So begins the Rangers’ offseason, and all the questions that come with it.
After retooling on the fly this past summer, the team compiled by general manger Jeff Gorton fell short, losing a second-round series to the Senators with a 4-2 defeat in Game 6 on Tuesday night at the Garden. Never will the second round be an acceptable finish for the Rangers, not as long as Henrik Lundqvist is in nets.
So how to remedy that begins shortly, with the Blueshirts getting Wednesday off before the exit meetings on Thursday. It was a bitter end to an inconsistent season, and the Blueshirts are at a crossroads of the Lundqvist Era.
“You started in July, last summer, to start to train and prepare. It was right there for us,” Lundqvist said late Tuesday night, his pads still on, soon to put his head in his hands and just sit in the locker room — alone, lonesome, inconsolable.
“Obviously the next week or so, you’re going to analyze your own game and analyze what we did as a group and personally,” he had said. “See what we could have done better and learn from it.”
The first place Gorton has to address is his back end. Both Dan Girardi and Marc Staal have proudly given everything they have to this franchise over the past decade, but both are possible candidates to be bought out. Girardi, 33, is the more likely, as his deal is one year shorter — three more years at $5.5 million per, compared with the 30-year-old Staal’s four years remaining at $5.7 million per — which translates to two years less of dead-cap space in a buyout.
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There is the question of Brendan Smith, the trade-deadline acquisition who is set to be an unrestricted free agent and garner a substantial raise from his $2.75 million hit he carried this season. Smith, 28, brought a tenacity and snarl that the Rangers were looking for and need in the future — but at what price?
Both Kevin Klein and Nick Holden are signed through next season, so both are eligible to be exposed to the expansion draft for the Vegas Golden Knights, who need to take one player off every team. Neither is likely to get picked, meaning they would both be in training camp unless Gorton can find a package deal to ship them away.
Speaking of the expansion draft, the Rangers also need to expose two forwards who are signed for next season. That would mean locking up two restricted free agents, Oscar Lindberg and Jesper Fast, both of whom would be attractive to the Vegas franchise. Because of Lindberg’s offensive skill and his position at center, he could slide right into the Golden Knights’ starting lineup. Vegas GM George McPhee also might consider taking backup goalie Antti Raanta, but his goaltending options out there are numerous.
Even with Lindberg, the Rangers absolutely need to get stronger down the middle. Gorton seems to have made a pretty good deal this past summer when he traded Derick Brassard up to the Senators and brought back Mika Zibanejad (and also a second-round pick that was eventually flipped to obtain Smith). Despite a regular season marred by a broken leg on Nov. 20 and a slow start to the postseason, Zibanejad picked his game up and showed he has the capabilities to be a big-game player like Brassard. Having just turned 24 years old, Gorton likely won’t fret too much over his negotiations to ink the restricted free agent to a new deal. If the price is right, it might be more than just a bridge deal.
Then there is the trio of young forwards who can be maddening in their inconsistencies. With Chris Kreider, J.T. Miller and Kevin Hayes all between the ages of 24 and 26, they are attractive trade pieces if the proper deal comes along — say, a top-four righty defenseman. They all might stay, but Gorton has to be all ears to incoming offers.
And what’s to say of Rick Nash’s no-move clause, with a $7.8 million cap hit for the 32-year-old on the last year of his deal before reaching unrestricted free agency? If he stays now, then maybe he moves as a rental at the trade deadline.
The Blueshirts do have a lot of young promise in Jimmy Vesey, Pavel Buchnevich and Brady Skjei. But right now there are more questions than answers, and a lot of work in front of Gorton to make this team a contender again.