Daily Faceoff: Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk talking about some of the names on his NHL Trade Targets list, including New York Rangers forward Chris Kreider. Kreider had a tough season last year, but teams could believe he’s in store for a bounce-back season.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Yaremchuk: “Now, No. Two is Chris Kreider. He’s got a teammate on the board with him in K’Andre Miller as well. But Kreider’s fascinating to me because, 34 years old, he failed to hit the 30-goal mark for the first time in three seasons. But I also sit there and go, ‘Yeah, six and a half million dollar cap hit as well. Can’t be ignored one more year after next season as well.
But like, 22 goals that you can pencil him in for probably 20 again next year. But how do you think the Rangers go about moving him? Is it a problem for a problem kind of trade? Are they open to keeping money here on Kreider? How do you think this plays out?”
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Seravalli: “I doubt they’re open to keeping money, because Chris Drury has shown in his, you know, his playbook, that that’s not something that he typically does. Remember, they were able to move off of Jacob Trouba without eating any salary. They’ve, he’s been a master at that. Barkley Goodrow, same thing. So he’s been able to move players and somewhat seemingly problematic contracts out before.
And I would think that Kreider, this is a really tough year for him, and he still ended up with 22 goals. He’s a premier net front player. I mean, think about how this year went wrong. He had a busted hand that might have needed surgery in the offseason. He dealt with vertigo and a significant inner ear issue. And then on top of that, after your team started 12-7, your coach put out a league-wide memo saying that he’s open to offers to move you.
He’s a career-long blue shirt. He’s 11 goals away from second all-time in original six franchise history, and yet, here he is, potentially on the move. I look at that contract and say, six and a half million. If I’m a team starving for goals, I’m all over that, because I’m thinking he’s going to have a big bounce-back year.
And I think the other thing to keep in mind, though, is that once Chris Drury kind of makes this determination that he’s going to find a way to move you, he probably will.”
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Yaremchuk: “Yeah, and we saw that obviously during the season with Jacob Trouba.”
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