After an eventful trade deadline day for the New York Rangers, there are some details about the trade that fans should be aware of and some lineup changes coming.
With the craziness as the trade period drew to a close, details of the Brady Skjei trade were unavailable. All that was revealed was that he was swapped to Carolina for a first round draft picks. Meanwhile, there were questions about the lineup with the Skjei trade subtracting a top pair defenseman from the Rangers’ blueline picture. Those questions have been answered.
Late in the day, John Davidson and Jeff Gorton addressed the media and spoke about the rest of the season. It was clear listening to Davidson that the team is fully committed to making the playoffs.
Davidson said “We want our club to keep winning. We want them to go through the experience of a chase down the stretch towards the playoffs. It’s very important for young people as well as the veteran players too. And if we get there fantastic. If we don’t it will be a good experience and we’ll keep moving along as we’re trying to build this into something. ”
“You have to keep your eye on what the big picture is. You have to make decisions with that in mind…it’s just what it is….we have a plan and that’s what we’re trying to implement here as we move along.” – John Davidson
He continued, ” There’s always steps forward and there’s always steps back when you get into this kind of build…..you have to keep your eye on what the big picture is. You have to make decisions with that in mind…it’s just what it is….we have a plan and that’s what we’re trying to implement here as we move along.”
He concluded “Hopefully we keep on winning, hopefully we get there. If not, we just do our business to get to where we want to get long term.”
The lineup
Until Igor Shesterkin has recovered from his broken ribs, the biggest change in the lineup starting tonight will be replacing Brady Skjei. Gorton spoke about Skjei saying “Trading Brady Skjei is difficult. He’s a special guy and a really good person and he’s been a good player. He’s been a good Ranger. It’s a move we feel we had to make.”
As to why they made the move, Gorton said “When we looked at organizational depth, where we’re strong, where we have players we have coming….we spent a lot of time talking to our scouts…we have a strong draft, we just felt in the position that we’re in to add another first round pick, to have some flexibility in the cap, when you add it all up, we felt it was the right move.”
Jeff Gorton and John Davidson confirm that the Rangers have traded Brady Skjei to the Carolina Hurricanes: pic.twitter.com/XbmwWGEECf
— Rangers Videos (@SNYRangers) February 24, 2020
Gorton said that he had to speak with Coach David Quinn, but for now it would be Brendan Smith stepping into the lineup to replace Skjei saying that “Smitty’s played well on D when we’ve put him in there.”
The other options are to bring Libor Hajek or Yegor Rykov up from Hartford and that remains a possibility. With only six defensemen on the active roster, they will need to have a backup available.