New York Rangers: Reading the writing on the wall

After the New York Rangers’ front office spent the last week negotiating with both Kevin Hayes and Mats Zuccarello, it’s time to read the writing on the wall.

With four days and three days until Monday’s NHL trade deadline, the New York Rangers are about to begin its second consecutive season of unloading assets on or before the day. There were reports that the team was also negotiating with both center Kevin Hayes as well as winger Mats Zuccarello up till today.

However, the Rangers’ brass has tabled the offers that were made according to Larry Brooks of the New York Post. While there is still a minuscule chance of an 11th-hour extension, both forwards will likely be traded prior to Monday’s deadline. Between now and Monday, the Rangers will take the ice three times, two of which will be at Madison Square Garden.

The sticking point in the negotiations was term according to Brooks. The Rangers brass offered Zuccarello less than the five-year deal the forward wanted it, it also rebuffed Hayes’ desire for a six or seven-year extension. For a Rangers team that was resolved to its fate as a rebuilding team, these negotiations were likely just a matter of covering all their bases.

It’s important to note the context around each player because they are at different points in their respective careers. At 26 and soon to be 27-years-old, Hayes is looking at his one chance at a big payday as an unrestricted free agent. With the league’s salary structure so regressive, this will be the Boston natives first and only chance to land a long-term deal.

As for Zuccarello, the 31-year-old valuing term over cap hit makes a lot of sense. At this point in an NHL player’s career, they typically begin to erode and their production naturally takes a dip. Granted, there are exceptions to the rule, Martin St. Louis was effective until his late 30s but a team should never consider the exception a good possibility.

At this point, the team says that both Hayes and Zuccarello as well as defenseman Adam McQuaid, who the front office was not trying to extend, will dress for the team’s game on Thursday night against the Minnesota Wild at the Garden.

However, these pending unrestricted free agents were not the only players that the team is fielding offers for according to Brooks. The Rangers have also fielded calls on forwards Chris Kreider and Vladislav Namestnikov from teams including the Toronto Maple Leafs and Nashville Predators.

In Brooks’ opinion, the Rangers would need to be blown away to seriously consider moving Kreider. It would take something drastic like defenseman Charlie McAvoy from Boston or William Nylander from Toronto to send number 20 North.

Ultimately, it may be a matter of the bigger pieces on the trade market like Artemi Panarin, Matt Duchene and Mark Stone to get traded before the Rangers can begin to unload the team’s more secondary tiered assets.

Thursday night against the Wild may very well be the last game in a blue jersey with a diagonal Rangers across the chest for two of the remaining pieces of the President’s Trophy winning team of 2015. Both Hayes and Zuccarello are linked to this franchise forever due to their unique paths to get here. Hopefully, they can find success with other organizations post-deadline.