Gorton’s strategies for free agency and trades
When the draft wrapped up on Wednesday the New York Rangers started looking ahead
New York Rangers General Manager Jeff Gorton spoke at length about a number of topics when the second day of the draft wrapped up. He revealed some of the strategies that the Rangers will be using over the next few days.
Free agency frenzy is due to begin on Friday, October 9 at noon and it is likely that there will be a lot of activity as teams try to get into a good salary cap situation. Because of the flat salary cap, many transactions will be affected.
Gorton laid out the challenges which he called a “strain” on most teams. He explained “We all go forward projecting the cap numbers, you don’t just do it a year at a time…you’ve got a three ,four or five year plan. No one is planning on Covid…it’s put a lot of strain on the market. It will be interesting to see what it’s like in free agency and what the effect is. There’s no question, looking at some of the deals that are happening, money is almost a part of every deal here. You don’t see many hockey deals, straight up now.”
Although the Rangers are cap constrained, they do have more space than nearly every team in the NHL. As a result, they will be active in the free agent marketplace. Gorton said “Yeah, we’re certainly going to be looking to see what’s going to happen. I think we have some players we‘ve identified that can help us. We’ll talk to those people at the right time and we’ll go from there.”
A year after the Blueshirts made the biggest splash in free agency with the signing of Artemi Panarin, Gorton was realistic. ” I don’t think it will be like last year, that’s for sure. We’ll see.”
Some new defense roles?
While it has been a forgone conclusion that Tony DeAngelo is trade bait and the team needs to trade or sign a left-shot defenseman, Gorton raised some intriguing possibilities about new roles for some current players. That would mean moving a right-shot defenseman to the opposite side.
Gorton said “We’ve talked about moving Tony (DeAngelo) to the left side and we’ve talked about our right side and who is the best person to move over (from) there. I don’t think it’s going to be Trouba. We’ve talked about Foxy and Tony and it’s ongoing conversations.”
They clearly understand that if DeAngelo is going to get paid, he needs to play more. Gorton said, “it’s trying to get them more ice time,. Listen, we have a very talented right side that can move the puck. We have two guys who are very capable, we have a young player in Sweden who can play the off side so we’re pretty comfortable that they can do it. We’ve had a lot of conversations about that moving forward. ”
He was obviously referring to Nils Lundkvist when speaking about the young player in Sweden.
While the idea of moving DeAngelo to the left side is interesting, it may also be a negotiation strategy. Gorton has to be aware that the organization is overloaded on the right side with players with a similar skill set. He also knows that they need to make room in the future for draft pick Braden Schneider who is also right handed.
Moving defensemen to play the off-side isn’t as easy as it sounds. One reason that Jacob Trouba held out and demanded a trade in Winnipeg was that he didn’t want to play left defense when the Jets had a surplus of righthanded shots.
The irony is that when it comes to NHL ready defensemen, the Blueshirts are not flush with players. They have three righthanded players (Trouba, Fox, DeAngelo) and only two lefthanded blueliners (Ryan Lindgren, Brendan Smith) along with only one prospect with any NHL playing time in Libor Hajek.
There’s a lack of balance in the makeup of the current defense and it needs to be resolved before next season.
Talking a Strome trade
Ryan Strome was finally tendered a qualifying offer just before the 5pm deadline on Wednesday. Gorton admitted that they were talking trade. “Ryan’s due a significant raise and we had some things we were talking to some teams about it and I wanted to keep the options open right until the very last second.”
Now, the Rangers will have to negotiate with Strome on a new deal. He made $3.1 million last season and while Gorton said he is “due” a significant raise, the fact that they were entertaining offers proves that they may not be ready to embrace him as their second line center. That despite a season when he set career scoring highs.
The negotiations should be interesting to watch as the Rangers’ center has a lot to lose. He clearly benefited from playing with Panarin and some might think it foolish for him to think he could do as well with another team. He’s a popular teammate and he may be willing to settle for less money to stay with the Rangers. The free agent center marketplace will certainly play a role as the Rangers will have at least until October 10 to decide what to do. That’s the date that RFA’s can elect arbitration.
Jesper Fast a question mark
When Gorton was asked about the status of UFA Jesper Fast, he steered reporters to the player’s camp, telling them ask Fast or his agent, Kurt Overhardt. Gorton said, “They probably know better than us about the market. At this point, we’re so close (to free agency) it’s hard to think that he won’t at least see whats out there…and then we’ll see what happens with the Rangers after that.”
Reading between the lines, the indication was that if there is a robust market for Fast’s services that will raise his price, the Rangers will probably pass. Fast is coming off a three-year deal with an Average Annual Value (AAV) of $1.85 million.
Now that the draft has concluded, the likelihood of any trades are slim with free agent frenzy kicking off on Friday, October 9 at noon. It promises to be a busy time for the Rangers who won’t be making a splash like last year, but will need to fill some holes in their roster. The key question is how the pandemic and its effect on the the financial health of NHL teams will impact the free agent marketplace.
light. Related Story. Some new names on the UFA list