Kevin Klein, who was an integral piece of the Rangers’ run to the 2014 Stanley Cup final and the club’s 2014-15 Presidents’ Trophy season before breaking down last year, is contemplating retirement from the NHL, The Post has learned.
Sources report Klein, who was a healthy scratch for all but one playoff game following a regular season in which persistent lower back issues limited him to 60 games, is leaning toward leaving the NHL and continuing his career in Europe.
Individuals with knowledge of the situation stressed that a final decision has not been made even as the 32-year-old righty defenseman held a going-away party over the weekend.
Klein, who has been working out at the Blueshirts’ practice facility, has one year at $2.75 million remaining on his contract with an accompanying $2.9 million cap hit. If he does indeed retire from the NHL, the Rangers would thus gain an additional $2.9 million of 2017-18 space.
Klein, a throwback, stay-at-home, physical defender who added a surprising degree of offensive production in his best days on Broadway, partnered primarily with Marc Staal or Keith Yandle after coming to New York from Nashville midway through 2013-14 in exchange for Michael Del Zotto in one of then-general manager Glen Sather’s best trades.
But the nine-year veteran struggled through the latter half of 2015-16 and then never was himself last season, getting into only 60 games throughout which his play was compromised. Klein missed the first three games with back problems that would later sideline him for 16 games from Feb. 23 though March 25.
Though he did return late in the season to play five of the final six matches, it was too late for Klein to regain his effectiveness and earn a spot in the postseason lineup. He did replace Nick Holden for Game 3 of the first round against the Canadiens, but struggled and then watched the remainder of the tournament in street clothes.
And as the Blueshirts seek to remodel their defense over the summer into a more mobile unit, Klein would be considered a long shot to crack the 2017-18 top-six. He will be left unprotected in the upcoming expansion draft, but there is no chance — and never was — that he would be claimed by Vegas.
Klein, Nashville’s second-round (37th overall) selection in the 2003 Entry Draft, has played 224 games with the Rangers (22 goals, 50 assists, 72 points) and 627 games overall (38 goals, 116 assists, 154 points) in an NHL career that may well have reached its conclusion.