Staple: The Rangers' cutthroat summer still has too many loose ends (2024)

By the end of Monday’s business, we all saw how bloodless you have to be as an NHL general manager at times. Steven Stamkos is an ex-Lightning. Jonathan Marchessault is an ex-Golden Knight. The hard decisions require a cold, calculating eye, and sentimentality can’t get in the way.

The Rangers started it all two weeks ago when they put Barclay Goodrow on waivers to get around Goodrow’s 16-team no-trade clause. Goodrow vetoed a trade to the Sharks, as was his right, so Rangers GM Chris Drury exercised his rights and moved Goodrow out anyway, knowing San Jose would claim him. There was an unhappy veteran player, an unhappy veteran agent and likely a bit of unease in a veteran locker room.

Jacob Trouba was supposed to be next. The Rangers captain, coming off a down season that included a broken ankle in March, has two years at an $8-million cap hit left — that’s cap space the Rangers could dearly use, either this summer or next, and even Trouba has to know that, with his full no-move clause converting on Monday to a 15-team no-trade clause, his time in New York might be running short.

The Rangers tried to accelerate Trouba’s decision with another cold, calculating move last week when the team requested Trouba’s no-trade list a few days ahead of when it was due, which was at midnight on Monday. Trouba didn’t get to where he is as an NHL player — one who forced his way out of Winnipeg five years ago so that he and his wife, Kelly, then a medical student, could plan to be somewhere that both their careers could flourish — by being naive to the ways of internal politics. Trouba’s agent, Kurt Overhardt, is no wilting flower, either.

And so, instead of an attempt at a quiet exit ahead of Monday’s NHL free agency period to allow the Rangers to do some bigger business, Trouba and Overhardt did not play along. Being cutthroat goes both ways sometimes, and the Rangers captain played his hand, or slow-played it in this case, refusing to submit his no-trade list until it was due early Monday and possibly scuttling some of Drury’s plans for the day.

So, Trouba is still a Ranger. Drury took some swings, reportedly showing serious interest in defenseman Brenden Dillon and wing Jonathan Drouin, but both signed elsewhere. Reilly Smith, a decent, short-term play, could add to the Rangers’ top nine. Sam Carrick is a fine fourth-line center to replace Goodrow. The Rangers didn’t get worse on Monday, and they were already the Presidents’ Trophy winners last season, so that’s a good way to start the summer.

But what if Trouba stays a Ranger? The rumored deal with the Red Wings doesn’t appear to be such a front-burner issue anymore, not after Detroit kept Patrick Kane and made some other additions. The Wings have loads of cap space, so never say never, but there’s a chance that Trouba, knowing Detroit was the place Drury was hoping to send him, put the Wings on his no-trade list to further spike this move. Playing hardball with your captain is all well and good, but you better follow through, for his sake and the team’s sake.

Even with his play declining this season and Trouba almost certainly ticketed for the Rangers’ third pair next season, there’s a reason one former Rangers player told me that if a vote had been held to elect a captain two years ago, Trouba would have been the unanimous choice. The same player said that Trouba was set to be named captain before the 2021-22 season but it was nixed at the last minute without explanation.

There’s also a chance that the atmosphere around this team could spoil a bit. Trouba and the rest of the Rangers fully bought into Peter Laviolette’s coaching style, on and off the ice, from the first day last season — Laviolette’s monthly team-building outings, from poker nights to cornhole tournaments, were a hit with the players and their families. Their 18-3-1 start was no fluke. It’s hard to keep recreating that environment year after year, and it’s that much harder to do when you subtract one player with a letter on his jersey, as with Goodrow, much less the leader of the group.

Drury has been bloodless in other, more subtle ways since he took over three years ago. Popular trainer Jim Ramsay was let go last summer under murky circ*mstances; whatever he did to be relieved of his duties after 30 years at the Garden was clearly not an issue for the Canadiens, who hired him a month later. Other longtime support staffers have been let go in the last few years, which is not out of place at the high-turnover Garden but hadn’t happened much on the hockey side.

That is Drury’s prerogative as president and GM — he builds his staff and his team how he sees fit. It’s the same in Vegas or Tampa. But there’s one key difference between the Rangers and those two organizations at the moment: The Knights and Lightning have won the Stanley Cup in the last five years. The cost of winning is high. Should the cost of almost reaching a pair of Finals be the same? It doesn’t quite have the same legitimacy to be that emotionless when you haven’t raised a banner yet.

This may all be solved soon. Trouba may realize that there’s no going back and accepting a trade to a destination he can live with is better than trying to fight it out here. That’s usually how these things end, especially if there are hurt feelings, as people around Trouba are saying exist now.

And you can’t help but wonder if that cutthroat style gets around. These are still the Rangers, and they still play in the world’s most famous arena — there will never be a shortage of players who want to get a taste of living and playing in New York. And the strikeouts on Monday before the Smith trade are much more likely about what Drury could offer on term rather than anything about what’s gone down the last couple of weeks.

Igor Shesterkin, K’Andre Miller and Alexis Lafrenière are all eligible to sign extensions as of Monday, too. Shesterkin is seeking 14 percent of the 2025-26 cap, around $ 12.9 million, and it’s not likely he’s going to budge. Miller’s agent is Ian Pulver, who is also Goodrow’s agent; an agent does what his client wants, but Pulver is probably not in the mood to give Drury any discounts on Miller’s next deal.

If you’re any of those three players, are you looking at what’s happened with Goodrow and Trouba and saying to yourself that you think this team is going to take good care of you as you age out of your prime? Probably not. The cap should keep going up, but those three might eat up as much as $ 26 million in cap space.

You have to be cutthroat in the salary-cap age. But you also better win. And leave no loose ends.

The Rangers have the first part down. Jury’s still out on the other two.

(Photo of Chris Drury: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)

Arthur Staple has covered New York hockey for The Athletic since 2019, initially on the Islanders beat before moving over to primarily focus on the Rangers in 2021. Previously, he spent 20 years at Newsday, where he covered everything from high schools to the NFL. Follow Arthur on Twitter @stapeathletic