New York Rangers: Another look at Jeff Gorton’s record
While Jeff Gorton is getting a lot of credit for the amazing rebuild of the New York Rangers, he is not infallible. There have been some missteps.
The New York Rangers rebuild started less than two years ago and the team is ready to become a playoff contender, much sooner than anyone expected. General Manager Jeff Gorton has gotten a lot of the credit, most of it deserved.
The list of Gorton’s positive moves is a long one. Perhaps his best quality is that he has stuck to the rebuild plan, although the events of this summer have radically altered the time frame.
It’s important to look at his work as a whole. He succeeded Glen Sather as General Manager of the Rangers in the summer of 2015, after several years as his assistant. In that time he has made trades, signed free agents and drafted a slew of prospects.
His best transaction was the mid-summer acquisition of Mika Zibanejad, an under the radar deal that drew mixed feelings by most fans. He made the deal even better when he inked Zibanejad to a long-term team friendly contract.
His mid-season swap of Ryan Spooner for Ryan Strome was a masterful deal that paid off in spades. There is more to this, we’ll get to that in a bit.
His signing of Michael Grabner was savvy, as the Austrian forward produced beyond anyone’s expectations.
His best move was winning the second pick in this June’s Entry Draft, a result he had nothing to do with beyond building a team bad enough to qualify. While Glen Sather bears the brunt of the wrath of fans, mostly because of the contracts he gave to Marc Staal and Dan Girardi, Jeff Gorton has made some moves that should get attention.
Bad Contracts
We discussed the Ryan Spooner trade as a great Gorton move. Most forget that last summer he awarded Spooner with a two-year $8 million contract. The contract meant avoiding arbitration in a a season after Spooner totaled 41 points in 59 games for the Rangers and the Bruins. In hindsight, the financials on that deal was just awful.
Ranger fans can laugh at Edmonton for making the trade, but don’t forget it was the Rangers who gave Spooner such a rich deal in the first place. By trading him, in essence Gorton was admitting it was a mistake and he has to get some credit for recognizing that. Also, the Rangers retained some of Spooner’s salary and that continues to affect their cap status.
Last summer, Gorton gave Vlad Namestnikov a similar contract, $8 million over two years. At the time there had been rumors that he was considering signing in the KHL so the deal was seen as a positive if a bit rich. Namestnikov’s production has not justified his salary. Little did we know that the cap situation this summer would make that deal look so bad.
Those two deals look shortsighted now, but not as much as the contract he gave to Brendan Smith.
Smith signed a four year contract worth $17.4 million in 2017, a deal that turned out to be a huge burden on the current team as they try to negotiate their way out of salary cap hell.
While contracts are one way to judge a general manager, the best way is looking at the trade record.
Trades
Gorton took over full time as General Manager in July 2015. While all of his deals since have probably had input from Glen Sather, let’s not forget that he was also involved in many of Sather’s deals as the Assistant GM. There’s no way of knowing how much influence they both had on each other, but there had to be some.
Looking at Gorton’s record in making hockey deals (not deadline trades), he has a pretty decent record. Brassard for Zibanejad, Spooner for Strome and most recently, Neal Pionk and a first round pick for Jacob Trouba all look to be good deals.
He even was able to get a draft pick out of Florida for the signing rights to Keith Yandle. On the flip side, there is a question of whether he gave up too much for the signing rights to Adam Fox. What could turn out to be two second round picks for a player who had no intention of playing anywhere except Madison Square Garden could be too much.
The jury is still out on his trade of Derek Stepan and Antti Raanta for a first round pick and Tony DaAngelo. DeAngelo has begun to live up to his potential and the Andersson has been questioned. The Coyotes did get their number one center and top goalie out of the deal.
What’s interesting is that in his four years at the top, he really has made only three major hockey trades with most of them minor transactions like Emerson Etem for Nicklas Jensen or Adam Cracknell for Peter Holland, deals that had little or not impact.
Deadline Deals
As a seller, Gorton has done a good job. No one can say he didn’t get good value in trading Kevin Hayes, Mats Zuaccarello, Adam McQuaid, Nick Holden, Rick Nash, Michael Grabner and Ryan McDonagh. While it’s easy to say that he was dealing from strength, the return he got for these players was substantial.
If Libor Hajek, Brett Howden and the draft picks acquired from Tampa work out, that deal could be his best. Considering that J.T. Miller has been traded by Tampa and the Lightning signed McDonagh to a contract that will be paying him $6.75 million when he 36 years old you could say that Gorton made the right call in trading those players.
As a buyer, he has a so-so record. His two major trade deadline acquisitions were Eric Staal and Brendan Smith. Staal was a total disaster, though his excellent play in Minnesota since that trade has belied his awful performance in New York. Smith actually played the role he was acquired for, but the contract he signed has become a dead weight now.
Throwing money at free agents is one of the best parts of being an NHL general manager. It’s also the biggest trap.
Free Agents
When it comes to free agents, since he took over Jeff Gorton has signed the biggest names in free agency twice in five summers. The latest, of course, is Artemi Panarin and it is to his credit that he was able to get Panarin for less than he was offered elsewhere.
While it was clear that the Rangers had an advantage in that Panarin wanted to play in New York, Gorton has to get credit (along with John Davidson) for holding the line on their offer.
The other marquee free agent they signed was Kevin Shattenkirk. He was another player who took a discount to play in New York, but his signing has been a grave miscalculation. Gorton acquired Shattenkirk for what he thought was a playoff contender, only to see the team collapse and result in the rebuild.
Gorton has made some solid free agent signings. Michael Grabner was probably the best. David Desharnais was a cheap and useful center in 2017-18. Signing undrafted Neal Pionk was an excellent move.
For every mid to low level free agent signing that works out, there are more that don’t. Josh Jooris, Brandon Pirri, Mat Bodie, Nathan Gerbe and Malte Stromwell are just a few.
The draft
Hitting it big in 2019 will make Jeff Gorton into the best general manager in the NHL. That’s if Kaapo Kakko is everything he is expected to be that it is.
Looking at his record after four drafts, it’s too soon to tell what kind of record Gorton has. So far, the results are mixed.
Drafting Vitali Kravtsov looks to be a stroke of genius. Trading up to get K’Andre Miller was another bold move. The same goes for Filip Chytil. The big question mark on Gorton’s draft record is Lias Andersson and only time will tell if that was a smart pick. The Olof Lindbom selection in the second round last summer will continue to be questioned.
The verdict
There is no simple answer when looking at the record of a general manager. First, there is no way for us to know what pressures he is dealing with. Hockey is a business and businesses need to make money.
It was a bold move to proclaim that the team was rebuilding and then too spend two years auctioning off assets. Was that Gorton or was that Sather? Who knows.
It doesn’t take a genius to throw over $80 mill dollars at a player, nor does it take a genius to win the draft lottery and get Kaapo Kakko.
Much of a NHL general manager’s job now is to manage to the cap. It’s no coincidence that we have spent most of the last few weeks writing about and discussing the Rangers’ payroll as opposed to performance.
Jeff Gorton will ultimately be judged on the success of the team in the playoffs. While the Panarin signings and the Kakko drafts will drive success or failure, it will be Gorton’s ability to surround those marquee players with a supporting cast that works will be the true test.
So far, Jeff Gorton has gotten off to a great start, but he still has a lot of work to do.