Let's Face It, the New York Rangers Should Be Sellers at the 2026 NHL Trade Deadline
It's time for the New York Rangers to wave the white flag.
Long-term injuries to Igor Shesterkin and Adam Fox, announced on Tuesday, may help team management save face. In truth, the Rangers are in no position to posture for the playoffs even if they were at full health.
The Olympic roster freeze, occurring on Feb. 4, will serve as something of a soft trade deadline, with only four more NHL games after that before the actual March 6 deadline.
Their proximity to a playoff spot in the gridlocked Eastern Conference is an illusion. Consider this: The Rangers' .523 points percentage is second-worst in the Eastern Conference. If they go on a heroic run and win 10 of their remaining 13 games before the Olympic break, they would still be below the Sabres' current benchmark for the second wild-card slot.
In the coming weeks, GM Chris Drury must prioritize 2026-27 and beyond. That's the easy decision. The more difficult question is what that plan should look like.
The Rebuild Misnomer and Why the Rangers Can't Tank
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The roster is aging and has plateaued as a mediocre team. There is limited high-end talent coming up the pipeline. Management's hopes that a Jack Eichel- or Connor McDavid-level star would force his way to Broadway are unlikely to materialize.
At the same time, there will be no rebuild in which the team tears everything down and aims for top-three overall picks. Even if ownership accepted such a vision (unlikely), the team's goaltending and top defensive pairing alone prevent the team from bottoming out.
That's quite the conundrum.
The NHL has changed rapidly in the last decade, and so has what it means to rebuild. Take the Pittsburgh Penguins, who, by all accounts, are almost exclusively prioritizing days ahead, yet sit in a playoff position. Waiting around for a few lottery picks to hit—and sucking in the meantime—is not required to turn around a franchise.
The team's core is Adam Fox (27), Igor Shesterkin (30), and Vladislav Gavrikov (30). For better or worse, captain J.T. Miller (32) is also going nowhere. The current team is not competitive, and the ages of its core players won't allow for a long-term rebuild, either.
The situation requires a different approach, one that imagines the Rangers as a competitive team again in 2028. Everything GM Chris Drury does in the next calendar year should be imagined through that lens.
That does not mean building upwards.
Finding Impact Players
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The New York Rangers are bereft of impact players. We know it, and head coach Mike Sullivan will know it.
The vaunted 2026 free-agent class is now a dud. There are no obvious top players the Rangers can anticipate will be available either at the trade deadline or in the offseason.
Overpaying Alex Tuch or Nick Schmaltz in free agency or trading for Steven Stamkos in the twilight of his career and trying to pass them off as cornerstones is in this team's DNA. They need to resist that impulse.
So, who should the Rangers target?
Maybe that's the wrong question. In the modern NHL, players have more agency than ever, and teams quickly find themselves in circumstances different from those they anticipated.
The Vancouver Canucks were one game away from the Western Conference Final in May of 2024. Who would have predicted that captain Quinn Hughes would be out the door a little over a year later?
How many people anticipated that the Avalanche would trade Mikko Rantanen months ahead of the 2025 trade deadline?
When the Philadelphia Flyers drafted Cutter Gauthier fifth-overall at the 2022 NHL Draft, was there any reason to expect that he'd force a trade before ever even turning pro?
There are NHL players today who seem untouchable in their respective organizations, yet will unexpectedly become available at a later date. The short-term imperative for the Rangers is not to identify the difference-makers who can turn the franchise around, but to optimize their ability to acquire those players whenever they emerge.
That means clearing payroll and accumulating fungible assets while remaining an appealing destination.
Selling Non-Essentials
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A silver lining for the Rangers is that they have a chance to dominate the marketplace. There are few truly tanking teams in the NHL, and even clubs on the outside of the playoff picture, such as Toronto, New Jersey, and Winnipeg, are desperate to add rather than subtract.
Parting with the unrestricted free agents is the free bingo space. Carson Soucy could net the Rangers a second-round pick. Ask Jonathan Quick if he's willing to move. Take whatever is the highest bid (if any) for Connor Sheary and Jonny Brodzinski.
Artemi Panarin is a trickier decision, but if his asking price is egregious or the offers for him are lucrative, he'll be gone by the deadline.
But the Rangers should listen on anyone else who isn't a franchise player (Shesterkin, Fox) or whose contracts and no-trade protection make it near impossible (Zibanejad, Miller, Gavrikov).
Vincent Trocheck is the Rangers' most valuable trade chip among non-core players. He will be 33 next season, but teams better positioned to compete immediately will want a middle-six center signed to a $5.625 million cap hit for multiple seasons.
The center market is abysmal. Montreal moved a second-round pick for Philip Danault, who is 32, overpaid and does not have a goal this season. Trocheck can only block trades to 12 teams (then 10 in the summer). He could bring in a haul.
Sam Carrick has done everything the Rangers have asked of him as a fourth-line center, but he's just that: a fourth-line center. He's nearly 34 and signed to a reasonable $1M cap hit through 2026. Again, the center market is weak, and the extra year on his contract means win-now teams may pay a premium.
The same is true for Taylor Raddysh, signed through 2027. He would do well on a shutdown fourth line and may be appealing to teams that intend to contend this season and next.
Will Borgen, 29 and signed to a $4.1 million cap hit through 2029, is really a third-pairing defenseman whom the Rangers are overexposing. His play has dropped significantly in recent months, and if the contract isn't problematic now, it likely will be in a few years. Last season, depth rentals like Brian Dumoulin netted a second-round pick plus more. Would a team be willing to pony up for Borgen?
Of course, the Rangers should be open to many other departures. Alexis Lafrenière, Will Cuylle, and Braden Schneider are younger players who fit with New York's timeline, but there's no harm in at least inquiring about their values around the league.
A Quick Pivot is Possible
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The idea of a mass sell-off prior to the deadline and/or during the summer is not to sit on a bunch of draft picks and prospects and rebuild.
Having just opened up significant cap space and brought in plenty of desirable tokens of exchange, the Rangers will be in a position to add players who more directly address their needs and fit the timeline for when they hope to peak.
The Washington Capitals have proved it's possible. In 2022 and 2023, they had a team on the fringes of the playoffs but decided to reset. Out went older players like Dmitri Orlov, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Marcus Johansson.
The Capitals didn't take long to utilize the assets and financial flexibility, bringing in the likes of Pierre-Luc Dubois, Jakob Chychrun, and Anthony Beauvillier.
The Tampa Bay Lightning are also an inspiration, making tough decisions to part with Steven Stamkos and Mikhail Sergachev but bringing in JJ Moser and Jake Guentzel as part of the process.
The Rangers don't need to rebuild. The team has franchise-building blocks still in their prime years. It's about maneuvering everything else around them in order to cut the bloat and extend the window of opportunity.
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