You’ll know what Rangers management believes about the rebuilding timeline by the decision on Chris Kreider.
Because if president John Davidson and general manager Jeff Gorton believe the Blueshirts can be legitimate playoff contenders (or more) in a volatile NHL within the next two or three years, then trading Kreider, rather than signing No. 20 to an extension, wouldn’t make the slightest bit of sense.
Because there is nothing the Rangers could get in return for Kreider that will make them a better team over the next one, two or three seasons.
On the other hand, if the front office believes the future won’t arrive for another four or five seasons, then they might as well deal Kreider by the Feb. 24 deadline in exchange for another prospect and another draft choice.
Then again, this implies the choice belongs to management, when it could just as well rest with Kreider, who at the deadline will be just under five months away from hitting the open market as a free agent.
I get the conundrum on management’s side. Kreider, who was explosive in Wednesday’s impressive 5-3 Garden victory over the Maple Leafs, is going to turn 29 at the end of April. A six-year or seven-year deal may not be optimal. And a cap hit presumably of between $6.5 million and $7 million per isn’t going to be easy peasy to accommodate.
And yes, there are too many nights when “Did. You. See. Chris.” ends with a question mark.
So OK.
But what I don’t understand at all is management’s failure to communicate with Kreider’s party about what the organization might be thinking. I don’t understand the absence of substantive talks between the sides. And I don’t think waiting until this late date to talk numbers and open negotiations, if that actually does take place, enhances the Rangers’ position.
And this: Who on earth is worried about what might happen in six years with the Rangers more likely than not to miss the playoffs for the third straight season? The Rangers probably weren’t all that worried about what Jacob Trouba would look like in six years when they signed the defenseman to a seven-year, $56 million deal after acquiring the 25-year-old from Winnipeg in June.
Maybe Kreider might have been somewhat amenable to taking some sort of hometown discount last summer. Probably not, though, given that no one asked marquee offseason acquisitions Trouba and Artemi Panarin to take one for the team. But it might have been worthwhile to start the dialogue.
There is a reason why Kreider is at the top of essentially every contender’s wish list heading into the deadline. His size. His speed. His ability to disrupt play, His conscientious back-checking work. His ability to score. That adds up to more than one reason.
But his attributes make him most valuable to the Rangers, boosted to the victory by the play of No. 1 goaltender Igor Shesterkin — you bet he is — and by the dynamic play of the Kreider-Mika Zibanejad-Pavel Buchnevich unit that accounted for three even-strength goals, one by each. Oh, and by the work of Adam Fox, perhaps the best player on the ice.
Kreider missed Monday’s desultory 5-3 loss to the Stars after having been kneed in the head by Zibanejad in Detroit on Saturday. There were no aftereffects last night, no drag on the burners, No. 20 steaming in on the left wing before cutting across to beat Michael Hutchinson on a backhand to give the Rangers a 3-1 lead at 17:24 of the first period just six seconds after his left circle faceoff win enabled Zibanejad to score from the circle.
Lightning striking again and again.
“We’re at home, we have the match, [the Leafs] kept the line out there we’re matched against, so we stayed on,” Kreider said of Toronto’s Zach Hyman-Auston Matthews-Mitch Marner unit. “Nothing more to it than that.”
You’re not going to get much hyperbole from Kreider. And the Rangers are not going to get anywhere close to equal value for him in a trade. A late first-rounder and a prospect? Not even close.
It is two days shy of the two-year anniversary of The Letter, in which management informed its fan base that the organization would change direction and rebuild after a solid decade of contention. The course correction was warranted.
But the time has come to stop taking a step back in the hopes of taking two steps forward three, four or five years down the road. The time has come. The time is now to keep Kreider.
If, that is, the Rangers can.
They might want to find out.
For more on the Rangers, listen to the latest episode of the “Up In The Blue Seats” podcast: