Trade tiers for the New York Rangers
Rick Carpiniello of The Athletic: The New York Rangers would definitely be interested in Jack Eichel if he becomes available. That would be more of an offseason move, if at all. They will likely be sellers, but do have some assets/draft picks they could move for the right player.
Untouchables – Adam Fox, Alexis Lafreniere, Kaapo Kakko and K’Andre Miller.
Barely Touchables – Igor Shesterkin, Filip Chytil, Ryan Lindgren and Nils Lundkvist.
Unmovables – Anthony DeAngelo (likely offseason buyout), Jacob Trouba, Chris Kreider, Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad (no-movement clauses and are important to the team).
Marketable – Ryan Strome (second-round pck and a low level player/prospect?), Pavel Buchnevich (pending RFA) and Brendan Lemieux.
Free for the taking – Jack Johnson and Brendan Smith.
Collected assets to be used at some point – Vitali Kravtsov
Diminished value – Alexandar Georgiev, Brett Howden, Julien Gauthier and Libor Hajek.
What is Buchnevich’s worth?
Larry Brooks of the NY Post: Is it a bigger risk for the New York Rangers to trade forward Pavel Buchnevich at the trade deadline or to pay the pending RFA after the season? He is a year away from unrestricted free agency. He has evolved this season into a complete player.
He is over a point a game over their past 12 games and is their leading scorer. Is four or five years at $5.5 million a reasonable contract offer?
It will be a different deadline for the Golden Knights this year
David Schoen of the Las Vegas Review-Journal: In the past, the Vegas Golden Knights have made a splash ahead of the trade deadline. Things will likely be different this season and they may not be looking to tinker with their roster. They don’t have much salary cap space to work with.
“We were able to accrue some space last year that we don’t have the opportunity to accrue this year,” McCrimmon said. “If you have a player in (long-term IR) at the trade deadline that’s going to be on (LTIR) for the balance of the year, that’s one way a team can gain space. I think you see a few situations around the NHL right now that are like that. Failing that, the math all has to work.”