What lies ahead for Rangers after quiet trade deadline?
New York Rangers fans will have to wait a little longer for the “retool” general manager Chris Drury promised in his mid-January letter after the Blueshirts tinkered around the edges but didn’t make a major move before the NHL Trade Deadline on Friday.
“We will always continue to try and make the team better. It certainly doesn’t stop today at the 3 o’clock deadline,” Drury said after the day came and went with no major deals.
He did make some lesser moves, trading fourth-line center Sam Carrick to the Buffalo Sabres for third- and sixth-round picks in the 2026 NHL Draft, and swapping 32-year-old defenseman Derrick Pouliot to the Chicago Blackhawks for 24-year-old forward Aidan Thompson in an exchange of minor-leaguers. Drury also cut bait on his 2021 first-round pick, forward Brennan Othmann, by sending him to the Calgary Flames for forward Jacob Battaglia, a second-round pick (No. 62 overall) in the 2024 draft.
But what was most notable is who wasn’t traded.
After all the rumors of center Vincent Trocheck’s impending departure, he’s still a Ranger. So is defenseman Braden Schneider, another subject of numerous trade conjecture. Both figure to be in the lineup Saturday afternoon when the Rangers visit the New Jersey Devils.
Drury said he didn’t want to make a trade simply for the sake of making a trade, and that the letter he sent to fans seven weeks ago wasn’t a factor.
“It didn’t make any sense to do something just to say we did it, or to do something just because we wrote a letter,” he said.
Trocheck was most closely linked with the Minnesota Wild. But Wild/Team USA GM Bill Guerin couldn’t reach a deal with Drury, one of his assistant general managers with the United States’ gold medal-winning team at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Trocheck was part of the team that won the gold medal.
“I thought winning a gold medal with Chris Drury would get me a little bit of a hometown discount,” Guerin joked during an interview with ESPN, “but he wasn’t in that mood.”
The Carolina Hurricanes, Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins and Utah Mammoth were among the other teams believed to have expressed interest, but none was willing to pay what Drury wanted, so there wasn’r a deal to be made.
Vincent Trocheck still with Rangers after NHL Trade Deadline
That doesn’t mean Drury won’t revisit dealing Trocheck before the NHL Draft, scheduled for June 26-27 in Buffalo. The veteran center is signed through 2028-29 at a very affordable $5.625 million average annual value, so any team acquiring the 32-year-old this summer would have him for three seasons. The Rangers believe it’s better to wait than take a deal they weren’t thrilled with now; time will tell if that ends up being a worthwhile gamble.
With centers reportedly at a premium as this year’s deadline approached, Drury said he felt comfortable not taking less than what he had set as his asking price for an excellent two-way center, with the option to revisit a trade before the draft.
“Vincent Trocheck is a great player. He’s been a great Ranger for us and a leader on and off the ice,” the GM said. “Broadly speaking, to any player in the organization as it pertains to a retool and this trade deadline and moving forward, we’re going to make deals that make sense. The deals we made today and leading up to this deadline, to us made sense.”
Schneider, a righty-shooting defenseman, is a pending restricted free agent who will be looking for a raise from his current salary of $2.2 million. He also figures to get more attention before the draft – Drury traded K’Andre Miller, who was in a similar position, last July 1, opting not to make a major commitment and instead dealing him to the Carolina Hurricanes.
Drury said looking to the future for a team that’s going to miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the second straight season didn’t mean rushing to make a deal that would have seen the Rangers get a subpar return.
“I think it’s not just this deadline, but when you’re trying to put deals together and you already have something in mind — whether it’s me or the other general manager — just try to stick with it and make the best deal you can,” he said. “Things ebb and flow in conversations over time. At the end of the day, there is a deadline.
Drury failed to bring back an impact player at the deadline or before the Winter Olympics roster freeze. The Rangers added some mid- and later-round picks – they now have four selections in the third round — but haven’t done nearly enough to add the young talent their organization desperately needs.
The Rangers enter the weekend 29th in the overall standings, meaning they have a good chance to get a top-five pick in the draft after missing the playoffs in back-to-back seasons. That means Drury will be under pressure to show that his deadline day moves (and non-moves) will get the Blueshirts going in the right direction sooner rather than later.
The offseason will provide further chances for Drury to show that he’s up to the job of retooling the Rangers.
“Teams will be looking at free agents and different things, and maybe moving draft picks once picks are set in stone after the lottery and after the playoffs,” he said. “So a lot of factors that go into it, and we’ll certainly be ready and opportunistic when and where we can.”
He’s betting that there will be better deals this summer than the ones he passed up.
“When push comes to shove,” he said, “our goal is to make deals that make sense for the organization. Just how it ended up today.”
For his sake, he’d better be right.
