What Could Will Borgen Be For The New York Rangers?

The Deal

The New York Rangers announced Wednesday night that they have acquired Seattle Kraken defenseman Will Borgen and draft picks, in exchange for 2019 second-overall draft pick Kaapo Kakko.

Background On Borgen

Borgen played his collegiate hockey at St. Cloud State University before being drafted in 2015 by the Buffalo Sabres at 92nd overall. The 6'2" defenseman played only 14 regular season games with the Sabres before making his way to Seattle via the 2021 expansion draft.

Since 2021, Borgen has been a regular in the Kraken lineup, registering nine goals and 46 assists in 233 career games for the club. Across his four seasons in Seattle, Borgen has hovered just between 15-17 minutes of ice time per game and has never had more than 65 minutes of penalties in a season.

What Borgen Could Be For NYR

According to Mollie Walker with the New York Post, the Rangers have been admirers of Borgen for some time.

With the departure of Jacob Trouba in early December, the Rangers are looking to find a new consistency and depth within the defensive core. The Blueshirts havestruggled this season with keeping the puck out of their net, allowing just over three goals per game.

Borgen is not an offense first defenseman, scoring just nine goals in his 247 game career. Rangers fans should not expect the new arrival to fill the opposing teams net game in and game out.

What Borgen could offer the Rangers moving forward, is more reliable goal prevention on the back end. If Rangers offensive stars like Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, Artemi Panarin, and Vincent Trocheck are going to continue their ineffectual seasons, it'll be important for Blueshirts goaltending and defense to step up- providing the Rangers still have playoff aspirations.

Admittedly, Borgen is in the midst of an underwhelming season to say the least. Registering a minus 13 in the plus/minus column for the Kraken in 33 games, while scoring only one goal, may not be what the Rangers find so alluring about the defenseman's game.

It's possible that a change of scenery is just what Borgen needs to return to his career form of the 2022/2023 season, when he tallied 20 points (three goals, 17 assists) and maintained a plus/minus rating of plus 11. Chris Drury and the New York Rangers will certainly be hoping that their new defensive acquisition can help to stem the bleeding of goals conceded by the Rangers in many of their recent games, and get the Blueshirts back on track.