What’s next for Rangers after trading Carson Soucy to Islanders
Ten days after the New York Rangers officially threw in the towel on this season and publicly announced their intention to enter a retool phase, they traded Carson Soucy to the New York Islanders on Monday. In return the Rangers received a third-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft.
The trade was rumored much of the day, and the Rangers held Soucy out of their lineup against the Boston Bruins for roster management. The Rangers officially announced the trade after their exciting 4-3 overtime win over the Bruins.
The 31-year-old defenseman, who carries a $3.25 million salary cap hit, can become an unrestricted free agent at season’s end. Considering the circumstances with the freefalling Rangers (22-25-6), who are last in the Eastern Conference, this was not an unexpected outcome with Soucy.
The Rangers acquired Soucy in a trade with the Vancouver Canucks on March 6 last season for a third-round draft pick. They viewed Soucy as a veteran bottom four defenseman, who could help stabilize their blue line in 2024-25, and be a lineup regular this season.
It was also part of the equation that if the Rangers were sellers ahead of 2026 NHL trade deadline, Soucy was an asset as a rental for another team. That’s exactly how this played out.
Soucy skated most of this season on the second defense pair with Will Borgen, averaging 17:13 TOI, fifth among Rangers defensemen and ninth most among all skaters. Soucy provided some surprising offense earlier in the season, and had eight points (three goals, five assists) in 46 games at the time of the trade.
He was third on the Rangers with 66 blocked shots, and led the team by averaging 5.00 blocks/60. His 71 hits were seventh most on the Rangers this season.
Soucy brings 411 games of NHL experience to the Islanders, who are his fifth team, after the Minnesota Wild, Seattle Kraken, Canucks, and Rangers. They needed a reliable veteran to play the left side of their blue line largely because Ryan Pulock and Alexander Romanov are injured.
It’s the first trade between the New York rivals since May of 2010, when the Rangers acquired defenseman prospect Jyri Niemi from the Islanders in exchange for a sixth-round pick in that year’s NHL Draft. Niemi spent the next three seasons bouncing between the AHL and ECHL, before he returned to his native Finland to continue his professional career. He never played a game for the Rangers in the NHL.
What’s next for Rangers after Carson Soucy trade
Blue line shuffle
In the short term, this trade opens up a spot on the left side of the Rangers defense corps, providing an opportunity for frequent scratch Urho Vaakanainen to draw into the lineup. Rookie Matthew Robertson moved up into the second-pair role alongside Borgen on Monday, played 22 minutes, and scored the winning goal in overtime. Vaakanainen skated on the third pair with rookie Scott Morrow, and was plus-2 with an assist. Connor Mackey was recalled from Hartford of the American Hockey League to serve as the seventh defenseman.
Assuming no other defenseman is acquired by the Rangers between now and then, the next move on the defense corps comes when Adam Fox is activated from LTIR. The earliest that can happen is Jan. 31, though the Rangers may hold Fox out until after the Olympic break.
Whenever Fox comes back, it makes a lot of sense for Braden Schneider to move off the top pair and to his off (left) side on the second pair, instead of resuming his usual third-pair role on the right side. In that scenario, Robertson drops back to the third pair, Vaakanainen again is the seventh defenseman, and, most importantly, Morrow remains in the lineup, where the Rangers can best bring him along and evaluate his readiness as an NHL regular.
Basically, the decision comes down to Morrow or Vaakanainen when Fox returns.
First shoe to drop
The Soucy trade is simply the first of several roster moves on the near horizon for the Rangers following general manager Chris Drury’s letter to the fans on Jan. 16. Expect the retooling Rangers to be plenty busy in the coming weeks and months, and perhaps years, depending on how long it takes to build the organizational depth back up.
In a way, Soucy was low-hanging fruit for Drury — the easiest player to move, and least surprising, all things considered. We know the Rangers intend to move Artemi Panarin ahead of the March 6 NHL Trade Deadline. That eventual trade won’t be a surprise when it happens, per se, but it’ll be a much bigger deal, of course — literally and figuratively.
What we don’t know yet is who else is coming and going. Vincent Trocheck, Alexis Lafreniere, Braden Schneider, and Brennan Othmann are among the names most often included in trade rumors — other than Panarin. But it feels like anyone outside of Igor Shesterkin, J.T. Miller, Mika Zibanejad, Vladislav Garikov, and Fox are fair game and could be moved for the right return package.
Expect the Rangers to target talented younger players — those already in the League and others who are NHL-ready. The Rangers want to get better quickly, though building up their draft capital is also important to help replenish a largely barren prospects pipeline.
Keep in mind, there’s a League-wide roster freeze from Feb. 4-22 during the Olympic break, and then the trade deadline is March 6. The Rangers must move Panarin sometime in that time frame. But, perhaps, other sizeable trades happen during the offseason instead of now.
Let’s see how it all shakes out.
See ya’ Wednesday!
Assuming the Islanders insert Soucy immediately into their lineup, the Rangers will face their former defenseman on Wednesday, and then again on Thursday. The Rangers and Islanders play a home-and-home set those two nights, first at UBS Arena then at Madison Square Garden.
This is only the fourth trade ever made between these local rivals, and we’ll get an up-close look at the early returns in a matter of days.
A side note to this trade, it allows Soucy to stay in the New York area, which is especially important for him and his family after his wife gave birth last week to their third child. Remember a year ago, Soucy talked about the difficulties of moving the family from Vancouver to New York. And that was without a newborn. So, you know he and his wife must be relieved.
That’s a good outcome for a good guy.
