There’s still time for Chris Drury to salvage an offseason that was supposed to put everything on the table for the championship-chasing Rangers, but he’s going to have to get creative.
The early hours of NHL free agency were filled with activity Monday, but very little activity involved the Blueshirts. The market was full of scoring wingers, whom many considered Drury’s top priority, but none of them landed in New York.
Jake Guentzel set a record by signing a seven-year, $63 million contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Then the Nashville Predators stole the show by signing two Stanley Cup-winning veterans in Jonathan Marchessault and Steven Stamkos. Patrick Kane decided to stay in Detroit, as did Sam Reinhart in Florida. And Tyler Bertuzzi (Chicago), Teuvo Teräväinen (Chicago) and Tyler Toffoli (San Jose) passed up better chances to win by accepting more money to play for rebuilding franchises.
Meanwhile, the Rangers signed fourth-line center Sam Carrick to a three-year, $3 million deal — “He brings a solid piece to our group,” Drury said — and turned to Plan B (or C) at right wing by acquiring veteran Reilly Smith from the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for a relatively high price tag of a 2027 second-round pick and a conditional 2025 fifth-round pick. The Penguins softened the blow by retaining 25 percent of Smith’s $5 million salary, leaving the Blueshirts with a manageable $3.75 million in cap space.
“We’re very excited to have Reilly,” Drury said on a Zoom conference call with reporters. “He’s a player we’ve been watching and talking about for a while. He brings a lot of versatility to our lineup. He has a winning pedigree. He won (a Stanley Cup) in Vegas, he’s a proven playoff performer and I think he fits in perfectly with our entire group. We talked to a lot of different agents and a lot of things were said throughout the day, and we just felt like this was the best decision we could make.”
One of the reasons for acquiring Smith, 33, is that the Rangers are only tied to one year of his expiring contract, which Drury said “gives us some flexibility going forward.” That’s an important part of the equation.
They have nearly $9 million under the cap — though more than half of that is set to go to defensemen Ryan Lindgren and Braden Schneider, both restricted free agents — and they’ve avoided making any big long-term commitments. But Smith, coming off a season in which he had a modest 40 points (13 goals, 27 assists) in 76 games, isn’t moving the needle like the best unrestricted free agents would have.
Perhaps Drury was right not to overpay for players who may no longer be in their prime, especially with the salary cap crisis looming as Alexis Lafreniere, K’Andre Miller and especially Igor Shesterkin are set to sign new contracts next summer. But if the team’s mission is to end a title drought that has just passed 30 years — which, make no mistake, it certainly is — then the Blueshirts simply haven’t done enough.
This team, as it currently stands, doesn’t seem ready to overcome that hurdle. It has reached the Eastern Conference Finals twice in the last three years, but that’s largely thanks to its goaltending and special teams. Its five-on-five play isn’t up to par with the league’s best, as evidenced by a 48.49% xGF, which ranks 23rd among 32 teams over the last three seasons, according to Natural Stat Trick.
Rangers Free Agency Tracker:Latest signings, rumors and more
As the competition gets tougher in the playoffs, praying for power-play goals and Superman saves from Shesterkin becomes an imperfect formula.
That was on full display in this year’s conference final against the eventual champion Florida Panthers, who dominated possession and stifled the Rangers while allowing them to score just 12 goals in six games. Taking the next step will require elevating their 5-on-5 play to the tenacious standards of the recent Cup winners, and it’s fair to wonder whether the addition of Smith and Carrick will do that.
“We’re always looking for ways to improve the team and the different areas that we talk about, but we’re pleased with the progress we were able to make today,” Drury said.
And after?
Drury will continue to look for upgrades, but they will be hard to come by in a free-agent market that has dried up quickly. Any signings from here on out will be second-wave bargains, with Daniel Sprong and old friend Vladimir Tarasenko likely the best options left.
They would provide alternatives to Smith and improve overall depth, but can any of them end the cycle of countless right wings trying and largely failing to stay on the increasingly ineffective forward line with Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad? I’m skeptical.
The Rangers also have other needs, including defensemen (they need to add at least one), depth at center (they could use another at that position, too) and size, speed and overall grit. They’re expected to be mostly content at those positions right now, without Barclay Goodrow and the outgoing unrestricted free agents, center Alex Wennberg (San Jose) and defenseman Erik Gustafsson (Detroit) who agreed to new contracts with new teams on Monday.
Parting ways with Goodrow made waves, but it seemed like a necessary evil to create the salary cap space needed to strike, which Drury called one of the “tough decisions you have to make as a general manager.” It signaled his intention to act boldly, and that narrative has grown in recent days as the reality that he was trying to move captain Jacob Trouba has surfaced. But so far, efforts to make substantive changes have failed, with hard-to-achieve trades now the best path forward.
Drury will try to find such an offer this summer, but he may have to wait until next year’s trade deadline to land a big fish or two. It’s not the worst-case scenario, but it’s not ideal either.
Jacob Trouba’s situation is not resolved
Speaking of trades, the unresolved Trouba situation has caused a stir.
The 30-year-old defender has been reviewed in recent weeks and was due to submit his 15-team non-transferable list by Monday, but no deal has been agreed yet. Is it just a matter of time? Or is everything on the line?
“I’ll keep any private conversations I’ve had with him or his agent private,” Drury said. “We’re always looking to move the team forward and be the best team we can be. I’m not going to go through every player — who’s going to be there or who’s not going to be there. We’re just trying to do the best we can in the offseason and do the best we can in training camp.”
Drury stressed that “Jacob knows what I think of him as a person and as a player,” but those vague feelings don’t appear to be mutual at the moment.
Trouba is unhappy with how the situation has played out and doesn’t want to move his family, according to two people familiar with the situation, one of whom said it will take “a lot of cleaning up” to pick up the pieces if the captain sticks around. His wife, Kelly, has a medical career in New York, and their first child, Axel, was born in January.
Freeing up at least some of his $8 million AAV may no longer be necessary now that all the high-priced free agents have signed elsewhere, making retaining Trouba for the upcoming season more feasible than it was a few days ago. But having that salary on the books for 2025-26, the final year of his contract, will be nearly impossible, especially if his play continues to decline as it has over the past two seasons.
Drury is believed to be looking to rip the Band-Aid off, which could lead Trouba to resign himself to his fate now that the Rangers’ desire to move on has become public. His home state Red Wings still have more than $21.5 million in cap space, according to CapFriendly, and remain the most likely destination.
Whatever the outcome, the state of the locker room is worrying.
Trouba played a central role in establishing a culture of caring and selflessness in recent seasons, while Goodrow was one of the team’s most respected veterans. According to one source, some teammates feel their situation could have been handled with more openness and dignity, and that sentiment extends to other team employees who have been let go in recent years. At the top of that list is Jim Ramsay, the longtime coach who was suddenly fired last year. He wasn’t recognized when he returned to Madison Square Garden with the Montreal Canadiens on Feb. 15, which apparently didn’t sit well with several players either.
Vincent Z. Mercogliano is the New York Rangers reporter for USA TODAY. For more of his work, visit lohud.com/sports/rangers/ and follow him on Twitter @vzmercogliano.