TORONTO — Let’s play multiple choice.
The Rangers did not recall a forward to fill the injured Jesper Fast’s roster spot for the road trip that stops in Colorado on Thursday and Arizona on Saturday, following Tuesday’s match against the Maple Leafs, because:
A. The Blueshirts have an extremely limited amount of cap space on hand and thus decided to carry the minimum 12 forwards for the time being;
B. The Blueshirts don’t have a winger playing in Hartford who management believes can contribute;
C. The Rangers won’t need an extra forward for the rest of the trip because they will be leaving Toronto with Mike Santorelli, the Maple Leafs’ pending unrestricted free agent who is being shopped by the club and whom the Blueshirts covet as a rental property to solve their third-line and bottom-six issues.
The most logical choice is A.
The most depressing choice is B.
The most tantalizing, albeit least likely, choice would be C.
But boy, would it bring a ray of sunshine into a Rangers’ world clouded by the injury to Henrik Lundqvist if indeed it is C.
At the right price, of course.
Santorelli’s cap charge of $1.5 million is the perfect price for the Blueshirts, who appear to have approximately $1.25 million of space on hand that would compound to more than $2 million at the March 2 deadline.
But it is also the perfect price for numerous teams around the league seeking to shore up for the stretch run and the playoffs.
Which means, of course, the Leafs are in a seller’s market, more likely to stoke a relative bidding war than to move quickly … unless, of course, the needy Rangers are willing to meet Toronto’s asking price that is yet to be established but undoubtedly would involve either a reasonably high draft pick and/or an NHL-ready prospect.
The Rangers don’t have a first-rounder after sending it to the Lightning last year when Ryan Callahan and Marty St. Louis swapped addresses. They do have two seconds — their own and the Lightning’s — plus a third, a fourth and a sixth in the 2015 Entry Draft.
Santorelli is having a down year at the dots, just 46.3 percent, but the right-handed shooter entered the season as a capable faceoff man with a career 49.9 percent success ratio and thus could play right wing with center Kevin Hayes and Carl Hagelin while taking draws.
Is a second-rounder too much, is that just enough, does that get it done sooner rather than later or anytime at all?
A second or J.T. Miller, the lone expendable young gun on the Rangers’ roster — but only because of his inability to generate trust from coach Alain Vigneault, to whom every one of the 21-year-old’s mistakes is one mistake too many.
Is that too much, is that just enough, does that get it done sooner rather than later or anytime at all?
A second and Miller?
Uh, no, that would be too much.
Of course, moving Miller for Santorelli — who has gone 11-18-29 and has reasonable advanced stats within the context of playing for a very bad team — would still leave the Rangers without a spare forward for Fast’s projected two- to three-week absence, but they’d have taken care of a nagging third-line problem area.
The Rangers not only don’t have much space — some of which they would need to invest in a veteran backup for Cam Talbot — but the Blueshirts don’t have much in the way of assets they can afford to move, and certainly not for a support third-liner.
Anthony Duclair? No, not with the future of current top-six right wings, and pending unrestricted free agents St. Louis and Mats Zuccarello both murky at best.
Pavel Buchnevich, the 2013 third-round left wing excelling at the age of 19 in the KHL, having recorded 26 points (11-15) in 42 games with Severstal? Not a chance.
Dylan McIlrath? Is anyone knocking on the door and if so, would the Rangers answer, or does the organization believe the 22-year-old, 2010 first-rounder still will make it to Broadway, even if he doesn’t necessarily have the “easy, early” game Vigneault favors, perhaps at times to the exclusion of an individual’s other assets?
So many questions.
So many possible answers.
Take your pick.
It’s multiple choice.