New York Rangers: Trade deadline day diary

It’s Monday morning, February 24th, Trade Deadline Day in the NHL.  It’s a day that will shape the future of the New York Rangers franchise for not only the rest of this season, but for at least the next two as well.

Today, New York Rangers leadership decides whether or not the rebuild is essentially over, and that all the core pieces are now in place in which to build a championship team around.  If that is the case, we should soon hear about a contract extension for Chris Kreider and expect a relatively uneventful Deadline Day.

Starting tomorrow the push to make the playoffs hits a whole new level, and the rest of this season will be a character building master class for the youngest team in the NHL.

If a deal is not reached with Kreider, then the team has not quite finished the rebuild, and the focus continues to be the development of all the young talent that is currently on the team, and will be joining the team shortly.

It makes this Trade Deadline as important as Draft Day, and all Rangers fans have to be on the edge of their seats.

Here we go!

Just catching up on the overnight news.  Mike Green to Edmonton means nothing to Blueshirt fans.  Who cares.  Ilya Kovalchuk to Washington is yesterdays news but Rangers fans had to notice that Capitals are all in this year and really trying to keep up with the Bruins, Lighting, and resurgent Penguins.  Any one of those four teams can win it all.

8:50 a.m. – TSN TradeCentre is reporting that there is at least one first round pick on the table for Chris Kreider….who would have guessed?  It’s early and they are filling time.

9:40 a.m. – Former Ranger Vlad Namestnikov traded to Colorado Avalanche. Great spot for Vladdy who is on the go again, but the real take away from this is does this put an end to the Kreider to Colorado talk?

9:48 a.m. – Islanders get Jean Gabriel Pageau from the Ottawa Senators who are clearly looking to go out for a good lunch and wrap this day up early.

Pageau killed the Rangers in the teams last playoff series so this is not good for the Blueshirts in that sense, but that being said, is this guy really high-end talent? It’s concerning, but not loosing sleep over it.

Plus the Isles gave up a ton.  Realistically they gave up this years first and second for this guy. That’s a really high price to pay. What does this make Kreider worth?

10:10 a.m. – Vincent Trocheck from Florida Panthers to Carolina Hurricanes.  Interesting in that both of these teams are in wildcard contention with the Rangers.  Looks like Florida is folding, and the Canes a gearing up.

Trocheck certainly helps Carolina, but without a goalie they are still really vulnerable and can be caught by the Rangers.

10:53 a.m. – Nate Thompson to Philly.  So Philly should secure the third spot in the Metropolitan, this does not really mean anything to Ranger fans.

10:55 a.m. – Patrick Marleau goes to the Penguins.  Hmmm, seems like a veteran like Marleau would be better suited to Alain Vigneault and the Flyers.  He loves his veterans.  Penguins are stacked with veterans, this is interesting but only in like a Ray Bourque kind of way.  Pens give up a second round pick if they win the Cup, third if they don’t.  Seems harmless for them.

11:00 a.m. – RANGERS ANNOUNCE PRESS CONFERENCE FOR 11:20 a.m.  Heart in throat.  What is this all about?  Is Hank accepting a trade? Are the Rangers sending out another letter.  I’m flustered.

11:15 a.m. – Word is Kreider has signed with the Rangers according to TSN.  Let’s see.

11:22 a.m. – 

Igor Shesterkin injured in car crash with Pavel Buchnevich.  Shesterkin may be out for a few weeks.  Thoughts of Pelle Lindbergh.  Yikes.

11:24 a.m. – OH BABY!  Rangers sign Chris Kreider to seven year extension. This means we are officially out of rebuild mode. How great will the playoff push be over the next few weeks.

The Kreider deal is what winning teams do.  You lock up your best players and build around them.  It’s what the Red Wings did, the Penguins, the Bruins, all leading to years of success. You just can’t replace a player like Kreider with someone you expect to become him in three years.  He is a unique talent that needed to be secured.  This is a winning move,

Don’t expect this to be the end of the day for the Rangers.  Brady Skjei is still in play, and there have to be options out there to for some salary dump moves.

My brother just joked that Henrik Lundqvist was driving the other car.  That’s not funny.

Rangers will need Hank now.  He has a chance to add to his legacy by getting this team to the playoffs.  Hard to believe we have reached the point where Rangers fans look to Hank to be a solid seat-warmer while hoping for a speedy recovery from Shesterkin.

Still, it’s a real good opportunity for The King to go out with style.

11:43 a.m. – Harvey Weinstein has been traded…..errr convicted.

11:45 a.m. – Looks like the Columbus Blue Jackets are making a deal for Andreas Athanasiou.  Can’t imagine why really?  Red Wings must be giving him away.  This should be a clever deal.

11:51 a.m. – Thankfully a bit of comic relief. The Sabres agree to take Wayne Simmonds from the Devils in exchange for a bag of pucks and half his salary. What exactly does this do for the Sabres?

The real comedy is that the pick the Sabres sent to the Devils moves up a round if they make the playoffs this year.  Spit take worthy.  Poor Jimmy Vesey.

12:25 p.m. – Boston settles for another big winger grabbing Nick Ritchie from the Ducks for Danton Heinen.  Perhaps the plan is to just beat the crap out the Bolts in the second round.  The big four in the East are really going for it this year.  Maybe they look out west and see limited and flawed potential competition in the Cup Finals and figure this is the year to really go for it.  Wonder if Tampa Bay is about to pull off something big.  How much do you think they would give right now for a healthy Dustin Byfuglien.  That would be awesome!

12:40 p.m. – Seems to be a lot to unpack in the potential Zach Parise to the Islanders deal. I wonder if Steve Paulus will write about it so it all becomes crystal clear to the rest of us here on BLS.

Really surprised by the lack of movement in the Western Conference. St. Louis can stand pat and maybe Vegas feels like they have finally put it into high gear but the rest of the teams can all use some help somewhere.

Well it’s now 1:00 p.m. and the Rangers have not done anything but keep their own house in order.  You still have to think they are looking for ways to clear salary after that Kreider deal.  Skjei and Brendan Smith must be shopped but it looks like the Henrik Lundqvist questions have answered themselves and that whole topic will be readdressed over the summer.

Two hours to go in what has been a really eventful day to this point.  Let’s just get one more eye popper, call it a day and then watch for all the minor transactions after 3 p.m.

Would love for the Rangers to tell all of us what the best deal they had on the table for Kreider was.

1:15 p.m. – And the West kicks it into gear. Edmonton Oilers announce they have acquired Andreas Athanasiou from the Red Wings.  Look back at that 11:45 a.m. post.  It didn’t make sense back then and now obviously the Blue Jackets have come to their senses. Andreas Athanasiou on the Oilers however, makes that team incredibly fast.  Try keeping top with him and Connor McDavid.  Yikes.

1:32 p.m. – Pierre LeBrun just tweeted that the Rangers and Hurricanes are talking about a deal for Brady Skjei.  Cap issues are in play here but other than it putting a very quick stop to the Jacob Trouba / Brady Skjei bromance in New York, what is the down side for the Rangers.  At $8 mil per, Trouba can’t pout for too long.  This also means Anthony DeAngelo should be staying for a while.

1:55 p.m. – Islanders lock up Pageau for 6 years in what is reported to be in the $5 million range. Is there anybody out there that now thinks the Rangers made a mistake by signing Kreider.  The Kreider deal is already looking better and better.  Great job Jeff Gorton!

2:00 p.m. – The Ottawa Senators trade Tyler Ennis to Edmonton, really putting pressure on the Red Wings to maintain their strangle hold on the battle for the number one overall pick this spring. Poor Anthony Duclair, he was having a pretty decent year, one where he probably could have parlayed his numbers into a decent payday. He will be lucky to score another goal at this point.

2:26 p.m. – Sabres trade Evan Rodrigues to Pittsburgh and nobody cares. What are they doing in Western, NY?

2:30 p.m. – Sabres include Connor Sheary in that deal.  Do you think Jimmy Vesey was in the GM office begging for him to be the guy to go and not Sheary?

2:39 p.m. – Sami Vatanen to the Hurricanes.  They really, really want to make the playoffs. That Ranger game last week must have scared the hell out them.  Looks like no Skjei deal though if this goes through.

3:00 p.m. – All is quiet at MSG.

All told a very quiet day for the Rangers, but that is not a bad thing.  They will move ahead with a very strong core that includes two dynamic lines lead by Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, a newly signed Captain and a third line full of kids that will only get better and better.

This is a good thing.  You need to pour the Jello into the mold and then it settle for a while in order to see the complete results.  The Rangers have set the mold in place.

If trades need to be made, there is always draft day and then the summer.

For now, the drive for the playoffs will make for an exciting early spring.  Yes the charted course looks just a bit choppier now, but with chants of HENRIK, HENRIK echoing through MSG just a few more times, the ship may just reach the promised land.

HENRIK, HENRIK…..LETS GO RANGERS!

3:12 p.m. – OH MY GOD!