New York Rangers: Trade target Max Pacioretty

The New York Rangers have a dearth of scoring due to all of their injuries. If the team wants to make a serious push this year it would take something dramatic.

Any team losing one of its best goal scorers for an extended period of time is a worst-case scenario. The blood clot diagnosed in Chris Kreider’s right arm was the turning point of the season for New York. Since Kreider left the game against the Washington Capitals on December 27th the Rangers have scored 30 goals in 13 games. This averages out to 2.30 goals per game, a number that explains just why the last month has been so brutal.

The logical thing for the organization to do would be to sell off assets on expiring contracts and look forward to next season. However, the Rangers have never been a team to be content with staying pat or selling at the deadline. The team’s backbone, Henrik Lundqvist, is going on 36 years old and running out of time. There are only so many chances left with Lundqvist between the pipes for the Rangers.

The Montreal Canadiens are in an even worse position than the Rangers. The losses of Andrei Markov and Alexander Radulov have proven too much for the original six franchise to overcome. The Canadiens are a veteran team that desperately needs an overhaul.

The team’s captain, Max Pacioretty, is having one of the worst seasons of his career thus far. In the past, the Canadiens have never been shy about their captain’s availability on the trade market. This season marks just one of many in which Pacioretty has been the team’s biggest trade bait.

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There is a clear fit here for the Rangers. An elite goal scorer in desperate need of a change of scenery due to a toxic atmosphere is pretty much exactly what the Rangers need. On a veteran-driven team that does not have the circus atmosphere of Montreal Pacioretty can just play his game.

The track record

Although he does not garner the same level of attention as his contemporaries, Pacioretty has the goal scoring numbers of a top five wing in hockey. Thirty-goal seasons are the benchmark of a dominant offensive forward in the NHL, Pacioretty has five to his name in his nine-year career.

For comparison, the Rangers best goal scorer, Rick Nash, in his fifteen-year career has eight such seasons. The Rangers have not had a thirty goal scorer since Nash’s 42 goal campaign in the 2014-2015 season, the year the team won the President’s trophy.

For the Canadiens, Pacioretty has been a fixture on their top line for the better part of the last seven seasons. He plays on his team’s first power-play unit and averages 6.9 power play goals per season.

The closest player the Rangers have in comparison to Pacioretty and his skillset is actually Kreider. Both are amongst their respective team’s best goal scorers and do ample damage on the power play. Where they diverge is their defensive play, although he is a better goal scorer, Pacioretty is a worse shot suppressor.

The context

This would be a stereotypical move for the Rangers to go and poach the biggest name off of the trade market. At three of the last four deadlines, the organization has landed the biggest or one of the biggest name and done so at the cost of the future. There is not always a guarantee that a big splash of a trade will work either, Eric Staal is in the dictionary next to panic trade.

The other two major deadline moves the Rangers have made, Marty St. Louis and Keith Yandle were both good trades. Although neither helped the team win the Stanley Cup, their ultimate purpose, they still were good players.

In the context of this season adding Pacioretty would not be enough to get over the hump. For as bad as the team’s offense has been for the past month, the defense has been even worse. Now, the Rangers have had success as a high rolling, high stakes offense that forsakes defense.

Slotting Pacioretty across from either Nash or Pavel Buchnevich with Mika Zibanejad in the middle is a fascinating proposition. The combination of strong possession driving forwards would definitely help right the struggling offense. The team’s middling power play sapped of Kreider and Kevin Shattenkirk would get an immediate shot in the arm from Pacioretty in front of the net.

The Cost

For all of the talk surrounding Pacioretty, a move has never come that close to happening. The General Manager of the Canadiens, Marc Bergevin, has made his captain’s asking price extremely high. This is his right, Pacioretty is one of the league’s best goal scorers and those do not grow on trees.

Players of Pacioretty’s caliber do not get traded often. This makes finding trades for comparison is difficult. A baseline for a Pacioretty trade could be the trade that brought Nash to the Rangers. The Rangers traded two NHL ready talents (Brandon Dubinsky and Artem Anisimov) as well as a first-round pick and Tim Erixon.

In terms of talent that the Rangers currently have this would mean parting with one of J.T Miller or Kevin Hayes as well as Jimmy Vesey and a first-round pick. That is a tall asking price for a player in the midst of a bad season.  But, elite NHL talent is not cheap, if the Rangers want to make a big move Pacioretty is the biggest name available.

Next: The kids are going to be alright

The rest of this season is going to be a real window into the thinking of the organization as a whole. Is this still a team led by the old guard of Rick Nash and Ryan McDonagh? If the front office thinks this is the case, Pacioretty, a childhood Rangers fan, and Connecticut native could be coming home.