The Rangers have signed newly acquired defenseman Will Borgen to a five-year contract worth $4.1 million per season.
The Rangers acquired Borgen, a 2025 third round pick and 2025 sixth round pick for Kaapo Kakko.
Borgen, 28, currently has a cap hit of $2.7 million.
He has averaged 18:35 per game, has 29 blocked shots, 30 hits, one goal and two assists in 17 games.
Borgen has a full no-trade clause next season that turns into a 15-team no-trade list in 2026-27, a 10-team list in 27-28, a 6-team list in 28-29 and no protection in 29-30.
Adam Rotter: It’s wrong to say that the Rangers season has turned around entirely because of Borgen’s play on defense, but he has had a nice impact in stabilizing the defense and also helping K’Andre Miller return a bit to form.
Borgen will never offer the upside that Kaapo Kakko did, but he’s a steady, complementary player that you usually spend a lot of time trying to replace when you let them go. We don’t know what other offers Chris Drury had for Kakko, but they clearly liked Borgen when they acquired him and liked him enough to extend him in quick fashion. This also helps solve some of the Rangers long-term depth issues on defense as they don’t have many prospects that seem ready or able to play a top-six role yet. It’s also a deal that will take up less and less percentage of the cap as the cap continues to rise over the next few years. They like Borgen and he’d likely have been a target of theirs if he hadn’t been traded and became a UFA. They probably could have gotten a second-round pick for him at the deadline and maybe tried to re-sign him this summer but that always sounds much better as a concept than something that actually happens.
There is a question though of what this means for Braden Schneider’s future as Borgen is a right-shot defenseman that is playing ahead of him. I wonder if the Rangers ultimately look to shift Schneider to the left side and try him as Ryan Lindgren’s likely replacement. Schneider certainly isn’t going anywhere and with Borgen now signed the only spot for a bigger role is on the left side. It’s possible that Lindgren still gets dealt so they don’t lose him for nothing and Schneider could then slot into that role for the stretch run and hopefully the playoffs.