3:03PM: The Rangers have announced the trade and say that Florida will receive whichever fourth round pick (the Rangers or Winnipeg’s) is lower.
2:41PM: The Rangers are sending a fourth round pick to Florida for Vatrano. (LeBrun, Weekes)
Frank Seravalli says that Florida was initially asking for a second rounder in exchange for Vatrano.
2:38PM: Elliotte Friedman tweets that the Rangers and Panthers are discussing a deal that would send forward Frank Vatrano to the Rangers.
Vatrano, 28, is a pending UFA and has a cap hit of $2.53 million.
He has 10 goals and 9 assists in 49 games for the Panthers this season and 93 goals and 64 assists in 379 career games with Boston and Florida. He is averaging 12:12 per game this season.
Vatrano has 14 games of playoff experience with two goals and one assist in 14 games.
He is averaging 44 seconds per game on the PP this year and 3 seconds on the PK. In the last three seasons he averaged around 1:30 per game on the PP and in 2019-20 he averaged 1:15 per game on the PK.
Vatrano is 5-11, 197. He played with Jacob Trouba at the US National Program from 2010-2012 and Dryden Hunt over parts of three seasons with the Panthers.
His agent, Peter Fish, was also Chris Drury’s agent.
Adam Rotter: Well, there is your help, at least the start of it, for the third line, middle six or depth. Vatrano is a solid enough player and certainly a major upgrade over someone like Julien Gauthier or Dryden Hunt in the top-six. He’s a much more reliable and higher upside player to swing up and down the lineup than guys like Hunt and Gauthier and if/when the Rangers get Kaapo Kakko back, he can settle in on the third line and provide a lot more depth than they currently have. He’s scored 24 goals three seasons ago, 16 in 2019-20 and 18 last season in 56 games. He’s more of a shoot first player and that could fit nicely with Artemi Panarin and Ryan Strome.
It’s a good depth move for the Rangers and only at the cost of a fourth round pick, which they have two of this year. It may be the first of a couple of moves before the deadline, but at the very least, Chris Drury is striking early to fill a need and without moving a high level asset.