What do Patrik Nemeth, Barclay Goodrow and Jacob Trouba have in common? All three were signed to contracts that turned out to be richer than the Rangers could afford, and all three were moved off the roster by Chris Drury without incurring so much as a nickel's worth of salary retention.
Nemeth was sent packing to the Arizona Coyotes, along with a couple of draft picks, for Ty Emberson in the summer of 2022; Goodrow was waived and later claimed by the San Jose Sharks this past summer; and, yesterday, Trouba was "traded" to the Anaheim Ducks for Urho Vaakanainen and a conditional draft pick. I put the word traded in quotation marks because it was widely reported, and later confirmed by Trouba himself, that had he not accepted the trade, Drury was prepared to waive him just like he did with Goodrow over the summer.
Know this about Drury: whether you think he's been a good general manager or not, when he realizes a mistake has been made, he's not one to stand on ceremony. It takes a certain amount of talent to completely erase a mistake; one his predecessor Jeff Gorton, unfortunately, did not possess.
Of all the mistakes this organization has made over the last few years, Trouba was, by far, the worst. Since his arrival from the Winnipeg Jets in 2021, he was, at best, an above average defenseman with a penchant for throwing bone-jarring checks that often knocked opponents out of the game; at worst, he was a defensive liability, whose mistakes proved costly to his team. The most egregious of those mistakes came against the Florida Panthers in game six of last year's Eastern Conference Finals. Trouba attempted to throw one of his patented checks on Evan Rodrigues late in the first period, and when he missed, Rodrigues set up Sam Bennett for a goal to give the Panthers a lead they would never relinquish. Game, set and match for the Blueshirts.
Bottom line: at $4 million, Trouba was overpriced; at $8 million, he was an albatross around the neck of the cap-strapped Rangers. And with several players due to hit free agency next year, Drury needed to clear cap space fast.
He tried trading Trouba. The Detroit Red Wings expressed interest in acquiring him last summer, but before Drury could pull the trigger, he needed to know whether Detroit was on Trouba's 15 team no trade list. So he asked Trouba's agent and, well, you know the rest. Captain Elbow threw a hissy fit and that was that.
As it turns out, Steve Yzermann couldn't take on Trouba's contract because he wasn't able to clear enough cap space on his own to make it work, which was just as well because the deal the two men had in place called for the Rangers to retain $2.5 million of Trouba's salary. Sometimes the best trades are the ones you don't make. Five months later, Drury was able to unload Trouba's entire contract and he actually got something in return besides $8 million of cap space.
So now that Trouba's is gone, the sixty-four thousand dollar question remaining is whether Drury is done? That depends on what happens over the next few games. Let's not kid ourselves here. While last night's win was sorely needed, it was hardly reassuring. The Rangers barely beat a Pittsburgh Penguins team that has even more question marks than the Blueshirts; two games ago, the Rangers needed a late power play goal by Kaapo Kakko to avoid what could've been an embarrassing OT defeat to the Montreal Canadiens. The fact is of New York's 14 wins, only two have come against teams that were in the playoffs last season: the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Vancouver Canucks. The rest? Well let's just say if the Rangers could play the Penguins, Islanders, Canadiens and Red Wings the rest of the season, they'd win back-to-back Presidents' trophies.
So if I had to guess, I'd say Drury isn't done tinkering with this roster. I could see at least two more trades on the horizon. One involving the forwards; the other the defensive pairings. Thanks to the largess of Pat Verbeek, the Rangers are flush with cap space. With the salary cap expected to go up to $92.5 million for the 2025-26 season, Drury will have about $22 million to play with next summer. And assuming he doesn't bring anybody else up from Hartford, he'll have $24 million in deadline cap space to go shopping with this March.
One thing off Drury's plate is who the starting goaltender will be next season. About an hour before last night's game it was announced that the Rangers and Igor Shesterkin had agreed on an 8 year, $92 million contract extension. On any other team a goalie with an $11.5m AAV salary could be considered insane; on the Rangers it's an absolute necessity. Let's be honest: without Igor, no way this team would've advanced to the conference finals two of the last three seasons. You know it and I know it. There was never any doubt Drury was going to re-sign him; the only question was for how much. Frankly, given the numbers we were hearing coming from Shesterkin's camp, $11.5 million seems more than reasonable.
So, Drury rid himself of an overrated, overpriced defenseman and locked up arguably his best player for the next eight years. Hate him if you want, but he had himself quite a day.
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