Looking at what the Blueshirts did during this summer
The calendar has flipped to September, and hockey towns will start filling up now with players trickling in for informal work before the start of training camp in a few weeks.
We’ve thought and talked a lot about the Penguins wheelings and dealings this summer and now with the limited time remaining before camp picks up let’s shift focus to look at the other teams in the division. We’ll start at the top, with the 2023-24 Metropolitan Division winning New York Rangers.
The Rangers’ summer might be more notable for what didn’t happen more than what did. The club asked team captain Jacob Trouba for the teams on his partial no-trade clause after his full no movement clause ended. It was even in the NY Post that the team might consider a buyout, which didn’t end up happening but showed their appetite at moving on from the fading player and his $8.0 million salary. As such, Trouba will be back in Manhattan for this season but with the awkward feelings known that the team wishes he wasn’t.
The other big non-move for NYR this summer was the lack of an extension for franchise goalie Igor Shesterkin, whose contract ends after the 2024-25 season. It’s still believed both sides will find an agreement but also known that Shesterkin will be seeking a big raise to pay him among the highest goalies in the league. What happens in Boston with restricted free agent Jeremy Swayman will be of extreme interest for Shesterkin as he looks to set a price for his next contract.
Other than that, by Ranger standards it was a quiet offseason. They added Pittsburgh’s Reilly Smith at 75% of his contract in a tidy bid to upgrade their forward groups.
New York didn’t lose too much, as is typical they bid farewell to their rental players recently acquired for the playoff run (Alex Wennberg and Jack Roslovic this year). They got some salary cap relief when veteran Barclay Goodrow was claimed off waivers by San Jose. NYR also lost defender Erik Gustafsson to free agency, but can back-fill his spot by having a young player in Zac Jones graduate full-time to the NHL lineup. Veteran Blake Wheeler was also sent off into free agency.
Add in bit player Sam Carrick joining up from free agency and that’s about it for the changes. Ryan Lindgren and Braden Schneider were restricted free agents that could only be signed for short term (one and two years, respectively) in part due to not being able to clear Trouba’s salary from their books. In the longer term that kicking of the can slightly down the road might cost more money down the line but won’t hurt in the immediate future. Their top prospect Brennan Othmann should be set to move to the NHL sooner than later.
Projected lineup from NHL.com:
Chris Kreider — Mika Zibanejad — Reilly Smith
Artemi Panarin — Vincent Trocheck — Alexis Lafreniere
Will Cuylle — Filip Chytil — Kaapo Kakko
Jimmy Vesey — Sam Carrick — Matt Rempe
Ryan Lindgren / Adam Fox
K’Andre Miller / Braden Schneider
Zac Jones / Jacob Trouba
Igor Shesterkin
Jonathan Quick
The Rangers have a handful of good forwards and defensemen, plus the great goalie. This tried and true formula works in the regular season. Based on the strength of their key players, NYR had the third ranked power play and a matching third ranked penalty kill in the league in 2023-24. That led to 55 wins last season and all the key pieces are back in what should put them easily on a path for 50+ wins again coming up.
The question is where can they step up? Injuries limited Filip Chytil to 10 regular season games last year. Kaapo Kakko looked on the verge of a breakout from his 2022-23 performance (career-high 18 goals and 40 points) but regressed in 2023-24 to just produce just 19 points in 61 games. For as good as their top-six forward group looks, it doesn’t take much to see a bottom-six group that could struggle mightily again until they figure out how to continue to burn futures to make trade deadline adds (while having no second or fourth round picks in each of the next three seasons, and no third rounder in 2025).
NYR has averaged 110 points over the last three regular seasons, putting them as one of the top teams in the NHL over these past handful of years. A goalie like Shesterkin (who had 11 quality starts to zero bad starts in the 2024 playoffs) will always have them in position to be dangerous. But as the Trouba rumors swirled, beneath the surface there’s some tension and drama building about this aging core of players ability to guide the team to the Stanley Cup Final.