The playoff picture and some tough choices to make

The New York Rangers continued their improbable climb towards the playoffs with a dramatic win over Columbus. With only about a week to the trade deadline, the club has some very tough choices to make.

With the win over the Blue Jackets, the New York Rangers are three theoretical points out of a playoff spot (assuming they win games in hand).  That’s a pretty amazing number considering where they were just a couple weeks ago.

The Rangers still need to pass Carolina and Florida as well as either Philadelphia or Columbus.  Make no mistake, it’s a tall order and this Sunday’s contest with Boston will tell us and the  rest of the NHL a lot about this team.

Some tough choices

That brings us to the trade deadline and the choices the Rangers have to make. First, it’s a fact that the salary cap situation the Rangers are in has not gone away.  They will barely have enough available cap space to re-sign their free agents besides inking Chris Kreider to a new deal.  It’s a harsh reality that is not going to go away.

The other fact is that their odds of making the playoff are still slim.  If you look at the Playoff Probabilities Report on HockeyReference.com you will see that the Blueshirts have a 17% chance of making the playoffs. That’s not great, but get this, yesterday it was 10%.  One win over a contender and their odds increased by seven percent.

The fact is that the Rangers still have three games against the Flyers along with one game each with Carolina and Columbus.  If they win all of those games, their odds jump significantly.  But can they?

That brings us back to the trade deadline.  Chris Kreider remains the most sought after playoff rental in a bad year.  Jesper Fast is the kind of piece a team needs for a playoff run.  With injuries mounting for contenders, if Jeff Gorton considers no one to be an untouchable, the Rangers have some very tempting assets.

Trade probabilities

As much as you would hate to see him go, the odds are overwhelming that Kreider is a goner within a week. Gorton will extort a king’s ransom for him including usable parts, not just draft picks.  Fast will be gone as well. and if someone is willing to take on Greg McKegg, it would be silly to keep him just to play on the fourth line.

It’s the other possibilities that are intriguing.  Brendan Smith has just played two pretty solid games for the Blueshirts.  It’s a reminder that he was playing out of position as a fourth line winger and he is actually a decent NHL defenseman.   His crime is he is not worth the $4.35 million the Rangers are paying him.  With one more year on his contract, he is not going anywhere (forget that fantasy of a team actually trading for him), but he can still play.   And that means that Gorton will definitely entertain any interest in Brady Skjei.

Skjei’s $5.25 million contract is a luxury on this team and if Gorton could offload it, a slew of possibilities arise.  It could free up enough cap space for the team to actually keep Tony DeAngelo and Ryan Strome and even enter the Chris Kreider free agency sweepstakes this summer.

Pavel Buchnevich‘s name has been bandied about.  He is finally scoring again, something he does every year around the same time.  He is frustrating to watch and to some a trade would make sense, but with the lack of depth at forward, trading a young winger who is still years away from free agency just doesn’t make sense.  Unless, of course, the offer is too good to pass up.

The Rangers recent run has given Jeff Gorton a lot to think about.  The team is very close to playoff contention. A few more overtime games and they would fighting to stay in the wild card instead of fighting to get in.  But even at 17%, the odds are just not good enough to hold on to assets that will be gone for nothing this summer.

If the Rangers beat Boston the calls for  keeping Kreider and going for it will be at an all-time high.  It’s important to remember those one-sided losses to Dallas and St. Louis along with that awful effort in the loss to Buffalo.  Based on those games, this team is just not there yet.  By adding a few pieces they could be and that will all be determined by 3pm on Monday, February 24.