The New York Rangers have seen an early payoff from the Vladimir Tarasenko trade. The team has added three more wins to their six-game winning streak with the new forward in the lineup. Tarasenko has a goal and an assist in that span, and you can see the way his addition has energized the Rangers lineup.
New York may not be done adding at the deadline. The Rangers still have plenty of assets to make another splash or two. Frank Seravalli and Colby Cohen talked more on "Daily Faceoff Live" about if the Rangers should make more moves and what they could possibly be.
Colby Cohen: If I’m the Rangers, I’m not done. I’m still out there looking, especially going through your trade board that you’ve been putting up. And some of the names that really stick out to me; guys that are interesting are guys like Ivan Barbashev, guys like Noel Acciari and maybe a guy like Nick Bjugstad. I’d like to see the Rangers get a little bit more size in the back of their forward lineup, add a little bit of depth.
One other guy that I looked at was Lawson Crouse from the Arizona Coyotes. He makes $4.3 million, and he does have term, but Arizona could eat a little bit of that. They could ask for a first-round pick. They could ask for [Vitali] Kravtso., They could ask for maybe Zac Jones from Hartford. He’s a young defenseman who I don’t think the Rangers would mind parting with if the right deal came about.
If I’m Chris Drury, I’m looking at the way this team has gelled adding a guy like Tarasenko, and I’m looking at opportunities to maybe challenge my top nine, maybe bring in a forward that could battle with Jimmy Vesey for that role on the second line or potentially slot into the fourth line, add a little bit of depth, add a little bit of grittiness. Sam Lafferty seems to be a pretty popular guy these days, the way he’s playing in the bottom of the lineup.
I like your trade board, Frank, and I think there are a number of forwards that are reasonable financially and otherwise that could help the Rangers.
Frank Seravalli: As you pointed out, the New York Rangers have mostly still kept a lot of their assets intact, even after the Tarasenko-[Niko] Mikkola trade, because they had that extra first-round pick from the Nils Lundkvist trade. The St. Louis Blues get the lower of the Dallas Stars' first-round pick or the Rangers', so if the Rangers wanted to, they could still go out and trade another first-round pick to add to their team.
Not sure that they need to swing that big, but as we mentioned, Chris Drury traded for four players last year at the deadline, and all four of them were rentals who ended up walking in the summer for nothing.
You can watch the full episode here…
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