Huge if True: Will the Rangers do anything this summer?

[Breaking down the plausibility of the week’s biggest rumor.]

The thing that’s weird about the New York Rangers is how little they’d done this summer.

They’ve made just three signings, all on July 1, and the players they acquired are, shall we say, gambles. Adam Clendening, Nathan Gerbe, and Michael Grabner are all the money they’ve spent.

And for a team like the Rangers, that usually makes sense. They’re pretty capped-out as a general rule, and that (plus an institutional disregard for his play) is the reason why Keith Yandle was allowed to walk before unrestricted free agency even began.

Of course, you can go to their General Fanager page and see that they have more than $9 million to spend, and you might get a little confused, but it’s pretty clear they’re ramping up to sign a number of RFAs to contracts they expect to be somewhat sizable. Among the guys they need to re-sign right now: Chris Kreider, Kevin Hayes and Dylan McIlrath. That’s going to eat up a pretty big chunk of their unused cap space real quick.

And it also leaves them in a position of want in terms of actually getting guys who are going to make them competitive for next season. Their defense is of course a mess and their forward group is, would you say, “fine?” That sounds about right to me, but that’s about it.

This is a club that will be at least somewhat competitive as long as Henrik Lundqvist is playing for it, so they won’t even think about a forward-looking plan that might kind of look, in passing, if you squint at, it from a distance, like something you might consider to be vaguely reminiscent of a rebuild. The Rangers never tear it down, and that’s been doubly true for as long as Lundqvist is still wearing the Broadway Blue.

So how do you get better if you can’t spend money, but understand you need to improve a roster that is clearly lacking in difference-making talent? Well, you hit the trade market.

The Rumor

But here’s the thing: Everyone knows Rangers GM Jeff Gorton need to make trades, and that means rival GMs are not really too eager to help him out in any significant way. As such, there have been no trades made, and Andrew Gross says the market ain’t looking so hot right now. And also that maybe because all three of the above-listed RFAs have filed for arbitration, Gorton will need to prioritize not heaving to those hearings — the first of which are a week from today, and a week from tomorrow, for McIlrath and Kreider, respectively — above getting better via trade.

That means figuring out comparables, figuring out whether someone is worth what they’re asking for, and so on. It’s not easy, and because arbitration isn’t always a friendly process, it’s reasonable that Gorton would want to avoid it at all costs even if he doesn’t necessarily love the players in question.

Which brings us to the first bit of trade bait for the Rangers anyway. Rangers beat writers like Gross and Pat Leonard both see at least some possibility that the team would rather simply trade Kreider in the next eight days than head to arbitration about a new deal for him. Especially because that could get expensive in a hurry. Of the three RFAs waiting to be re-signed, Kreider — coming off three straight seasons with at least 37 points, with the low end of that being the result of his playing just 66 games in 2013-14 — would almost certainly have the most trade value. Especially because he’s only 25 and a positive possession player and a reliable 20-goal guy with tons of speed. Those don’t come along every day.

The other guy you’re hearing a lot about in trade rumors out of the Rangers shouldn’t come as any sort of surprise to even the most disinterested bystanders. It’s Rick Nash. Of course it’s Rick Nash.

That’s a name that’s obviously been kicking around out there for a while now, but earlier this week Nash was cited by both Hockey Prospectus/ESPN’s Matthew Coller and USA Today’s Kevin Allen as a reasonable possibility to move in the next few weeks as well. Allen further noted someone might want to take Marc Staal or Kevin Klein off Gorton’s hands. I’m less inclined to believe that could happen.

Who’s Going Where?

So the question here is, if we’re so sure it’s either Nash or Kreider leaving town, who wants them? As far as Kreider goes, you’d have to think the market would be significant for all the reasons listed above. If this is a copycat league, the Pittsburgh Penguins just created an incredibly strong market for a 20-goal-scorer who can skate in a way few others in the league do. As such, if he becomes available, you can bet there would be any number of unspecified teams that are at least interested.

One potential destination cited by Coller was the Minnesota Wild, where 30-plus veterans who used to be really good but now not so much have become the norm. This makes sense because the Wild also have a number of unsigned RFAs of varying quality — Mikael Granlund, Nino Niederreiter, and Matt Dumba — who might interest the Rangers. Not that I’d expect either of the forwards to produce more than Nash, but Dumba could be attractive what with that whole “the Rangers’ blue line is a catastrophe” thing they have going on. Of course, Dumba has also been connected to more than a few teams in recent months, so who knows?

While Allen doesn’t get into specifics, he does note the Ducks, Wild, Blues, might be in the market to improve up front.

The Implications

The Rangers have to do something. They can’t not-clear cap space, and they certainly want to avoid as many as four arbitration hearings. So someone’s moving. And because they’re a bit over a barrel here, they have to trade guys that actually help them regardless. So they have to determine whether their need on the back end is more pressing than what they’d be losing up front (probably it is).

It’s tough to envy Gorton’s position here. He took over as captain of a ship right as it headed into iceberg-infested waters, and now he has to steer it through without a major hull breach. Not easy. Glen Sather left him with a total mess of a roster and especially when it comes to cap commitments. He almost has to do something just to make sure he keeps his job a while longer. Missing the playoffs next season is a distinct possibility regardless (all it takes is one mediocre year from a goaltender who, granted, has basically never had a mediocre year), and that could cost him his job right quick.

So the Rangers will probably do something in the next few weeks. You can almost take that to the bank.

This Is So Huge, If True: Is It True?

On a B.S. detector scale of 1-5, with one being the most reasonable and 5 being the least:

The Rangers trade Chris Kreider:

(Extremely plausible, especially if he decides he wants a Kyle Palmieri-type deal.)

The Rangers trade Rick Nash:

(Nice idea but who wants to take on that deal unless New York retains salary?)

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All statistics via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)