Speculation: Roster Building Thread : Part XVIII ( TDL is March 7th)

[Machinehead]

The Rangers will give Eichel 13 million a year and his back will turn to dust after 10 games

You think we get 10 games?

That's pretty good.

 

[17futurecap]

The Rangers will give Eichel 13 million a year and his back will turn to dust after 10 games

Not getting him at 10 million per for his 25-29 year old seasons to give him 15 per when he is 30 seems very Rangers.

 

[RangerBoy]

Chris Kreider is a bad contract. The Rangers should have moved on from him in 2019 instead of giving a seven year contract. Jeff Gorton always had a soft spot for Kreider who was his first Rangers draft pick. Kreider had some really good seasons under this current contract. The Rangers did not win. What happens now? Kreider did not make it to the fifth season of the contract before breaking down. Two more seasons remaining.

I read this in The Athletic today. Peter Baugh.

Chris Kreider spoke to reporters Tuesday for the first time since both the trade deadline and his return from an upper-body injury. He said his injury was unrelated to the back spasms he dealt with earlier in the year.

Kreider’s production is down this season, and his year off the ice has been tumultuous. He’s now dealt with three injuries, was a healthy scratch once and had his name floated by Chris Drury in a memo to other general managers in November. He shrugged off questions about trade talks surrounding his name.

“I’m not privy to that information,” he said. “I worry about what’s right in front of me. … I’m happy to be here.”

Rangers takeaways: More high-danger chances, six-on-five struggles and another loss

New York lost a chance to gain points on wild-card rivals Columbus with a 2-1 loss against Winnipeg.

www.nytimes.com

Three injuries. Why did Kreider plays in the 4 Nations?

Staple wrote this last Friday

It means renewing that November text to see if anyone wants Kreider, whose season has been compromised by a variety of injuries. He has two years left at a $6.5 million cap hit; failing to find a trade might mean considering a buyout. It means seeing if Mika Zibanejad, despite his rejuvenated play since J.T. Miller arrived, would be willing to waive his no-move clause to find a new home — and finding a team to take on five more years of that buyout-proof contract.

It might even mean seeing if Artemi Panarin, who’ll be entering the final year of his deal, would waive his no-trade to go elsewhere. Kreider’s savings would be modest. The cap space created by a Zibanejad or Panarin ($11.64 million) deal would be significant, enough to take one of the big swings you’ve heard the Rangers are interested in taking this offseason.

Rangers’ midseason remodel is complete, but they must do more to be contenders again

The Rangers emerged from the trade deadline in better shape than before, but there is more hard work to be done.

www.nytimes.com

A buyout?

https://puckpedia.com/player/chris-kreider/buyout?s=2025-2026

Based on how Kreider has played since returning from his latest injury, the Rangers will have their work cut out for them to acquire a decent to good return for Kreider. Drury moved off of Trouba and his contract for a bottom pair D and 4th round pick.

 

[GoAwayPanarin]

The captain hindsightism on Eichel is hilarious.

If the Rangers traded for him this board would have been littered with "always overpaying for damaged goods" by the same people who are pimping him now.

I can only imagine all of the reasonable takes if his first season with the Knights went down the same way in NY had he been moved here.

Shouldn't touch him as a UFA. Post trade Eichel has been who he was in Buffalo - A very good if not excellent player who is prone to injury. That isn't going to change.

Chris Kreider is a bad contract. The Rangers should have moved on from him in 2019 instead of giving a seven year contract. Jeff Gorton always had a soft spot for Kreider who was his first Rangers draft pick. Kreider had some really good seasons under this current contract. The Rangers did not win. What happens now? Kreider did not make it to the fifth season of the contract before breaking down. Two more seasons remaining.

I read this in The Athletic today. Peter Baugh.

Rangers takeaways: More high-danger chances, six-on-five struggles and another loss

New York lost a chance to gain points on wild-card rivals Columbus with a 2-1 loss against Winnipeg.

www.nytimes.com

Three injuries. Why did Kreider plays in the 4 Nations?

Staple wrote this last Friday

Rangers’ midseason remodel is complete, but they must do more to be contenders again

The Rangers emerged from the trade deadline in better shape than before, but there is more hard work to be done.

www.nytimes.com

A buyout?

https://puckpedia.com/player/chris-kreider/buyout?s=2025-2026

Based on how Kreider has played since returning from his latest injury, the Rangers will have their work cut out for them to acquire a decent to good return for Kreider. Drury moved off of Trouba and his contract for a bottom pair D and 4th round pick.

Staple is a f***ing moron who should just go back to covering the Islanders full time.

They are not going to have to buy out Chris Kreider. Even this iteration of Kreider is going to pop 20+ goals while being a stand out threat on the PK and a factor on the PP (where he's owed a bunch of goals.) They won't have a shortage of takers for him.

 

[JESSEWENEEDTOCOOK]

The 18 was with McDonald.

17 if you don't want to count Eric Staal but peak Staal was an animal.

i definitely think 06 Staal counts

i dont think you can count bergeron tho tbh. regardless of how good we think he is, Krejci averaged over a minute more than him per game in both the regular season and playoffs in 2011. in the playoffs Krejci had over 20 mins a game and bergeron was under 19. I dont think you can say that bergeron was the 1C of that team.

unless you’re putting krejci in that group, and he was pretty good in his prime. but probably mot much better than mcDonald or ROR

The captain hindsightism on Eichel is hilarious.

If the Rangers traded for him this board would have been littered with "always overpaying for damaged goods" by the same people who are pimping him now.

I can only imagine all of the reasonable takes if his first season with the Knights went down the same way in NY had he been moved here.

Shouldn't touch him as a UFA. Post trade Eichel has been who he was in Buffalo - A very good if not excellent player who is prone to injury. That isn't going to change.



Staple is a f***ing moron who should just go back to covering the Islanders full time.

They are not going to have to buy out Chris Kreider. Even this iteration of Kreider is going to pop 20+ goals while being a stand out threat on the PK and a factor on the PP (where he's owed a bunch of goals.) They won't have a shortage of takers for him.

I don’t think a buyout will be necessary but if I’m a GM watching him this year I’d maybe offer a 3rd and middling prospect for him. maybe. he might be a net negative at this point. it’s a roll of the dice to trade for a 33 year old with term and back problems

 

[DanielBrassard]

The captain hindsightism on Eichel is hilarious.

If the Rangers traded for him this board would have been littered with "always overpaying for damaged goods" by the same people who are pimping him now.

I can only imagine all of the reasonable takes if his first season with the Knights went down the same way in NY had he been moved here.

Shouldn't touch him as a UFA. Post trade Eichel has been who he was in Buffalo - A very good if not excellent player who is prone to injury. That isn't going to change.



Staple is a f***ing moron who should just go back to covering the Islanders full time.

They are not going to have to buy out Chris Kreider. Even this iteration of Kreider is going to pop 20+ goals while being a stand out threat on the PK and a factor on the PP (where he's owed a bunch of goals.) They won't have a shortage of takers for him.

It’s not hindsight for me, I wanted him regardless of the injury. When an elite 24 year old center is available you make the deal happen. Would have been a million times better making that trade even in hindsight than doing what the Rangers ended up doing.

 

[zlev]

lol at thinking the Kreider contract was in any way "bad". the guy took a discount to stay here and then immediately had the best 4 seasons of his career. of course the last couple of years of the contract were a gamble, they would be for anyone the same age.

 

[ThePeoplesPeople]

Chris Kreider is a bad contract. The Rangers should have moved on from him in 2019 instead of giving a seven year contract. Jeff Gorton always had a soft spot for Kreider who was his first Rangers draft pick. Kreider had some really good seasons under this current contract. The Rangers did not win. What happens now? Kreider did not make it to the fifth season of the contract before breaking down. Two more seasons remaining.

I read this in The Athletic today. Peter Baugh.

Rangers takeaways: More high-danger chances, six-on-five struggles and another loss

New York lost a chance to gain points on wild-card rivals Columbus with a 2-1 loss against Winnipeg.

www.nytimes.com

Three injuries. Why did Kreider plays in the 4 Nations?

Staple wrote this last Friday

Rangers’ midseason remodel is complete, but they must do more to be contenders again

The Rangers emerged from the trade deadline in better shape than before, but there is more hard work to be done.

www.nytimes.com

A buyout?

https://puckpedia.com/player/chris-kreider/buyout?s=2025-2026

Based on how Kreider has played since returning from his latest injury, the Rangers will have their work cut out for them to acquire a decent to good return for Kreider. Drury moved off of Trouba and his contract for a bottom pair D and 4th round pick.

I am as ready to move on from Kreider as ANYONE, but saying his contract is "bad" is laughable. If he averaged 22 goals a year after inking it, the contract would have been acceptable. He averaged 37 in the first 4 years. Obviously a bumpy road this year. But come on lol.

 

[NYR Viper]

There will be many teams who look at Kreider as a veteran winger who can come in and play on the 2nd or 3rd line, PP1 and PK1 and that's exactly what he is. His cap hit is $6.5m but his actual salary each year is $5m and there will be many teams who are not looking at the salary cap number anymore as closely as they are looking at internal budget.

Also, lets imagine that the Rangers decide to keep Kreider for another 2 years and look to 'sell' him at the deadline before he hits UFA. He will likely rebound and have ~40p and 20g at that time. What does Chris Kreider return at that deadline? I get the sense that Anaheim was thinking the same thing when they acquired Trouba. Pay nothing to get him and at next years deadline, he likely returns a 2nd + as a rental.

 

[effen]

Kreider's going to have a sizable market. ++ Special teams player who with the worst of everything is gonna fart out 20+ goals. 20 goals plays in this league.

Eichel's not coming here and won't be pursued. Weird to see doomerism about a guy with 78 points in 63 games but like Kevin Garnett, anything is possible.

They're reloading this summer, some of the gaggle of 3rd pairing D is gonna get hockey traded. They're gonna deal the 1st+ for an LD with term. This has been a year where everything pretty much went wrong outside of Will Cuylle and they're closer to the POs than the bottom 5.

Can't believe I'm a relative optimist here but c'mon boys.

 

[Filip Chytil]

Bring back Sather

 

[will1066]

Kreider couldn't pass a physical to close any deal with another team.

 

[GoAwayPanarin]

It’s not hindsight for me, I wanted him regardless of the injury. When an elite 24 year old center is available you make the deal happen. Would have been a million times better making that trade even in hindsight than doing what the Rangers ended up doing.

The only person I remember being 100% in on this was @AirGut but I'll take your word for it.

I don't even know that it would have turned out better. He's still missed a ton of time and he wouldn't have had the support here that he's had in Vegas. It's very likely we'd be no better than we have been the last few years with a guy a year away from UFA and in a slightly better spot this year and next (assuming that everything else more or less stayed the same.)

Not that I think Buffalo was going to trade him here (and that had to do more with them throwing one last FU Eichel's way rather than anything the Rangers did or a billboard some idiot commissioned) but you know what DID impact the level of assets the Rangers had/were willing to part with?

Signing Panarin.

The trickle down impact it had on the roster can't be ignored. He was the difference between the Rangers turning Kreider and Strome into assets (instead of a re-sign and UFA walk away) and perhaps Zibanejad too (though I'd imagine that they would try to run Eichel-Zib 1-2.)

Kreider couldn't pass a physical to close any deal with another team.

#hfdoc

 

[HatTrick Swayze]

It’s not hindsight for me, I wanted him regardless of the injury. When an elite 24 year old center is available you make the deal happen. Would have been a million times better making that trade even in hindsight than doing what the Rangers ended up doing.

Same here…it’s astounding how many people on here wanted no part of swapping Zibanejad for Eichel

 

[DanielBrassard]

The only person I remember being 100% in on this was @AirGut but I'll take your word for it.

I don't even know that it would have turned out better. He's still missed a ton of time and he wouldn't have had the support here that he's had in Vegas. It's very likely we'd be no better than we have been the last few years with a guy a year away from UFA and in a slightly better spot this year and next (assuming that everything else more or less stayed the same.)

Not that I think Buffalo was going to trade him here (and that had to do more with them throwing one last FU Eichel's way rather than anything the Rangers did or a billboard some idiot commissioned) but you know what DID impact the level of assets the Rangers had/were willing to part with?

Signing Panarin.

The trickle down impact it had on the roster can't be ignored. He was the difference between the Rangers turning Kreider and Strome into assets (instead of a re-sign and UFA walk away) and perhaps Zibanejad too (though I'd imagine that they would try to run Eichel-Zib 1-2.)



#hfdoc

The Rangers had plenty of assets to trade for Eichel at the time he was available, I completely disagree that signing Panarin had any impact on that. Either way I think the rangers would have been much better off with him. Although maybe not because Drury would have been the GM and he’d still continue to make bad decisions.

Either way going forward I really don’t see a path toward success in the near future unless the Rangers puck into drafting an elite #1 center beyond hopefully signing one of he or McDavid, which I admit isn’t likely. Maybe you think he’s not worth the risk because he’s missed games but I’m willing to take that risk.

Same here…it’s astounding how many people on here wanted no part of swapping Zibanejad for Eichel

Yeah exactly. We could relitigate the entire scenario all over again and it’s probably not worth it but just from the standpoint of swapping Zibanejad at his apex for Eichel would have made so much sense while avoiding Zibanejad’s decline phase.

 

[Tob]

Peter needs to have his fat ass hauled. That’s the only way we go 15-4 to ginish the season. Bring in Quenville. HAUL HIM OUT!

 

[UnSandvich]

Lafreniere's defensive WAR this year is -1.

Mine is 0.

0 > -1.

Honestly? Better than I expected

 

[Raspewtin]

Chris Kreider is a bad contract. The Rangers should have moved on from him in 2019 instead of giving a seven year contract. Jeff Gorton always had a soft spot for Kreider who was his first Rangers draft pick. Kreider had some really good seasons under this current contract. The Rangers did not win. What happens now? Kreider did not make it to the fifth season of the contract before breaking down. Two more seasons remaining.

I read this in The Athletic today. Peter Baugh.

Rangers takeaways: More high-danger chances, six-on-five struggles and another loss

New York lost a chance to gain points on wild-card rivals Columbus with a 2-1 loss against Winnipeg.

www.nytimes.com

Three injuries. Why did Kreider plays in the 4 Nations?

Staple wrote this last Friday

Rangers’ midseason remodel is complete, but they must do more to be contenders again

The Rangers emerged from the trade deadline in better shape than before, but there is more hard work to be done.

www.nytimes.com

A buyout?

https://puckpedia.com/player/chris-kreider/buyout?s=2025-2026

Based on how Kreider has played since returning from his latest injury, the Rangers will have their work cut out for them to acquire a decent to good return for Kreider. Drury moved off of Trouba and his contract for a bottom pair D and 4th round pick.

Your takes the last calendar year or so are just atomically awful.

Like this is laughable. Kreider significantly overperformed his contract the first 4 years.

 

[EdJovanovski]

 

[Machinehead]

If you wanna say that they should have just sold off Kreider ages ago to actually see out the full rebuild that they kind of pulled the plug on, then yeah, sure.

To say it was a bad contract is pretty wild. The guy scored the second most goals in a season in Rangers history.

I'm all for being a hardass and accepting no substitutes on the guys you go to war with, but being in the arena when he scored his 50th goal is a lifetime memory. You have to smell the roses a little bit sometimes.

 

[UnSandvich]

If you wanna say that they should have just sold off Kreider ages ago to actually see out the full rebuild that they kind of pulled the plug on, then yeah, sure.

To say it was a bad contract is pretty wild. The guy scored the second most goals in a season in Rangers history.

I'm all for being a hardass and accepting no substitutes on the guys you go to war with, but being in the arena when he scored his 50th goal is a lifetime memory. You have to smell the roses a little bit sometimes.

I was one of the most vocal opponents of the contract when it was signed, but even then my issue was the term and the opportunity cost. The AAV and cap implications, even the M-NTC are a borderline non-issue. And they'd be even less of an issue if the Cap hadnt gotten COVID'd

 

[leetch99]

there’s something to be said about building a roster of just a bunch of really good players

I get the 1C thing but the way hockey is I think your best course of action is just filling out the roster with as many good players as possible

ideally you’d have that one guy but i’d take my chances with a roster that’s super deep throughout vs what the Avs were running to start the year, i.e 4 superstars and 14 stiffs

for example bergeron is a great player and in terms of his defensive game its probably HOF level but he was a 57 point C the year the bruins won the cup. Krejci only hit 62 as well.

considering we’re the rangers and will never draft a McDavid/Crosby level center, I wouldn’t hate going for the 2011 B’s model roster. I mean, our 13-14 team was pretty close to that and was our best chance at a cup in my lifetime. That B’s team could have easily won more cups as well, they were a bounce or two away from winning 3 in 8

anyway, the overall point of my ramble is that while i agree that ideally we’d have a roster built around an elite #1 C, we don’t live in an ideal world and the Rangers will never ever ever have an elite 1C that was drafted by us in our lifetime. So if we go the other way and try to build just a really deep roster I’d be cool w it. Too bad drury likes collecting mid players instead of good ones

Turk Gallant led a Vegas expansion team to the Stanley Cup finals . In the end lack of talent kept them from winning a Cup......but just the fact they made the Finals was impressive . Hard work does yield results if guys check their ego at the door .

 

[leetch99]

That Ducks team was a nasty piece of work . They could play it any way with that roster and having Pronger & Niedermayer plus underrated Beauchemin back there gave them a big 3 of minute eaters . If I remember correctly they also had a fantastic 3rd line . They were built for that one year I would say .

 

[Filip Chytil]

Bottom line is we’re cooked and we won’t be contenders again for another 10-15 years minimum

Probably about right. We're a good 11 years away from when we get 39 year old Connor McDavid.

 

[GoAwayPanarin]

View attachment 992218

I don't think he's been as bad as people think but LOL at you using fancy stats when they support a guy you like.

At 11.5 he should be at minimum top 3 though.