New York Rangers Are the "Center" of Attention

With the Anaheim Ducks signing Saku Koivu this afternoon, the New York Rangers are fresh out of options when it comes to free agent centers.

After making a three-year offer to Koivu, while being in competition with the Devils and Wild, the Rangers are no longer pursuing any free agent centers.

As I said on June 10, the Rangers need to fix their situation through trades and not free agency and now they must do so by default. That is, unless they decide to just roll with what they have, but the chances of that happening aren't as great.

For weeks it has been known that the Rangers are trying to work out a deal with the Dallas Stars in order to bring Brad Richards to Broadway. Not only that, but they are apparently trying to pry Patrick Marleau from San Jose as well, especially since their GM Doug Wilson said he would be available this offseason.

As exciting as this all is, the creator of Ranger Nation doesn't seem to think that any of it will come to fruition:

"Very interesting, but I do not see this happening," Jonathon Ragus told me in a brief interview this evening.

"Who exactly would the Rangers trade for either of these players that the Sharks or Stars would even want on their team? I see them signing Alex Tanguay over these two."

Not an all too optimistic outlook, but a signing of Alex Tanguay would be welcomed given his excellent passing ability and his chemistry with captain Chris Drury.

The longer he sits on the open market, the cheaper he will come. It was expected he would be looking in the $5 million range, but now that it has been more than a week, he may be only getting between $3.5 and $4 million—a very affordable rate.

If that is the case, then the Rangers must definitely try to get him under contract, and if worst comes to worst, give him a try with Gaborik, who never really has had a good play-maker for his entire career.

There will be more information available in the coming days and I think we can expect to see some more moves very shortly.

Greg Caggiano is a writer on Bleacher Report covering the New York Rangers. He has a New York area sports teams blog called Metro-Sports, where you can read great articles about all professional sports teams that play in the area by a dedicated team of young writers.

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