The New York Rangers have multiple selling points as a franchise looking for free agents. An Original Six team, located in one of the biggest cities in the world, followed by playing in a historic arena packed with diehard fans.
What’s not to love about joining a franchise like that.
Over their 100 years of competition, the Rangers have been able to sway some high-profile players to their team, much like the cross-borough Baseball team, the New York Yankees.
Here are three of the biggest signings in franchise history, both in terms of performance and price tag. Let’s go over them.
3. Wayne Gretzky
You cannot have this list of free agent signings without including “The Great One”, Wayne Gretzky. The Rangers were only able to get him from 1996-97 through the final game of his historic career in 1998-99.
Even in the twilight of his career, he had 249 points in 234 games, further cementing himself as the greatest to ever play this game. Gretzky in those 90s Rangers uniforms is a memory for a lot of this franchise's loyal fans.
2. Marian Gaborik
As the runner-up, Marian Gaborik was an excellent signing back in the day for the Rangers. He came to the club following some great success in Minnesota, and much like who will be the best free agent signing of all time below, No. 10 was born to play in New York.
Gaborik blessed the Blueshirt faithful with two 40-goal seasons, and his initial run in 2009-10 resulted in an 86-point masterpiece. Then in the 2011-12 playoff run that saw the Rangers reach the Eastern Conference Finals, No. 10 had five goals and six assists for 11 points in 20 games. That was the third-most points on the squad behind Brad Richards and Dan Girardi.
1. Artemi Panarin
There is no bigger free agent signing in franchise history than the deal for Artemi Panarin in 2019. He effectively brought this team from a rebuilding standpoint to a championship contender in basically one season.
The entirety of his tenure with the Rangers proved that he was born to play in this kind of pressure, and he lived up to the moment every single night. If the Blueshirts were able to continue to be competitive, giving it another year or two before starting their retooling phase, re-signing Panarin would have been a no-brainer.
For now, it is Pavel Dorofeyev to try and fill his shoes with a similar contract situation.
Add us as a preferred source on Google