Chris Drury majored in history as an undergrad at Boston University, but the president/general manager of the Rangers will be tasked with solving a triangular mathematical equation leading up to the March 21 trade deadline.
For Drury will have to weigh the team’s needs, against the cost of filling them, against the odds that a flexed-up team would be able to make a realistic run at the Stanley Cup a year or two ahead of its ETA. He will have to decide between striking big or pushing away from the table while saving his prime chips for the offseason, when much more will be known and the market expands.
The Rangers began their 16-game run of dress rehearsals leading up to the deadline with Tuesday’s rollicking, 2-1, shootout victory over the Bruins at the Garden in which Igor Shesterkin had his Willis Reed moment by emerging from a brief stay in concussion protocol — pulled by the NHL spotter with 40.5 seconds remaining in overtime after he was crushed in the crease 1:31 earlier — to stop seven of nine shots in the skills competition.
This was an impressive display of fortitude from the Blueshirts, who got their game together following a rust-coated opening 20 minutes following their two-week hiatus. Filip Chytil, very much a quandary heading toward March 21, had perhaps his best and most assertive match of the season. The fourth line was strong. The Zac Jones-Braden Schneider rookie pair played well enough to be rewarded with a shift in the final 5:00 of regulation.
The Rangers sure could use a formidable top-six right wing. That would be the case even if Kaapo Kakko were healthy rather than on IR for the next month or so. They could use help on a third line that has been a nagging issue all season. They would like to add depth on defense while possibly strengthening the third pair. Players — such as Chytil, Jones and Schneider — are making their cases.
There is a top-six right wing available in Vancouver who goes by the name of J.T. Miller. The Rangers’ interest in a reunion with the club’s one-time 15th-overall, 2011 first-rounder has been an open secret for months. The 28-year-old checks all of the boxes: He plays with an edge. He brings a forecheck presence. He can score. He can dish. He competes.
And Miller can play the middle. Indeed, that’s where he has generally plied his, uh, trade. That is important for the Rangers, why? Because the Blueshirts will need a top-six center next season if they can’t sign pending free agent Ryan Strome to an extension. Talks are ongoing, but there remains a gap between the offer and the ask.
Hence, acquiring Miller could theoretically address two holes in two years for the Rangers, though Drury presumably will have a far better idea about the status of the Strome negotiation by the deadline.
But though Miller would fill the top-six hole in the middle next season, 2022-23 also represents the final year of his contract, under which he carries an annual $5.25 million cap hit. The Rangers would not have the necessary cap space available to accommodate an extension, so they would be back on the hunt for a top-six center after next season.
And their pool of assets would be shallower after presumably sacrificing some of their premium prospects in order to get Miller. So, if management and Strome are unable to navigate the speed bump in talks and No. 16 goes scot-free this summer — and again, Drury should have a pretty good handle on it all by the deadline — would the Rangers be better off holding onto their prime assets this March in order to deal them for a center in July?
Mark Scheifele, who turns 29 in a month and has two more seasons at an annual $6.125 million cap hit, is having a down year in Winnipeg for a club that will probably require a reset. If the Rangers have already used their chips on Miller, they’d pretty much be out of the picture on this one — unless they go rogue. Drury does not strike me as an individual who would go rogue.
It seems to me that if Strome is staying, there’s a Column A on the menu of March 21 possibilities. But if signs point to him fleeing, there instead would be a Column B. Let me ask you this one. If Strome is a goner, would it better for the Rangers to save their assets in order to make a run at one of the young centers around the league, rather than going in on a Scheifele?
Would it be beneficial for the Rangers to keep Nils Lundkvist — expendable on a loaded right side — in order to have the Swede available to front a package for a Dylan Holloway, an Alex Turcotte, a Kirby Dach or a Barrett Hayton?
That would depend on the track on which the Rangers and Drury are operating. Local or express? Cost vs. return? Strome or not? The history major has these next 15 dress rehearsals to calculate an answer to the equation.
