Grading Jeff Gorton’s off-season at the quarter mark
The off-season of 2019 will go down as one of them most important in New York Rangers history. Stars were acquired, prospects were drafted, players were signed and disappointments were bought out. How did Jeff Gorton do?
Thanksgiving is a good time to take a look at the tumultuous off-season of 2019. The New York Rangers were one of the most active teams, doing a lot of business. It’s way too early to form a final opinion, but so far, it’s been working out.
Here’s a day by day look at what happened and we’ll grade each transaction.
April 9 – NHL Entry Draft Lottery: Grade: A+
Gorton gets no credit for this, it was all luck. Well, maybe taking Steven McDonald’s NYPD shield with him to Toronto did it, so let’s give him some credit for winning the lottery and getting the second pick in the draft, a pick that turned out to be Kaapo Kakko.
April 30 – Trade with Carolina for Adam Fox: Grade A
Again, this is one that fell into Gorton’s lap. Adam Fox wanted to play for the Rangers and was play his senior year at Harvard in order to become a free agent in a year. Gorton could have waited, but he pulled the trigger on a deal with Carolina, acquiring his rights for two second round draft picks.
At the time, critics said that the Rangers should have waited a year and gotten Fox for nothing but cash, but considering the rookie’s performance this season, trading for him was the right move. Fox is the future foundation of the blue line and was a bargain for two second round picks.
May 2 to June 5 – Fox, Kravtsov, Reunanen, Rykov and Shesterkin sign Entry Level Contracts: Grade A
These were mostly no-brainers, but by getting these five players under contract, the Blueshirts can map out their plans for the future. Tarmo Reunanen had to be signed or the team would have lost his rights. Adam Fox’s signing was inevitable after the trade. Getting the trio of Russians under contract guaranteed that they would leave the KHL, not necessarily a sure thing. While Igor Shesterkin is the only player having an impact in North America so far, Yegor Rykov is recovering from a preseason injury and Vitali Kravtsov will eventually make it back to be an impact player for New York.
June 17 – Jacob Trouba trade: Grade A
This grade is for the trade, not the contract (we’ll get to that shortly). In Trouba, the Rangers acquired the top pair defenseman they had been looking for since trading Ryan McDonagh. Trouba has been all of that and more. With the development of Fox and Tony DeAngelo, Trouba has been able to focus more on being the shutdown defenseman the team has needed for years while still chipping in offensively. He is playing 22:37 minutes per game, a full two and a half minutes more than anyone else on the team.
As for the deal itself, the price was fair. Neal Pionk is a good young defenseman, but nowhere near Trouba in terms of physical play and while losing the first round pick was tough, it was the one they got in the trade for Kevin Hayes.
June 21 – NHL Entry Draft: Grade A
By drafting Kaapo Kakko, this was a grade A draft. The team also was able to get some potential in Matthew Robertson and Karl Henriksson. After the top three, it’s always a crapshoot and some of the team’s later picks are showing promise.
July 1 – Jimmy Vesey traded to Buffalo: Grade B
Jeff Gorton needed to clear cap space to sign Artemi Panarin and you can be sure he was working the phones trying to find a trading partner. He finally found one in the Buffalo Sabres and sent them Jimmy Vesey in exchange for a third round draft pick in the 2021 draft.
At the time, the return was considered to be pretty low for a player who scored 17 goals, but Vesey hasn’t had much of an impact with the Sabres. It took 21 games, but Vesey finally scored his first goal on Tuesday. Considering the trade made it possible for the Blueshirts to get Panarin, this one is a solid B.
July 1 – Panarin, McKegg and O’Regan signed as fee agents – Grade A+
There’s no need to justify this one, the Panarin signing has turned out better than anyone has hoped. Not only that, Panarin took less money to sign with the Rangers (although $11.65 million per isn’t chump change). The term will take Panarin into his mid thirties so the full impact of the signing can’t be judged for years, but so far, Panarin is making Gorton look like a genius. Other targets like Matt Duchene were never in consideration, Gorton and the Rangers had Panarin in their sights from day one.
Greg McKegg and Danny O’Regan were depth acquisitions and that is precisely what they have been. McKegg has been a serviceable fourth liner for the Blueshirts and O’Regan is second in scoring for the Wolf Pack.
July 11 – Kakko signs Entry Level Contract: Grade A
No mystery about this, but it was good to get it done quickly.
July 17 – Phillip Di Giuseppe signed as free agent: Grade B+
The 26 year old winger was a depth signing for Hartford and has been a consistent scorer for the Wolf Pack.
July 19 – Jacob Trouba signs contract: Grade C
Jacob Trouba was a restricted free agent with arbitration rights and a history of rancorous negotiations so the Blueshirts wanted to get him under contract with as little angst as possible. So, they rewarded Trouba with a seven-year, $56 million contract. At $8 million per year, he is tied with Brent Burns and John Carlson as the fifth highest paid defenseman in the NHL.
The ball is in Trouba’s court now, he has to prove that his big payday was justified. The key question is considering the Rangers depth on the blueline, did they overpay? In a salary cap era where every dollar counts, an $8 million annual cap hit is a big pill to swallow and considering the rise of Fox, DeAngelo, Ryan Lindgren and Libor Hajek and the potential of K’Andre Miller and Nils Lundkvist, there is a distinct possiblity that the Blueshirts overpaid.
Today, the contract rates an average grade and the question is, if they knew how good Fox would turn out, would they have paid Trouba so much.
July 26 – Pavel Buchnevich signs contract: Grade B
By signing Buchnevich to a two year deal for an average salary of $3.25 million, the Rangers avoided going to arbitration and locked him in until 2021-22 when the contracts of Henrik Lundqvist, Marc Staal and Brendan Smith will be off the books. It will allow the Rangers two years to figure out if he is worth a long-term deal for more money while he will still be young at 26. The team will have control as he will be an arbitration eligible restricted free agent.
The team had several RFA players and they chose to make Buchnevich the one they signed for a longer term. It looks like a good call as the Russian is third on the team in scoring and has become a fixture on the second line.
August 1 – Kevin Shattenkirk buyout: Grade F
Gorton really had few choices when it came to a buyout. It was either Shattenkirk, Marc Staal or Brendan Smith. Despite the fact that a Smith buyout made the most sense, the team went with a Shattenkirk buyout and it will absolutely kill the team next year.
Shattenkirk’s buyout hit next season will be $6.1 million, the equivalent of a top player salary. Because of that penalty, the Rangers are facing the real need to trade DeAngelo, Brendan Lemieux or Strome this season. All three are arbitration eligible RFA’s next summer and they are all having career years. The bottom line, is with the Shattenkirk buyout in place, they cannot afford all three.
Could the Rangers have found a trading partner to take Shattenkirk? The Maple Leafs were able to do it with Patrick Marleau at the cost of a high draft pick. Even trading Shattenkirk and retaining a huge chunk of his salary would have been to the team’s benefit.
There is not doubt that Gorton explored all of these options, but he signed Shattenkirk in the first place so he gets the F grade for ending up in this untenable position.
September 12 – Brendan Lemieux signs contract: Grade D
Brendan Lemieux was an RFA with absolutely no leverage, so he had no choice but to sign for his qualifying offer of $950k. While the salary fit under the cap constraints, the issue is that next summer he will be arbitration eligible and will be looking for an increase in pay that the team will be hard pressed to come up with.
Getting him under contract for two years would have gotten him to the 2021-22 season when they will have more money. Now, they face an ugly arbitration next summer. Not good for a young player who has shown that he can be an inspiration and a leader on this young team. Let’s not forget that he is also one of the few physical players on the roster.
September 20 – Tony DeAngelo signs contract: Grade D
This is another contract that Gorton had to get done with absolutely no cap space. Like Lemieux, DeAngelo had no leverage and was forced to sign for his $950k qualifying offer after a brief holdout in training camp. Like Lemieux, he will be an arbitration eligible restricted free agent next summer.
That’s the problem. DeAngelo has seven goals and ten assists so far this season. He is third among defensemen in goals and his 17 points ties him with luminaries like Drew Doughty, Miro Heiskanen and Morgan Rielly.
That means he will ask for and will deserve a big payday, a payout the Rangers won’t be able to afford. If it ends up in arbitration, it won’t be pretty, the question is whether he will be a New York Ranger next summer.
The whole off-season: Grade B
On the surface, Jeff Gorton had a spectacular A+ off-season. Digging deeper, there are some issues that drop that grade down a bit. He will have to jump through hoops to deal with next year’s salary cap issues. with $16 million in cap space, he has to sign DeAngelo, Strome, Georgiev and Lemieux. He will have to replace Kreider, Fast and McKegg. $16 million is not going to cover that gap and in the pipeline, the only viable option at forward next season is Kravtsov.
Gorton’s best transactions were his bold moves in acquiring Panarin, Trouba and Fox. It’s after that where the trouble starts, most particularly with the Shattenkirk buyout. It’s one reason he couldn’t extend DeAngelo or Lemieux for more than a year and had to give away Vlad Namestnikov to Ottawa for a fourth round pick and a minor league defenseman.
It’s for those bold moves that Gorton gets his grade. It’s going to be interesting to watch him work his way through the upcoming trade deadline and expiring contracts in his efforts to make the team better. Depending on how he does, his final grade could go either way.
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