Chris Drury still has time to salvage an offseason that was supposed to put everything on the table for the championship-hungry Rangers, but he’ll have to get creative.
There was plenty of activity in the early hours of NHL free agency on Monday, but very little of it involved the Blueshirts. The market was loaded with scoring wingers, who many believed were Drury’s top priority, but none of them landed in New York.
Jake Guentzel made the mark by signing a seven-year, $63 million contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Then the Nashville Predators got the upper hand by signing a pair of 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 opportunities to win by accepting more money to play for rebuilding franchises.
Meanwhile, the Rangers signed likely fourth-line center Sam Carrick to a three-year, $3 million contract − “He brings a tough element to our group,” Drury said − and went to Plan B (or C) at right wing by acquiring veteran Reilly Smith from the Pittsburgh Penguins for the relatively high price of a 2027 second-round pick and a conditional 2025 fifth-round pick. The Pens softened the blow by retaining 25% of Smith’s $5 million salary, leaving the Blueshirts with a manageable $3.75 million salary-cap charge.
“We’re very excited to sign Reilly,” Drury said on a Zoom 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’s got a winning pedigree. He won (a Stanley Cup) in Vegas, he’s a proven playoff player, and I think he fits in very well with our entire group. We were talking to a lot of different agents and a lot of things going on throughout the day, and we felt like this was the best move we could make.”
Part of the motivation for acquiring Smith, 33, is that the Rangers are only obligated to play out one year of his contract, which Drury said “sets us up nicely to have some flexibility down the road.” That’s a big part of this equation.
The Rockets have about $9 million left in cap space (though more than half of that is expected to go to restricted free agent defensemen Ryan Lindgren and Braden Schneider) and have avoided making costly long-term commitments. But Smith, coming off a season in which he posted a modest 40 points (13 goals, 27 assists) in 76 games, doesn’t shake things up the way top unrestricted free agents might have.
Perhaps Drury was wise to not overpay for players who may be past their prime, particularly with a salary-cap crunch looming when Alexis Lafrenière, K’Andre Miller and, most notably, Igor Shesterkin, come up for re-signing next summer. But if the mission is to end a title drought that just surpassed 30 years (and, make no mistake, it most certainly is), then the Blueshirts simply haven’t done enough.
This roster, as currently constructed, doesn’t seem ready to get over that hump. They’ve made it to the Eastern Conference finals in two of the past three years, but that’s largely been thanks to goaltending and special teams. Their five-on-five play isn’t up to par with the league’s best, as evidenced by a 48.49% xGF that ranks 23rd out of 32 teams over the past three seasons, according to Natural Stat Trick.
Rangers Free Agency Tracker:The latest signings, rumours and more
As competition gets tougher in the playoffs, praying for power-play goals and superman saves from Shesterkin becomes a flawed formula.
That was on full display again in this year’s conference final against eventual champions Florida Panthers, who dominated possession and stifled the Rangers, allowing them to score just 12 goals in six games. Taking the next step will require elevating their 5-on-5 game to the dogged standards of recent Cup winners, and it’s fair to wonder whether the addition of Smith and Carrick will accomplish that.
“We’re always looking for ways to improve the team and the different areas we talk about, but we’re happy with the moves we were able to make today,” Drury said.
Whats Next?
Drury will continue to look for upgrades, but they’ll be hard to find in an unrestricted free agent market that quickly dried up. Any signing from here on out will be a second wave of offers, with Daniel Sprong and old friend Vladimir Tarasenko likely the best remaining options.
They’d offer alternatives to Smith and improve overall depth, but can any of them end the cycle of countless right wingers who have tried and failed to slot into the increasingly ineffective first line under Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad? I’m skeptical.
The Rangers also have other needs, such as defensemen (they need to add at least one), center depth (they could use another, too) and overall size, speed and strength. They’re currently in position to replenish primarily at those positions, minus Barclay Goodrow and the departing unrestricted free agents, as center Alex Wennberg (San Jose) and defenseman Erik Gustafsson (Detroit) agreed to new contracts with new teams on Monday.
Goodrow’s resignation rankled some, but it felt like a necessary evil to create the cap space needed to strike — what Drury called one of the “tough decisions a GM has to make.” It demonstrated his intent to act boldly, and that narrative became more apparent in recent days, as the reality that he was trying to trade captain Jacob Trouba surfaced. But so far, efforts to make substantial changes haven’t been enough, and hard-won trades now represent the best path forward.
Drury will try to get such a deal done this summer, but he may ultimately 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.
The situation of Jacob Trouba remains unresolved
Speaking of trades, Trouba’s unresolved situation has been causing a stir.
The 30-year-old defender has been the subject of offers in recent weeks and was required to submit his list of 15 teams he cannot be traded to by Monday, but no deal has been finalized yet. Is it just a matter of time? Or is everything in jeopardy?
“Any private conversations I’ve had with him or his agent, I’ll keep 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 talk player by player, who’s going to be here or who’s not going to be here. We’re just trying to do the best we can in the offseason and do our best in training camp.”
Drury stressed that “Jacob knows what I think of him as a person and as a player,” but those mixed feelings don’t appear to be mutual at this point.
Trouba is unhappy with the way the situation has played out and does not want to move his family, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, one of whom said “a big cleanup” will be needed to sort things out if the captain stays. His wife, Kelly, has a medical career in New York and their first child, Axel, arrived in January.
It’s possible that releasing at least a portion of his $8 million AAV will no longer be necessary now that all of the high-priced free agents have signed elsewhere, making retaining Trouba for next season seem more feasible than it was just a few days ago. But having that salary on the books for 2025-26, the final year of his contract, will be nearly unfeasible, especially if his play continues to decline as it has over the past two seasons.
The belief is that Drury wants to rip the Band-Aid off, and Trouba has resigned himself to accepting his fate now that the Rangers’ desire to move on has been made public. His home-state Red Wings still have more than $21.5 million in available salary-cap space, according to CapFriendly, and remain the most likely destination.
Regardless of how it turns out, the state of the locker room is worrying.
Trouba has been a central figure in establishing a selfless, all-for-one culture over the past few seasons, while Goodrow was one of the team’s most respected veterans. There’s a perception among teammates that their situations could have been handled with more openness and dignity, according to one source, and those feelings extend to other team employees who have been let go in recent years. At the top of that list is longtime coach Jim Ramsay, who was suddenly fired last year. He wasn’t recognized when he returned to Madison Square Garden with the Montreal Canadians on Feb. 15, which apparently didn’t sit well with several players either.
Vincent Z. Mercogliano is the New York Rangers beat reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Read more of his work at lohud.com/sports/rangers/ and follow him on Twitter @vzmercogliano.