6/1/19 | On the 5/31 Bobcast, Bob McKenzie was looking at Kevin Shattenkirk ranked #9 on TSN’s trade bait board and said, “I could see them trying to move that salary. They could be interested in trading for Trouba, I’m sure. They’ll be interested in Erik Karlsson if he goes to unrestricted free agency. Consider the Rangers a player in just about everything, as always.”
5/6/19 | Elliotte Friedman wrote this week that the Rangers are expected to be “active” this summer with some GMs saying “watch out for them.” (Sportsnet)
Friedman said on the 31 Thoughts Podcast this week, “I think this is going to be a really interesting summer for them. I think they want this rebuild to start coming to an end and to start playing some games that matter. I think they will be really busy this summer, they have a ton of picks, cap room but with a lot of the big markets out of the playoffs the cap may not go up as much as everybody thought. The Rangers are going to have room and if you are going to need to trade players they are going to want good players and be out there. The other thing is that I have heard their name as an offer sheet possibility.”
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He added, “people say that the Rangers are going to use all of their muscle this year to get better.”
Pierre LeBrun wrote in The Athletic this week about Erik Karlsson and said that the Rangers would be an “obvious” fit for Karlsson because of their cap space, desire to step up the rebuild and his relationship with Henrik Lundqvist.
In March, Friedman said of the Rangers and Karlsson, “I wonder about the Rangers are Karlsson, how interested they are going to be. I could see him loving playing there.” (Sportsnet)
The Rangers, as of now, have two first-round picks and two second-round picks in the 2019 Draft.
The Rangers are expected to have between $18 million and $23 million in cap space depending on what the upper-limit is.
Pavel Buchnevich, Brendan Lemieux, Tony DeAngelo, Neal Pionk and Freddy Claesson are all RFAs this summer.
Players like Artemi Panarin (UFA) and Jacob Trouba (Trade) have been mentioned previously as potential targets for the Rangers.
The Rangers have already added Adam Fox, Vitali Kravtsov and Igor Shesterkin and are expected to add either Jack Hughes or Kaapo Kakko with the second overall pick in June’s draft.
Adam Rotter: After being somewhat quiet last summer expect the Rangers to be connected with pretty much every player talked about this summer. They have the cap space and needs that free agents would fill and the draft picks, prospects and some roster players needed for “hockey trades” that would bring youngish NHLers to the Rangers. They are frequently going to be mentioned as one of the teams to watch this offseason and until players sign new contracts or teams get out of cap trouble the Rangers will be mentioned with every RFA, UFA and trade candidate.