Jeff Gorton, what were you thinking?

$4 million a year?

Again, Jeff Gorton has gotten a lot of credit for highway robbery when he traded Ryan Spooner to Edmonton for Ryan Strome.  Sure, it was a great deal for the Rangers, but what it really did was save Gorton a ton of embarrassment.  More on that later.

The first signing announced was the deal given to Vlad Namestnikov.

Restricted free agent Namestnikov was given a two year $8 million contract. This after a season when he posted 22 goals and 48 points.  $4 million a year sounds fair for a 22 goal scorer, but the warning signs were there.

Before 2017-18, Namestnikov had never scored more than 14 goals in a season and had spent much time that season on the top Tampa line with Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov.   After his trade to New York, Namestnikov reverted to form and scored all of two goals and two assists in 19 games.   Based on those stats, Namestnikov was vastly overpaid.

One month later, the Rangers signed Ryan Spooner, another restricted free agent.

Spooner had a completely different experience in his time with the Rangers.  In only 20 games he scored four goals and added 12 assists, nearly a point-a-game pace.  He had scored nine goals and 25 points in 39 games that season with the Bruins.

The contract  Gorton gave to Spooner was identical to the  Namestnikov’s deal:  Two years, $8 million.

In hindsight, Gorton ended up paying Namestnikov for the season he had in Tampa and he paid Spooner for the abbreviated season he had with the Rangers.

The Spooner trade

On November 16, 2018, Ryan Spooner was traded to the Edmonton Oilers in a deal straight up for Ryan Strome.  Spooner had one goal and one assist in 16 games for the Rangers.  Strome had one goal and one assist in 18 games for the Oilers.  It was a one-for-one trade of underachieving forwards and didn’t warrant a lot of attention at the time.

Strome went on to score 18 goals and 33 points for the Rangers while Spooner was subsequently traded from Edmonton to Vancouver after being sent to Bakersfield in the AHL. The Canucks bought Spooner out this summer and he just signed to play with Lugano in the Swiss league.

As a hockey transaction, this was an outstanding trade for the Rangers, but financially it was a wash.  The reason was that it was a retained salary transaction and the Blueshirts agreed to pay $900k of Spooner’s salary.  So, adding the $900k to Strome’s $3.1 million deal, the cap cost to the Rangers was still $4 million a year.

Even with the buyout, the Rangers will have $300k of dead cap space for the next two years.

As for Namestnikov, he struggled to score in 2018-19, spending some time in David Quinn’s doghouse. He finished with 11 goals and 31 points in 78 games. He had one stretch of 23 games without a goal. There was no denying his hard work, but the results were just not there.