What a difference a week makes. What a difference a day makes. Fresh off their big Winter Classic win over Florida, the Rangers were primed to use the win as a launching point to turn the season around. Their next game against Utah proved otherwise, as Igor Shesterkin went down in the first period and Adam Fox reaggravated his lower body injury in the third. Both are out long term, and both injuries likely saved the Rangers from themselves as the season continued. It’s odd to say injuries come with silver linings, but the Rangers losing their two best players may have been a blessing in disguise.

As you’ve heard by now, the Rangers have shown significant interest in Kiefer Sherwood, a soon-to-be 31 year old winger on a shooting binge and a pending UFA. Sherwood, who finally broke through with Nashville just two seasons ago, his first season without any AHL time, put up a career high 19 goals last season and looks poised to break that this year. He has 17 goals already. His 15.6% shooting rate, a nearly 50% increase on his career average of 11.5%, is inflated and certainly helping his goal totals. As is his time on Vancouver’s top powerplay unit.

Acquiring Sherwood wouldn’t help the Rangers because he wasn’t going to be able to replicate those numbers. Of Sherwood’s 17 goals, 6 have come on the powerplay, increasing his career powerplay goals to…seven. His 11 goals at 5v5 would still put him in the top Rangers scorers this season, second only to Artemi Panarin, but unless the Rangers played him in the top-six, it’s unlikely Sherwood would even be able to keep that pace. You can’t look at me with a straight face and say he’s a better player than Mika Zibanejad, Vincent Trocheck, and on and on. He’s not.

This is where the injuries saved the Rangers from themselves. Sherwood was not going to work out in New York. There were only two scenarios for his playing time: Third line winger with no powerplay time, or top six winger with no powerplay time. If he’s in the top-six, that means both Will Cuylle and Gabe Perreault are off the top-six. If he’s a third liner, then acquisition cost becomes the issue.

The acquisition cost wasn’t going to be a first round pick. What we heard was the asking price, which rightfully would have been balked at. The reality is Sherwood would have fetched a B prospect and a mid-pick. Historically, that’s what his kind of player gets at the trade deadline. So, Brennan Othmann and a future 3rd round pick is most likely the deal that would have gone through if the Rangers were buyers.

These injuries saved the Rangers from themselves

The good news is that the Rangers are likely no longer going to be buyers at the deadline. We can point out they shouldn’t have been buyers to begin with, but I think we are all on the same page there. We all saw it, but it looked like Chris Drury and James Dolan thought otherwise, so these injuries forced them to re-evaluate and saved the Rangers from themselves. The Rangers were not a Kiefer Sherwood away from even qualifying for the playoffs, let alone making a Stanley Cup run.

This is less about Sherwood the players as it is about getting the most out of the rest of their trade assets. After four straight years of surrendering futures for a combination of trade deadline rentals and JT Miller, the Rangers don’t have many assets left. There are only so many times you can fire your trade gun before you run out of bullets. This is why many were against the Miller trade. It wasn’t about trading for Miller or about trading the futures to land him. It was about getting the most out of those assets, and a 31 year old center with a rumored attitude issue on a declining team was a wasted bullet in the trade gun.

The same would have been true about wasting, using the example above, Othmann for another trade deadline rental. In a vacuum, Othmann and a mid round pick for Sherwood is the cost of doing business. But that would miss the forest for the trees. The acquisition cost could have and now will be used somewhere else. Hopefully Othmann is used as a sweetener in a trade for a game breaker or in a change of scenery trade for a solid but unspectacular left defense prospect.

Fox and Shesterkin saved the Rangers from themselves, trying to buy at the deadline when they should be recognizing their core doesn’t stand a chance anymore. The focus will hopefully shift to selling pieces to get younger and faster. This isn’t going to be a full tear down, but it won’t be a buying spree either.

If there’s a silver lining, this is it. These injuries saved the Rangers from themselves. Whether or not you trust this regime to make the right trades in a mini sell off is a whole separate issue.

More About: