The dust is now starting to settle on the NHL Trade Deadline and the New York Rangers made it abundantly clear how they see their immediate future.
On what was a crazy day in the National Hockey League with a total of 32 deals being done, the New York Rangers made plenty of headlines.
Expected to be major sellers heading into Monday, the Blueshirts instead flipped the script and all but revealed that the rebuild, or the build, is coming to an end.
Because, shortly after the New York Islanders made a huge splash by sending a massive haul to the Ottawa Senators for two-way forward Jean-Gabriel Pageau, the Rangers delivered a true statement of intent of their own.
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With President John Davidson addressing the media, it was announced that Chris Kreider had agreed to remain in The Big Apple, thus removing the biggest prize from the market.
Kreider is now likely to become a forever Ranger after signing a seven-year, $45,500,000 contract, a deal that highlighted the player’s desire to remain a Blueshirt.
And, while the news ensured that a bevy of teams had to move on to other targets, the new deal also broadcast to the hockey world that the build is all but over.
While not completely done, by committing to Kreider for seven years the front office clearly feel that this team is edging closer to becoming a contender.
You don’t shell out over $45 million over seven years if you think you are still a few years away, so with Kreider staying it is clear that the Rangers are ready to compete and they are ready to start their ascent back to the top table of NHL powerhouses right now.
Those intentions were only crystalized later in the day when the Rangers sent defenseman Brady Skjei to the Carolina Hurricanes for a 2020 first-round pick.
While the obvious headline will be that the Blueshirts got back another high draft pick to add to their treasure chest, this was a clever cap-saving move.
By shifting Skjei’s cap hit of $5,250,000 off the books, the New York Rangers will now have the flexibility to re-sign the likes of Tony DeAngelo, Alexandar Georgiev, Ryan Strome and maybe even Jesper Fast in the off-season.
Henrik Lundqvist may be traded in the summer, too, which would free up even more cap space for the Rangers to take care of business.
It is abundantly clear that the front office feel they can start to be competitive in the postseason with this roster as it is currently constituted, while they can look ahead to 2021 when it comes to adding one or two more big hitters to the mix in order to push them over the top.
Yesterday was always going to be a defining day in the storied history of the New York Rangers, and so it proved with this franchise now ready to take that next giant leap.
Of course, the news of Kreider backing up his words by committing to the Rangers was somewhat overshadowed by the serious news that Igor Shesterkin and Pavel Buchnevich had been involved in a car crash in Brooklyn on Sunday.
Buchnevich is day-to-day while Shesterkin will miss a chunk of time, but we need to thank the gods because all reports suggest that it could have been a lot worse.
While the Rangers will now try to keep this miraculous run going in order to make the postseason even without Shesterkin, all eyes will now start to drift towards next year.
Because, even if they do somehow claw their way into the playoffs this season, it will just be a learning curve for this current group.
But, with Kreider now a long-term part of an exciting core that features Shesterkin, Jacob Trouba, Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin, the Rangers will enter 2020-21 with making the postseason the main expectation.
This rebuild, or build, has been a fascinating journey to watch unfold but now three years removed from The Letter, the New York Rangers are ready to become a powerhouse again.
And it all started on Feb. 24, 2020.