After making a nice show of things in the first 40 games of the 2018-2019 season, the New York Rangers have cratered back to earth. It’s time to start making moves.
For all of the gloom and doom at the 2017-2018 NHL trade deadline surrounding the future of the New York Rangers’ franchise, things appear to be on schedule. Following a mediocre start to the season, it seemed as if the team would be able to at least play at a respectable level in the interim until further moves were made.
However, for all of the front office and coaching staff’s bluster about winning every single night and playing as hard as possible, the roster talent just did not match up with that messaging. For all intents and purposes, this was the worst Rangers’ team since prior to the 2004-2005 lockout season which washed away an entire year.
New York has lost four consecutive games in which the Rangers were outscored 22-5. The point is that it’s time to stop focusing on right now and it’s about two or three years from now. The players that remain and coach David Quinn will toe the company line and continue to at least try to win games, but that is not the objective.
From the very start of this season, any time winning or expectations were discussed they needed to be taken with a grain of salt. As hard as the team worked, it simply was not talented enough to compete with the quality organizations around the league.
Why it has to be now
As of the time of this writing, the Rangers have a record of 17-18-7 which is the ninth worst in the entire league. The front office is not going to come out and say that it would be beneficial for the team to lose more games than it wins in the second half of the season, but franchise-altering players are found in the top five of the draft.
There is nothing to be gained from riding things out and trying to win one stray game here or there with an unsustainable formula. In addition to the play on the ice, if the Rangers’ front office begins to get the ball rolling on trades early on, it will have the ability to set the market price for the rest of the league.
Think of last year’s trade deadline when the San Jose Sharks traded a first round pick, a mid-level prospect (Danny O’Regan) and a conditional fourth-round pick to the Buffalo Sabres for forward Evander Kane. Although that is the typical cost for a rental at the deadline, it’s important to be able to get such a return.
New York made moves prior to deadline day last year and it’s not a shock that the Michael Grabner trade with the New Jersey Devils and the Rick Nash trade with the Boston Bruins yielded a better result than deals made on the day itself. With the clock working against general managers on deadline day, the earlier things start moving, the better.
There is also the fact that the lingering trade rumors are a drain on the team. Mats Zuccarello has even said himself that the possibility of being traded “is on my mind and I’ve allowed it to get in my head.”
There is nothing to gain from keeping frustrated players in the mix who know their days are numbered. Making the moves sooner rather than later is imperative to keeping the group that remains on the tracks.
Making the moves now would in effect would kill two birds with one stone, it would allow the front office to recoup value for expiring assets and also enable the coaching staff to get experimental. Trading roster players would allow for prospects to get called up and serious development to get underway.
A coach like Quinn is never going to allow himself to try and build while he still thinks there is a chance that he can win games. In calling up players from the AHL, Quinn will get a first-hand look at what his roster for next season will likely look like.
The sooner the front office gets moving on these moves, the sooner the future can come into focus. The Rangers got mud stomped with their full roster the past three games, sans Kevin Hayes, trading him and Zuccarello will not make that much of a difference.