Could the Rangers Sign a Big Free Agent This Offseason?
Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period was on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio Morning Skate Segment with Gord Stellick and Scott Laughlin and was asked about the New York Rangers and what their next move will be. Will they be aggressive between now and the deadline, or will wait until the summer to sign free agents?
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
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Gord Stellick: “And I’m wondering, at some point, with Jacob Trouba gone now, Chris Kreider, whatever, that maybe they’re going to look doing something like that. But the trade deadline, which is a deadline, you can start as early as you want. And I’m wondering, if you know, there’s going to be some more ambitious trades than usual, because that kind of player coming, could be a huge difference maker for those many teams that are battling for playoff spot.”
Dave Pagnotta: “Yeah, you know what? That’s a good point, Gord, because this group anticipated kind of writing the ship at some point. And you make the Trouba move, you free up some cap space, you look to see if you can make some other type of addition, and as the team starts to get back on track, well, they haven’t.
The bottom continues to fall out of this group, and it’s making it that much more difficult for this club to try to make moves to get back into contender status, at least now, in terms of playoff contention.
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I’m definitely curious to see what they end up doing and how this team maneuvers the next couple of months leading up to the trade deadline; they can definitely go in that in that direction, or at least continue to start going back in that direction.
I’m sure the fans would definitely appreciate a little bit more like they did a few years ago. But I don’t know. It’s a situation that they’re in. We definitely know that they’re looking at making additional moves, that part is evident, and that they’ve been exploring different types of roster-related transactions.
But are they going to be cosmetic, or are they going to be big and bold? And so far, they’ve been relatively cosmetic with moving out (Kaapo) Kakko, moving out Trouba, still having over $7 million in cap space to with to add upfront.
I’m really curious as to what direction this team to go in, because as we know, especially with that ownership, they want to compete. And that’s, that’s the mandate now, is the, you know, we tried this. We went in this direction, got on track. Yeah, we had, we added (Alexis) Lafreniere and other top picks, but we need to get to contender status ASAP.
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And that seems to be the mentality, which again, peaks my curiosity with respect to what type of moves are going to be making between now and the seventh, going into the into the deadline. If they keep dropping and dipping, it makes sense, obviously, to sell off pieces and regroup in the summer or in the offseason anyway.
But we’ll see, depending on how many free agents become available, top tier. There’s a chance to, hey, let’s write off the season and focus on the summer and be aggressive, which I think might end up being the play, but a lot of their performance will dictate what they end up doing.”
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