Without a turnaround, Rangers cannot be buyers at the trade deadline

The New York Rangers are in a free fall. With just two wins in their last 10 games, the offense at 5v5 has tanked, the defense has been porous at best, the powerplay has been atrocious, but at least the penalty killing and goaltending have been fine. With the top stars not producing, the Rangers cannot be buyers right now. There’s plenty of blame to go around, and it’s not just the players or the coaches or the front office. It’s all three.

The 2-8-0 record in the last 10 is bad enough, but it’s how the Rangers are losing that matters more. Sometimes bad luck happens and teams go cold. This is not the case. The Rangers, to be blunt, stink. It’s alarming when we can count on one hand the number of skaters that show up on a nightly basis, and all of them are 25 or younger and in the bottom half of the lineup. That is not a recipe for success.

As long as they continue to play like this, the Rangers cannot be buyers at the trade deadline. The Blueshirts are already short on draft picks, even with the Jacob Trouba trade, and assets are running dry for rentals. Unless there’s an immediate retool for this year, which would involve a major roster overhaul or a complete change in mental state, then this year appears to be lost.

After all, the Rangers will only go as far as their stars take them, and their stars have dug themselves a pretty epic hole. If the stars were producing, the Rangers winning games, and minor holes to fill, this would be a different story. But as it stands today, the Rangers cannot be buyers at the trade deadline because they’d be replacing close to the entire the top-half of the lineup, based on performance.

The Rangers can’t simply trade Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad or Vincent Trocheck (full no-move clauses). Chris Kreider has a 15-tem no-trade clause. It’s certainly possible, and Kreider would be the easiest to move given his skill set and penchant for huge playoff performances. The only two pieces they have for a retool are Ryan Lindgren and K’Andre Miller.

And if we’ve learned anything about the Trouba trade, it’s that teams covet these kinds of defensemen. In Lindgren’s case, he’s a younger Trouba without the big hits. In Miller’s case, he’s a young, high ceiling puck moving defenseman. They have value, but not the kind of value that overhauls the top half of the lineup. Competing teams don’t move a player like Miller, another reason in a long list of reasons why the Rangers cannot be buyers this year.

The only way the Rangers can change their fortunes is by getting their collective acts together. That means a gut check from the top half of the lineup, the guys that simply aren’t getting it done. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen.

It’s a sad state of affairs, quite frankly. The Rangers have zero excuses for why they went from a President’s Trophy and a bounce from a 3-1 series lead on Florida to this colossal embarrassment on the ice in 6 months. The leaders on this team, the top paid stars, appear to be mailing it in on most nights. We learned in the 2022-2023 season that they don’t have the ability to flip a switch for the playoffs, if they even make it.

Even if the Rangers go for it, they’d be trading assets for what amounts to one series win? Maybe two if Igor Shesterkin steals one? How does that justify spending more assets they don’t have? The Rangers cannot be buyers at the trade deadline unless something changes.

The top half of the lineup cannot be replaced with players that will get the Rangers over the hump. The bottom half of the roster represents their best trade chips to address the top half of the roster. This leaves two options.

1. Retool what can be retooled for this season and hope for a turnaround
2. Burn it all to the ground and establish a new core

Neither option means buying at the deadline. Both mean selling, just a matter of how extreme the selling needs to be. Without a huge turnaround, and a quick turnaround, the New York Rangers cannot be buyers at the trade deadline this season.