Sammy Blais, LW/RW, New York Rangers
Strapped for cap space, the New York Rangers were forced to trade
Pavel Buchnevich for cents on the dollar. The centrepiece of the return was
Blues power forward Sammy Blais. Blais is well regarded in many industry circles due to his robust physical attributes and ability to drive the net. He can be an effective player for the Rangers but he scored at an 18-goal, 34 points-per-82 games pace last season which seems tough to replicate.
Right off the bat, one of the biggest potential differences is role and linemate quality.
In St. Louis, Blais didn’t play a ton of minutes but he had spurts where he was able to move up the lineup to get looks with the likes of Ryan O’Reilly,
Brayden Schenn and
Robert Thomas. Blais, in fact, scored half his goals when he shared the ice with O’Reilly. Those kinds of opportunities may not be available in New York where the Rangers boast a deep top-nine.
So far, he’s gotten a look next to
Kevin Rooney and
Ryan Reaves — a pretty significant downgrade in terms of offensive help.
In addition to that, Blais also benefitted from a sky-high 25.8 percent shooting clip which is nearly double his career average. Blais has promise and should add some jam to the Rangers’ lineup, but it’s unlikely he’ll produce at the kind of middle-six rate he managed last season.