Why Rangers should consider trading Braden Schneider after this season
This past offseason, the New York Rangers made the difficult decision to cut bait with 25-year-old defenseman K’Andre Miller. Loaded with potential, the organization believed he would become a pillar of their blue line for years to come, but financial considerations and uncertainty over Miller’s development forced their hand with free agency on the horizon.
Though next summer is ways off, the Rangers could find themselves in an almost identical scenario with Braden Schneider.
After the Rangers traded up on draft day in 2020 to land Schneider, he hasn’t quite proved worthy of a pricey long-term commitment at this stage of his career. Sounds a lot like Miller, whom the Rangers traded up to select in the first round of the 2018 draft but never materialized as the star they envisioned.
Rangers facing same reckoning with Braden Schneider that they did with K’Andre Miller
Miller showed flashes of becoming just that player early on, but his career arc began to trend downward over the past three seasons, with costly turnovers and uneven play creeping into his game. No longer convinced of his future success in a Rangers sweater and with his two-year bridge contract having expired after the 2024-25 season, New York traded Miller to the Carolina Hurricanes for first- and second-round picks, and young defenseman Scott Morrow on July 1.
It’s possible that general manager Chris Drury might do almost the exact same thing in the summer of 2026. Unfortunately for the Rangers, Schneider’s developmental path, like Miller’s, hasn’t led to where the club hoped he would be at this point.
With 308 NHL games under his belt since coming up from Hartford of the American Hockey League in January 2022, Schneider has essentially played four full seasons. The results haven’t been a total disappointment, but his supposed path toward becoming a top-four blue-line building block has undoubtedly stalled.
Schneider hasn’t emerged as a possession driver, never having reached the 50 percent mark in expected goal share, per Natural Stat Trick. The Rangers were out-chanced 5-on-5 – often significantly – in each of his four seasons with him on the ice.
In addition, the nasty edge and physical presence he exhibited with the Brandon Wheat Kings of the WHL hasn’t fully emerged. To be sure, he’s delivered some big hits throughout his still-young career, but not nearly enough to put consistent fear into opposing forwards. Though his 2.3 hits per game in 2025-26 so far represents the highest total of his career, it’s still well short of what the Rangers once expected out of him.
Schneider’s season has so far been unremarkable, which is pretty much in line with the rest of his career, and that’s probably more disappointing for the organization than in any season before. Schneider showed up to the club’s breakup day in April with his left arm in a sling, and announced that he had surgery for a torn labrum that had hindered him for parts of multiple seasons. The expectation was that correcting the problem would unlock Schneider’s physical game and get his development back on an upward track.
Instead, it’s been more of the same. Schneider’s expected goal share is at 45.0 – nearly identical to last season’s mark – with the Rangers getting out-chanced 152-123 and outscored 14-11 with him on at 5-on-5. He’s also a career-worst minus-2 and committed 24 giveaways in 22 games.
Schneider had a season-high four giveaways in the Rangers’ 6-3 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday. He also failed to check Nathan MacKinnon just after the Blueshirts tied the game at 3 in the third period, allowing the Avs star to score the go-ahead goal 30 seconds later.
Some of the subpar numbers can be attributed to playing regularly on the third-pair instead of with top-four caliber defensemen as partners. But Will Borgen, the 28-year-old defenseman who was acquired in December, raised his game since coming to New York and moved firmly ahead of Schneider on the right side of the blue line. Borgen is everything the Rangers hoped Schneider would be, with his high compete level and physicality helping to change the nature of the Blueshirts’ defense.
The club signed Borgen to a five-year extension in January, leaving him and Adam Fox ensconsced on the right side. Coach Mike Sullivan’s initial plan was to more or less rotate Borgen and Schneider into top-six roles during games, but the gap between the two players’ impacts has largely rendered that moot. Schneider hasn’t distinguished himself in the top four, when Borgen missed three of the past four games with an upper-body injury either.
Scott Morrow might join Will Borgen in making Schneider expendable
The other consideration when it comes to Schneider’s future on Broadway, ironically, is tied to the Miller trade. The Rangers have high hopes for Morrow, a raw but talented former second-round pick by Carolina who boasts the puck-moving skills and offensive abilities from the blue line that are in short supply on the Rangers roster beyond Fox. Like Schneider, he’s a right-hand shot, and though he might not be ready to be an NHL regular just yet, the organization believes his time is not far off.
“We’re also excited about his game and potentially where it could go,” coach Mike Sullivan told the New York Post this week. “He’s a really good puck mover. We think he has decent instincts offensively. He can help us with a transition game. He’s pretty good along the offensive blue line. He has good size (6-foot-2, 210 pounds). I think, positionally, there’s an opportunity for growth there and I think we’ve got a chance to help him. Physically, I think he’s capable of playing at this level. He’s hockey strong, and he has good size.”
Morrow is on an entry-level contract that expires this summer and is far more affordable than Schneider going forward. As with Miller, that could prove to be the biggest factor in whether Schneider remains with the Rangers after this season.
Completing a two-year, $4.4 million bridge contract, the 24-year-old will be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights July 1. He’ll be seeking a longer-term deal with a raise this time. However, Schneider could wind up with another bridge deal since he can’t be an unrestricted free agent until 2028.
The Rangers, though expected to finally get some cap relief after this season, don’t want to be in the business of paying big bucks to third-pair defenders. With Fox and Borgen signed to expensive long-term deals as the top two options on Schneider’s natural side, another big financial commitment at that spot seems like bad cap management.
Add it all up, and the Rangers appear to be at essentially the same decision-making point they were with Miller – needing to commit long-term to a still-promising young player from whom they haven’t seen enough to do so. Schneider’s situation would seem to be even more precarious than Miller’s was because his road upward in the defensive corps appears blocked, and because the club might have a cheap replacement with a decent upside. And don’t forget, Miller was a top-four staple for years, a role Schneider’s never had.
Miller’s potential allowed him to remain an attractive trade piece, and the Rangers received a significant return for him. Something similar might be in the cards for Schneider, who remains a commodity as a young right-handed defenseman with size. Another team is sure to be convinced that Schneider, like Miller, simply needs a change of scenery and a different coaching voice. The Rangers, after all, don’t exactly have a good reputation for developing young blueliners.
Miller’s playing well for the Hurricanes, who gave him the long-term contract he desired, proving that a new situation was just what he needed. That could also end up being the case for Schneider, whom the club might have little choice but to send elsewhere once the summer arrives.
