fine in the right situation, depending how the rest of the lineup looks.

5. Goodrow was the last piece of Drury’s first offseason which drew the ire of many. Ryan Reaves is gone. Sammy Blais is gone. Patrik Nemeth is gone. And now Goodrow will be gone. For those keeping track of salaries, that’s about $7 million in salaries moved, or close enough to the original Pavel Buchnevich contract. There’s more nuance than just salaries, but boy does this make a bad trade even worse knowing none really worked out in the long term in New York.

Before some of you yell at me, I’m aware that a lot of the Buchnevich trade was about creating spots for Kaapo Kakko and Alexis Lafreniere. Kakko hasn’t shown himself to be a scorer, and adding that to all of these issues only made things worse.

6. I’d expect the Rangers to add some kind of depth pieces via free agency at league minimum as an insurance policy. The depth in Hartford consists of Alex Belzile, Jake Leschyshyn, Riley Nash, and Anton Blidh. Not exactly the guys you want as the 13/14F. If one of these guys is the 15/16F, that’s ideal.

7. One final thought on Goodrow: What would the reactions have been if the Rangers didn’t give him that absurd contract on the heels of the Buchnevich trade? What if he got a couple years at $2 million instead of 6 years at $3.64 million? Many what-ifs, and it may change some perception on Goodrow’s time in New York.

Contract aside, Goodrow was a useful penalty killer who was fine as a passenger in a fourth line role. The limited offense was expected, but he did set career highs while playing alongside Artemi Panarin as a wildly miscast top-six winger. In the end, it was a bad idea to commit that many years and that much of a cap hit to Goodrow.

We can’t quantify and don’t know his impact in the locker room and how he may have impacted the future leaders of this team. That is up for subjective debate.