It was the night before the deadline, and not a creature was moving all over the house, not even Jeff Gorton.
That is of course not entirely true. The Rangers’ general manager did GM stuff on Sunday, checking his team at the Colosseum in a new round against the Islanders, while also checking the options ahead of Monday’s 3pm deadline.
But it was quiet, which was unusual for the organization that spent much of the previous decade cleaning up, when time ran to the core in late 2010. Because, in today’s parlance, the Rangers are not sellers or buyers.
So no expectation of a blockbuster like the 2014 Captain’s Grant in which Ryan Callahan and Martin St. Louis switched places. No attempt to fill a gap in the image of the deal that brought Keith Yandle to New York for a pack of young boys with Anthony Duclair plus a number 1.
And there is no need to top up the pipeline by sending veterans away in exchange for kids and trips like the organization has been doing since 2018. Last year, that wasn’t quite that, but the team did buy a Carolina first-rounder in exchange for Brady Skjei, whose $ 5.25 million limit through 2023-24 was more than the blues shirts could bear.
The Rangers have six picks in the first four rounds of the 2021 draft, despite trading their second rounder to Detroit as a sweetener in the deal that Marc Steel sent to the Red Wings during the off-season. The Blueshirts own Buffalo’s third rounder they received in exchange for Jimmy Vesey, Ottawa’s fourth rounder for Vlad Namestnikov and the fourth of the Kings got Brendan Lemieux two weeks ago.
While it is always valuable to have a plethora of concept choices, at least it improves the odds, children and potential clients fall like small change from the pockets of the organization while sitting on a sofa. Adding more would be superfluous. The fact is that the next step on the road to redemption involves consolidating the selection and leaving some of the youth in exchange for targeted veterans.
Clubs that are buyers on the deadline do not deduct key pieces as they add them. The buyer’s currency is draft picks. So even if the Rangers wanted to see what’s out there in exchange for some of their veterans, now wouldn’t be the time. If a club were to call about Ryan Strome or Pavel Buchnevich, Gorton would certainly listen and maybe lay some groundwork for possible summer trades. The same would be true if a club came to sniff around Mika Zibanejad. But the best information is that the Rangers did not receive those questions.
Oh, and as for Tony DeAngelo, banned on Feb. 2? Unless something happens overnight, the defender will keep looking on the outside until at least the summer when DeAngelo, if not selected by Seattle in the expansion draft, would face a buyout. that would put it on the open market.
So who you’ve seen is who you’ll keep seeing the rest of the way in Blue. Morgan Barron will hopefully be called to Broadway from Hartford after the deadline, when roster limits are lifted. Tarmo Reunanen could get another shot at the blue line after his cameo in one match on March 15 when Adam Fox was unavailable on the COVID protocol list with what was a false positive test result. If the club is mathematically knocked out in the playoffs in the last week or so, there might be a look at Ty Ronning, who has eight goals in nine games for the Wolf Pack.
But there should be no influx of young people. That’s what it was about this year and last year
Sunday’s game was played on the 46th anniversary of JP Parise’s goal at 0:11 extra time at the Garden in the third and deciding game of the 1975 qualifying round in which the Islanders removed the Blueshirts from the playoffs and the start of the end of Days before the Emile Francis era.
Ed Giacomin would be waived. Jean Ratelle and Brad Park were to be traded. Ted Irvine was treated. Gilles Villemure was expelled. But not on the deadline. Emile herself would be gone by the next deadline.