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.