Newest Rangers get thrown right into fire day after being acquired from Avalanche
The New York Rangers are wasting no time putting their latest acquisitions, defenseman Calvin de Haan and forward Juuso Parssinen, to work. Both were at the morning skate Sunday, less than 24 hours after the Rangers acquired them, along with second- and fourth-round picks in the 2025 NHL Draft, from the Colorado Avalanche for defenseman Ryan Lindgren and forward Jimmy Vesey.
“Change is always tough,” coach Peter Laviolette said after the morning skate, “but that being said, the focus shifts to the game and getting the two new players we received up to speed.”
Each will be in the lineup Sunday night when the Nashville Predators (21-31-7) come to Madison Square Garden – a game the Rangers desperately need to win. De Haan skated with Zac Jones on the third defense pair at the morning skate; Parssinen centered the third line, playing between Brennan Othmann and Jonny Brodzinski.
Laviolette, whose team entered Sunday four points out of the second wild card in the Eastern Conference, had words of praise for both newcomers.
“De Haan has been around so long, as a player and quality person, quality player,” he said of the 33-year-old, who was selected with the 12th pick in the 2009 draft. “He’s got around 700 games in the NHL. So we add a good piece to the back end.”
The veteran defenseman actually has 148 points (24 goals, 124 assists) in 676 regular-season games, including seven points, all assists, with the Avalanche. He signed with Colorado as a free agent last summer, and the Rangers will be his seventh NHL team.
At this stage of his career, de Haan has no illusions about his role with his new team.
“I’m just trying to play good, solid defense, move pucks up to the forwards and go from there,” de Haan said. “If everyone’s on my hockey DB (page) right now, my stats aren’t too sexy. But my underlying numbers – the fancy stuff – has been pretty good for most of the season. Sometimes it doesn’t maybe match the ice, just by my style of play, but I just try to play reliable hockey.”
Jones and de Haan each shoot left-handed, and Laviolette said determining who plays where is a work in progress.
“They’ve both played a little bit of right (side), so we’ll get to that,” he said. “There will be conversations about that.”
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Parssinen is the only player in the trade on either side who could have significant upside. At 24, he’s already defied the odds by playing 126 NHL games after being selected by Nashville in the seventh round (No. 210) in the 2019 draft. Colorado acquired him from Nashville in December; he had six points (two goals, four assists) in 22 games with Colorado while averaging just 9:47 of ice time.
“Parssinen is a good young centerman,” Laviolette said. “I know he’s been playing a little bit of wing, but in conversations with him, he’s a centerman. He wants to play center. I was thinking back to his Nashville days, he was playing with some pretty good players. It’s a great opportunity to come in and show what he can do.
“He’s young, he’s big (6-foot-3, 212 pounds), he’s strong – that’s a good pickup for us.”
Parssinen said he’s looking forward to getting more opportunities in New York.
“A little bit shocked, but then when you heard it’s the Rangers, it’s a pretty legendary organization,” he said. “It feels pretty special today to put on the jersey.”
Laviolette admitted that the departure of Lindgren and Vesey left some holes in the locker room as the Rangers try to battle their way into a playoff berth.
“Those players who moved yesterday have been here for a bit, and they’re connected inside the room,” he said. “There’s a business side of things in hockey as well. We had some new players out on the ice today, and that’s a positive. We can’t thank Ryan Lindgren and Jimmy (Vesey) enough for what they’ve done for the organization, long before I got here and since I’ve been here. Two really good human beings and two really good hockey players who played hard for the New York Rangers.”
Change isn’t easy on a team that’s largely stayed together for the past few years and has had more success than most, winning the Presidents’ Trophy as the regular-season champion in 2023-24 and getting within two wins of the Stanley Cup Final in 2022 and 2024.
It’s the fourth major trade by the Rangers in less than three months — and with veteran forward Reilly Smith, who can be an unrestricted free agent this summer, being scratched against the Predators in favor of rookie Brett Berard, there could be more moves before the NHL Trade Deadline on Friday.
“I don’t think anyone enjoys it,” forward Mika Zibanejad said of this season’s turnover, especially Lindgren and Vesey. “I don’t know if it’s even fun for the GMs to trade guys like that, either. We’ve been fortunate the last couple years to kind of stick with the team that we’ve had for some years now. But we’ve had some changes this year, and it’s the tough part of the business when you lose guys like that.”
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