Tough Decisions

By Mike Rifkin

It was an extremely difficult season for the New York Rangers, after getting within two games of competing for the Stanley Cup, they missed the playoffs entirely. Every Ranger fan knows change is on the way, well it’s already begun with Mike Sullivan replacing Peter Laviolette as the head coach. But what’s next for GM Chris Drury, as the Rangers look to right the ship.

On February 8th 2018, the New York Rangers wrote a letter to their fans about a rebuild that was about to take place.Two important pieces that the Rangers obtained during the rebuild were defenseman K’Andre Miller ( 2018 1st rd pick 22nd overall) and Winger Alexis Lafreniere ( 2020 1st rd pick first overall). 

Both players have been developing for the Rangers, but both are coming off of a tough season, well quite frankly the whole team had a tough season. At the NHL combine this past week there have been reports that GM Chris Drury was listening to offers on both players. Miller, is a restricted free agent, so that’s not surprising. Lafreniere though signed a seven year 52.15 million dollar contract in October. So, why is Chris Drury listening on two guys who could be considered the future of his organization. Well, there’s two reasons : The first being the Rangers do need cap space if they’re going to make changes this summer. The other one and bigger than the first in my opinion this team has too many players with no trade clauses or no movement clauses it’s impossible to move some of them. 

Both of these players are still in there early to mid twenties and haven’t hit their primes yet. The other downside is trading these players and watch them succeed with another team just like the Rangers saw with Kaapo Kakko, who scored 10 goals and 30 points in 49 games with the Kraken last season. With the Rangers looking to win their first cup since 1994, Chris Drury has to maintain this be a win-now team as opposed to what the future holds, but even coming off of down season, I wouldn’t give up on Lafreniere or Miller. But with Miller being an RFA, I understand listening on his availability. I think the Rangers GM needs to look at some of the veterans on this team to make the changes, not the younger players.