New York Rangers: A Blueprint for a Revamped Blueline

We all know the New York Rangers biggest crutch; their defense. It’s the only thing keeping them from being uber dangerous. Here is a blueprint for how they should go about re-making their blueline.

While the Rangers defense has been better of late, it is still a bottom-tier NHL defense. While the team has only given up 4 goals in their last 3 games, there are the occasional goals like the one below that make you shake your head in disbelief.

With all of that being said, the Rangers are not too far off from being the most dangerous team in the Eastern Conference. It all depends on what they do with their defense. Their forward group is set for years to come, with only one player–Rick Nash–above age 30.

Since they won’t have to worry about that, their defense is their number one priority.

In the following slides, we will take a step by step approach to figure out how the Rangers can solve their defensive woes.

Step 1: Evaluate the Situation

The first thing that GM Jeff Gorton needs to do is sit down and look at the numbers and the game tape. If you have watched the Rangers for any period of time, you would know that their captain Ryan McDonagh is a stud. He is the guy you want to be the building block on the blueline for years to come.

The next guy that you want to evaluate is Brady Skjei. The youngster is starting to look very comfortable in the defensive end. In 16:36 of ice time per game, the 22-year-old Skjei has notched two goals and 18 assists with a plus 7 rating. With another year left on his rookie deal after this one, Skjei is a guy that the Rangers need to lock up and keep around long-term.

Those are the Rangers’ two locks on defense that they need to hold onto no matter what.

And then there are the other middle of the pack guys.

Nick Holden has had a phenomenal first season on Broadway. After getting off to a rough start, the 29-year-old has tallied 8 goals to go along with 16 assists and a plus 18 rating which is good for second highest on the team behind Michael Grabner.

The Rangers can do many different things with Holden, but we will get into that later.

Kevin Klein is a guy who has seemingly overstayed his welcome in Manhatten according to many Rangers writers, bloggers and fans, now including myself.

The pair of longtime Rangers defenseman Marc Staal and Dan Girardi have been overstaying their welcome for a long while now, although Staal has been better this year than in years past. Girardi, not so much.

Then, of course, there is Adam Clendening, the poster child of Rangers bloggers who has never found consistent playing time anywhere in the NHL with several different teams in the 23-year-old’s career.

To add to the defense picture, the Rangers have a kid by the name of Ryan Graves down at Hartford and he has been killing it lately. They also have two other offensive minded defenseman down there in John Gilmour and Matt Bodie, both of which will be hard pressed to make to the NHL and receive consistent minutes due to a plethora of different reasons.

Step 3: Addition by Subtraction

After the Rangers get their 2nd pair defenseman they will need to ship out one of their current top six. The two guys the Rangers should push hard to trade are Kevin Klein and Marc Staal. I would put Dan Girardi in this mix as well but it is very unlikely that another NHL team would want to bring on a guy like Girardi–unless maybe a team like Colorado wants to bring in a guy who’s been around the block a few times, but like I said, very unlikely.

Moving Marc Staal does a few things for the Rangers. The first thing it does is open up another spot to protect a defenseman in the upcoming expansion draft. Staal has a no-movement clause which will force the Rangers to protect him along with two other defensemen come the draft at the end of the season–McDonagh and Girardi being the other two.

Trading Staal also opens up some cap room or the Rangers to make a move in the offseason.

The incentive to trade Staal simply would be to dump his salary. It is unlikely that the Rangers would get much for the often injured Staal. If they were to get a mid-round pick or two for him, that would be a respectable coup at this point.

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Klein has declined in a big way since last season. The Rangers better move him fast before he loses all of his trade value. Klein is one of the few Rangers willing to drop the gloves to stand up for a teammate, but it is still a move they need to make.

Again, if they could land a 4th or 5th round pick for Klein, it would be a good move.

Step 4: Play the Kids

At this point, if the Rangers made all the moves I have mentioned above, their defense would look like this;

McDonagh-Fowler

Holden-Skjei

Clendening-Girardi

Or some kind of combination of that.

Here is where you call up a guy like Ryan Graves and slot him into the lineup, whether it be for Girardi–the best option–or Clendening–the most likely option knowing Alain Vigneault.

This isn’t the strongest defense in the world by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s an improvement from what they have been rolling out for most of the season. This is only the beginning of the plan, as the rest of it can’t be finished till the offseason.

Step 5: Offseason Moves

The day the season ends, the Rangers need to buyout Girardi for any of this to work. I do think that they will end up doing this after giving him another season to see if he could round back into the form of yesteryears. He didn’t and now it is time to move on.

Eyes On Isles

When that happens, the Rangers would open up another one of their expansion draft slots for their defenseman. They then could slot McDonagh, Fowler and Holden into those spots, while Skjei and Graves will be exempt from the draft anyway.

After the expansion draft, they will have a few more moves to make before they can rest.

The first of which being the master plan all along; signing Kevin Shattenkirk via free agency. The 27-year-old Shattenkirk is from New York originally and would be open to coming here a season removed from being named an assistant captain over in St. Louis. Shattenkirk, a righty offensive defenseman would be a perfect fit within the Rangers’ system.

The team would likely need to allocate a pretty penny in his contract, but it would be worth it. His contract will likely need to be one of six years in length, paying him around $6.5-7 million annually.

With Shattenkirk on board, the Rangers defense would look like this;

McDonagh-Shattenkirk

Fowler-Skjei

Holden-Graves/Clendening

Much better, right?

Step 6: An Optional Move

This is an idea that I am going to take right from the keyboard of our very own Tyler Kluepfel. The Rangers should test Nick Holden’s market and see if they can’t recoup some major assets off of his breakout season.

Holden will turn 30 in May. He cannot be expected to put up the same offensive numbers he’s been putting up ever again. The Rangers can recoup a couple picks for Holden probably around the second and third round. This would be great asset management by the team. It also would allow them to restock their farm system which is bare of quality prospects on defense.

If they are to do that, they can either sign a sixth defenseman off of free agency, make another low-cost trade like they did for Holden this past offseason or just roll with Graves and Clendening as their 5th and 6th defenseman and make a few depth defense signings and call it a day.

Next: Top 3 Defensemen Who the Rangers Could Call Up

As bleak as their situation may look right now, while it won’t be easy, the Rangers can fix this defense and be an elite team by the 2017-2018 season but Jeff Gorton and the rest of the team’s front office will need to be creative to make it work.