Chris Drury’s most perplexing move: Signing Patrick Nemeth
Chris Drury has gotten good marks for most of the moves he made after taking over the role of President and General Manager of the New York Rangers. He hasn’t ripped apart the rebuild plan, keeping the team on course. At the same time, he fulfilled the mandate to make the team “harder to play against.”
Here are his biggest moves so far.
- Signed Ryan Lindgren to a 3-year, $9 million contract ($3 million AAV)
- Traded a 2022 7th round pick to Tamp for Barclay Goodrow.
- Traded Brett Howden to Vegas for a 2022 4th round pick and signing rights to Nick DeSimone.
- Signed Barclay Goodrow to a 6-year, $28.5 million contract ($3.64 million AAV)
- Traded Pavel Buchnevich to St. Louis for Sammy Blais and a 2022 2nd round pick.
- Traded 2021 3rd and 6th round picks to Washington for a 3rd round pick (used to draft Ryder Korczak)
- Signed Patrick Nemeth to a 3-year $7.5 million contract ($2.5 million AAV)
- Signed Jarred Tinordi to a 2-year $1.8 million contract ($900k AAV)
- Signed Dryden Hunt to a 2-year $1.525 million contract ($762k AAV)
- Traded a 2022 3rd round pick to Vegas for Ryan Reaves.
- Signed Ryan Reaves to a 1-year extension for $1.75 million.
- Signed Igor Shesterkin to a 4-year $22.6 million extension ($5.7 million AAV)
- Signed Mika Zibanejad to a 8-year, $68 million extension ($8.5 million AAV)
- Signed Adam Fox to a 7-year, $66.5 million extension ($9.5 million AAV)
He also extended RFA’s Filip Chytil, Julien Gauthier, Libor Hajek, Ty Ronning, Adam Huska and Tim Gettinger. He signed prospects Nils Lundkvist, Matthew Rempe and Brennan Othmann to their Entry Level Contracts. He added depth center Greg McKegg to a 1-year contract.
Clearly, Drury has had a lot on his plate and if you look at all of these moves, there is one that stands out as completely perplexing.
The perplexing one
No, it’s not the Buchnevich deal. That was a deal that Drury felt he had to make at the time with the flat salary cap the sole reason. In light of the Rangers issues at right wing and Buchnevich’s performance in St. Louis, it looks like a deal that Drury would like to take back, but at the time and even now, there were good reasons for him to do it.
No, the one deal that makes no sense was inking Patrik Nemeth to a three year contract at $2.5 million per year. Nemeth is an adequate NHL defenseman who has played acceptably this season. He is fourth on the team in blocked shots with 57. Being Swedish, the thinking was that the Blueshirts picked him up to mentor one of their crown jewels, Nils Lundkvist, making his NHL debut. That’s all well and good, but why three years?
The three year term makes no sense considering the Rangers’ organizational depth on defense. It is very likely that Braden Schneider and Zac Jones could make the jump to the NHL as soon as next season. Tarmo Reunanen could be called up this year. Matthew Robertson is also close. If Jones or Schneider make it to New York next season, guess who will be sitting every game? Patrik Nemeth at an annual pay rate of $2.5 million.
Based on his performance this season, the term isn’t the only issue for Nemeth, he is also overpaid. While he has been solid on the penalty kill, he is slow and doesn’t fit in Gerard Gallant‘s uptempo offense with the defense joining the play in the offensive zone. Nemeth is simply not fast enough to get back on defense. One result is the worst plus/minus rating on the team at -7.
His possession numbers (courtesy of naturalstattrick.com) are the worst of any defenseman on the team. When Nemeth is on the ice, the team surrenders a higher percentage of shots than they take. At 5v5, he’s been on ice for 11 goals while allowing 18. That 38% is the worst on the defense, by far. His scoring chances percentage is also 38%, the worst on the team. Opposing teams have gotten 89 high danger scoring chances when he has been on the ice, third behind Jacob Trouba (115) and K’Andre Miller (97) who play many more minutes and are matched up against the top opposition lines.
It’s 20-20 hindsight, but surely the Rangers could have found a veteran defenseman who is as good as Nemeth and would have been much cheaper. The Golden Knights signed Ben Hutton for $750k. Jon Merrill signed with Minnesota for $850k. Erik Gustafsson signed with Chicago for $800k. Zdeno Chara was a cheap signing for the Islanders at a $750k cap hit. God forbid, even Jack Johnson was available for the minimum $750k and he is playing regularly for Colorado. Gustafsson speaks Swedish too.
All of these blueliners are leftshot defensemen who are playing heavy minutes for their new teams, have better possession numbers and stats than Nemeth, are signed for one year, and are cheap.
In a recent article by Arthur Staples in The Athletic (subscription required), some pro scouts weighed in on the Rangers and two of them agreed that the biggest need for the Rangers is a veteran defenseman who can play 15 minutes. That’s what Nemeth is supposed to be.
Now what?
Is Nemeth that bad? If he was on a one-year or two-year deal for about $1 million, he would be fine, but at his salary and with a three-year term, this one will definitely be a move that Drury will regret (if he doesn’t already).
The question is what the worse impact of the Nemeth signing will be in the future. Will it be his $2.5 annual hit on an almost flat salary cap for two years after this one? Or will it be the fact that he will be in the way of the promotion of young players like Schneider or Jones?
In case you were wondering, according to capfriendly.com, the cost of a buyout of Nemeth’s contract would be a $1 million cap hit in 2022-23, 2024-25 and 2025-26 with no cap hit in 2023-24. . That may be an option the Rangers would pursue. Of course, we thought we were past the days of buying out bad contracts.
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