3 best trade destinations for Rangers’ Carson Soucy

After failing to make the playoffs for the first time since the 2020-21 season, the New York Rangers have had a quiet start to the summer. They have made just one major move heading into free agency beginning July 1. The Rangers sent Chris Kreider to the Anaheim Ducks earlier this offseason. Still, with limited cap space and a desire to return to their past glory, New York needs to make more moves. One of them could be trading Carson Soucy.

The Rangers will have just $15.6 million in cap space this summer. They also have four restricted free agents and two unrestricted free agents currently. One of the restricted free agents is blue liner K’Andre Miller. New York has explored the option of trading Miller. While the franchise is short on cap space, they could also opt to keep the left-side defender. One way to do that would be to move on from another member of the rearguard on the same side. That would be Soucy.

The Canadian was drafted with the 137th overall pick in the 2013 NHL draft by the Minnesota Wild. After time in the AHL with the Iowa Wild, Soucy would break into the NHL for the first time in 2018. He would return to the NHL full-time in the 2019-20 season and play two years with the Wild. Soucy would be selected by the Seattle Kraken in the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft. After two seasons with the Kraken, he would sign with the Vancouver Canucks in free agency. This past March, he was traded to the Rangers in exchange for a conditional 2025 third-round draft pick.

The soon-to-be 31-year-old defender is coming off a down season. He appeared in 75 total games between the Canucks and Rangers, having four goals and nine assists. He also had a minus-11 rating, the first time he has finished the season with a negative plus/minus rating since playing just three games for the Wild in 2018.

With just one year remaining on his contract before he becomes a UFA, it would make sense for the Rangers to potentially move on from the blue liner to recoup some cap space. Here are three potential suitors for Soucy’s services.

The Chicago Blackhawks need a defenseman

It has been a busy summer for the Blackhawks already. They traded away Joe Veleno in exchange for Andre Burakovsky to bolster their forwards. They also signed Connor Bedard’s linemate, Ryan Donato, to a contract extension. Still, the only move they have made on the blue line is the buyout of TJ Brodie. Chicago needs players on the blue line. Alex Vlasic and Connor Murphy are both back on the blue line and led the team in ice-time for players still with the franchise and playing more than ten games. Meanwhile, Sam Rinzel played nine games last year and is also back. The other defender under contract is Kevin Korchinski, who played just 16 games last season.

Chicago needs players who can spend plenty of time on the ice. Vlasic was the only defenseman who played 82 games for the club, while Murphy played 68, and Wyatt Kaiser, who is a restricted free agent, was third with 57 games. Meanwhile, Soucy has played 64 or more games in three of the last four years. Further, he has had over 16 minutes of ice time in each of the last five campaigns, giving him solid second or third rotation minutes.

The Hawks also need scoring help from the blue line. Seth Jones, who was traded away during the season, and Alec Martinez, who retired at the end of the year, had the most goals of blue line players, having seven and five, respectively. Soucy has shown in his career that he can be a scoring threat, scoring 10 goals in the 2021-22 campaign for the Kraken. While that may be an outlier, he still scored four goals with nine assists last season.

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