New York Rangers: The Rangers should be in on Erik Karlsson

The New York Rangers are supposed to be active players at the trade deadline. Just because they are selling, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try at one of the league’s best players.

This may seem counter-intuitive to the general message that the Rangers front office sent out. The trade of Nick Holden to the Boston Bruins kicked off the on the fly rebuild. The Rangers are trading their pending unrestricted free agents so they can recoup assets. Aside from Holden, the Rangers are listening to offers for pretty much anyone.

Just because the team is selling off their veteran players does not mean they should pass up the chance at Erik Karlsson. When healthy, Karlsson is one of the five best players in the entire NHL. The Swedish defenseman is arguably the best defenseman in hockey and one of the most dynamic players in the entire world.

Up in Ottawa, things are an absolute tire fire at the Canadian Tire Center. They paid a premium price for Matt Duchene and the team has flopped to the tune of seventh place in the Atlantic Division. On top of that, the commitment from ownership to fielding a winning team is questionable at best.

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The relationship between Karlsson and the organization is fragile, to say the least. There is considerable smoke surrounding the Senators at least listening to offers for the defenseman.

Being open to trading and definitely trading are two very different situations. However, if the Rangers are serious about a real overhaul, building around Karlsson would be a great stimulus package.

The track record

This season has been an outlier for Karlsson. The veteran played the entirety of the postseason last year with severe damage to his foot and has definitely held him back this year. “It’s like playing with a piece of leather in your ankle,” Karlsson said. Obviously, for a player who uses his skating to create plays like Karlsson, this discomfort was a hindrance. On top of getting used to his ankle post-surgery, the Senators have been outright terrible.

The ability Karlsson has is generationally impressive. There are things he is capable of doing with the puck that is absolutely dumbfounding. In his eight-year career, he has averaged 55 points per season. On top of the stellar offensive production, Karlsson has a career Corsi For% of 53. It is worth mentioning that he does start a majority of the time in the offensive zone.

Players like Karlsson are the key to winning the Stanley Cup. Any team with serious hopes of winning the Cup must feature elite talent. This has been one of the Rangers’ biggest problems for the better part of the last decade. Aside from goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, the team has been starved for elite players.

The Cost

This is where things might get scary for the Rangers. Even during a bad season, Karlsson has the ceiling of one of the world’s best. Players of Karlsson’s caliber do not come cheap. The general manager for the Senators, Pierre Dorion, has no obligation to trade the veteran defenseman. There is a very real possibility Dorion decides he wants to risk losing Karlsson to free agency instead of sucking up a bad trade.

Trying to find a comparable player to establish a market in regards to Karlsson is pretty much impossible. It will be up to Ottawa to try and get as much as possible for their franchise player.

Being that the Senators are caught in a weird place as an organization it makes designing a trade more difficult. Ottawa could either add veteran talent and try and make a run with their current group or they could tear it all down. This means that the Rangers would need to have different assets available.

To land Karlsson there are very few players in the organization that would be deemed untradeable. The sole issue for New York is that some of the team’s best assets have limited no movement clauses and would not be willing to go to Ottawa.

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Making an offer is not going to be easy. A realistic trade offer would have to include Ryan McDonagh, one of Lias Andersson or Filip Chytil, and at least two draft picks. This would be a tall price to pay, but it would speed up the rebuild process dramatically.