Rangers and Chris Drury must not overreact in NHL free agency

The worst thing GM Chris Drury and the hierarchy could do would be to overreact to Patrick Kane’s decision to forgo free agency and stay in Detroit with a one-year contract extension.

Because unless Steven Stamkos hits the market and the Rangers have No. 91 in mind as a target to fill the right wing position alongside Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider, there is no one else on the list of out-of-contract right wingers worth the money to sign.

None of them, Tyler Bertuzzi, Jake DeBrusk, Jonathan Marchessault or Tyler Toffoli, would have made a difference against the Panthers, and that is the only yardstick by which management should evaluate potential new additions.

The Rangers will have plenty of cap space to fill the 2024-25 roster, but will have to prepare for a severe shortage the following season. Drury can’t afford to give multi-year deals to mid-tier players who will be asked to play with the best players.

And while it’s mathematically correct that the Rangers have to beat 31 teams, we know that in reality there’s only one team to beat, and that’s Florida, which has eliminated the Bruins twice and the Hurricanes, Rangers, Maple Leafs and Lightning once each in the last two playoffs. That’s not a criminals’ gallery. That’s the Eastern powers that have repeatedly come up short against the Cup winners.

Marchessault probably comes closest to having the potential to be a difference-maker against the Puddy Tats, having actually scored four goals in the 2023 final against Florida en route to the Conn Smythe Trophy with the Cup-winning Golden Knights, but the 33-year-old’s price tag may be prohibitive. Plus, he’s 5’9″ and I don’t think getting smaller is the goal.

Bertuzzi will attract a lot of interest as a quasi-physical winger, but it would be a mistake to sign the 29-year-old, 6’0″, 195lb player if you consider him a difference-maker, and I’ll tell you why.

Two years ago, Bertuzzi was traded from Detroit to Boston at the deadline. These were the record-breaking Bruins. With Bertuzzi, the B’s lost the first round to the Panthers and blew a 3-1 lead. Bertuzzi then signed a one-year contract as a free agent in Toronto last summer. With Bertuzzi, the Maple Leafs lost in the first round to his former team, the Bruins.

This is not a player who can make a difference in the playoffs. He has failed twice in the last two years, and if the Rangers are just throwing money at Bertuzzi because he’s the best name on the roster, I don’t know what to tell you.

Just because the Rangers have plenty of salary cap space when the bell rings on Monday doesn’t mean they have to empty organizational coffers. Salary cap space becomes more valuable as the season progresses. It’s never more valuable than at the deadline. Difference-making players always become available throughout the season and at the deadline.

Again, it’s about going from two wins to four in the conference finals and from ten to 16 over the course of the tournament. The Rangers don’t need more guys to get them through the 82-game season. There are guys from Hartford with their noses on the outside of the window who have earned this opportunity. It’s far better for head coach Peter Laviolette to give them a chance than for the club to be burdened with overpaid veterans on multi-year contracts.

If I can’t sign Stamkos — and that’s pretty unlikely, right? — then I’ll take a good look at Brennan Othmann up there with Zibanejad, or maybe I’ll look at Will Cuylle on the right. The Rangers don’t have to have the perfect lineup on opening night. They don’t have to have the perfect lineup at Christmas. The Rangers have to have the perfect lineup after the trade deadline.

Monday is the day when Jacob Trouba’s transfer ban clause will be converted into a list of 15 teams that will not allow transfers. The captain is clearly hurt, perhaps rightly so, as the club’s intentions were reported in all the newspapers and on the Internet last week.

But it would be counterproductive for Trouba to sulk and try to make it as difficult as possible for the Rangers to trade him. Trouba has always played hardball in contract negotiations. He had an advantage over then-GM Jeff Gorton after the Blueshirts acquired the defenseman from Winnipeg in 2019, when his contract was still a year away from being a free agent. He used that advantage to get his current seven-year, $56 million deal, which has two years left to run.

Now the Rangers have an advantage through the restricted no-transfer clause and have decided they can’t afford an $8 million salary cap hit on a defenseman who is expected to play on the third pair. It doesn’t matter if he was Captain Courageous in the playoffs and played with a broken ankle or not.

If Trouba doesn’t agree to a trade to Detroit, which he believes will happen, he will ultimately be sent elsewhere, perhaps via waivers. The decision has been made.