Within the risk-averse NHL, the Rangers and Canucks determined it was higher to roll the cube than to simply accept their new regular as playoff outsiders.
It is a breath of recent air.
Even realizing that the J.T. Miller-Elias Pettersson saga had turn into untenable — admitted as a lot by Canucks president Jim Rutherford — the package deal that the Canucks in the end settled on carries lots of threat for the crew.
It carries lots of threat for the Rangers as properly.
Right here is the potential threat — and reward — of the Canucks and Rangers’ swap.
The Danger
The Canucks did one thing that groups should not do — traded one of the best participant, who additionally occurs to be a real high middle, and acquired again a thriller field within the course of.
The Rangers additionally did one thing you are not imagined to do — they acquired an getting old participant on the improper facet of 30 in the midst of a down season on a long-term contract. And so they gave up on a promising 25-year-old middle who has confirmed he generally is a 20-goal scorer within the NHL. And whilst this transfer doubtlessly makes the crew higher this season, it might not make them higher with sufficient time left to make a distinction.
In the meantime, that 25-year-old middle, Filip Chytil, hasn’t appeared like the identical participant since struggling a concussion that value him 72 regular-season video games and a part of the playoffs final 12 months. Vancouver is banking on him to seek out the a part of his sport stolen by accidents over the previous two seasons.
The pink flags are waving. So, what provides?
The Reward
Rangers normal supervisor Chris Drury has been actively looking for to remake the core of his crew because the eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers eradicated New York in six video games final spring.
For the reason that season began, he is dealt defenseman Jacob Trouba and winger Kaapo Kakko, acquired and prolonged defenseman Will Borgen, and now traded Chytil in a deal for Miller.
Miller, a former 100-point participant who’s notoriously tough for top-line facilities to match up towards, might be the participant the Rangers had been lacking within the 2024 playoffs.
For the Canucks, their hand was pressured by the Miller-Pettersson feud spilling into the general public sphere. That mentioned, there’s an upside within the gamers they acquired. The actual reward was the top-13 protected first-round choose the Rangers despatched — offering Vancouver with the ammunition they wanted to make a second commerce Friday evening that introduced in pending unrestricted free agent defenseman Marcus Pettersson from Pittsburgh to bolster their back-end.
As of Feb. 1, two groups had been on the surface trying in, and neither thought-about that acceptable.
