At this time five years ago, it was the summer of 2019. The New York Rangers were entering the second offseason of their rebuild. They had won the second overall pick in the NHL Draft and they had traded for a young defenseman by the name of Adam Fox. With the Rangers adding more young pieces, it seemed like the rebuild was heading in the right direction. However, two moves during the 2019 offseason impacted the Rangers’ rebuild and changed the direction they moved in as the years went on. While the moves have made good impacts on the team in the five years since then, there have also been some negatives to come from them.
Trading For Jacob Trouba
The Winnipeg Jets were at a standstill with Jacob Trouba in 2019. The defenseman wanted a trade out of Winnipeg and to be moved to a team in the United States. He wanted the move so that he could make life easier for his wife, who was studying to become a doctor. The two teams that he was most interested in being traded to were the Detroit Red Wings and the Rangers. He was a restricted free agent at the time, so he had some control over the matter. On June 17, 2019, the Rangers traded Neal Pionk and a 2019 first-round pick to the Jets for Trouba’s negotiating rights. The pick the Jets acquired was their pick back from the Rangers as they traded it to them at the 2019 Trade Deadline in a deal for Kevin Hayes. At the time of this deal, Rangers fans were ecstatic cause they felt they got a number one right-handed defenseman. However, it would not turn out this way as the years went on.
The first mistake the Rangers made was giving him a seven-year deal worth $8 million per season. Trouba was coming off the best season of his career where he scored eight goals and 50 points in 82 games played. While those are good numbers for a defenseman, this was still an overpayment and to this day, he has not lived up to this deal and has not reached 50 points again. While his play has gotten better since his arrival, he is not the top right-handed defenseman on the team as Fox grew into one of the best players in the NHL and Trouba is stuck playing on the second pair. His contract has become a problem for this team and since they named him the captain, it doesn’t seem like he will be leaving anytime soon.
Signing Artemi Panarin
The biggest move made that summer happened on July 1. The Rangers signed superstar forward, Artemi Panarin, to a seven-year deal worth $11,642,857 per season. He became the second-highest-paid player in the league at the time and the highest-paid winger in the NHL. Panarin turned down more money from both the New York Islanders and Columbus Blue Jackets in order to play for the Rangers. The signing at the time was a massive boost to the rebuilding Rangers. It’s not every day that you can add a superstar player for just money and less money than what your rival teams were offering. He wanted to be a Ranger and it has worked out very well for both the team and the player.
Related: How The Rangers Rebuild Went Awry
Panarin has recorded over 90 points in three of his four seasons with the team and would have been on pace for that if the season was longer in 2020-21. He was a Hart Trophy nominee in his first year with the team when he scored 95 points in 69 games played. He was a major addition to the offense his first season and alongside Mika Zibanejad, who scored 41 goals that same season, they carried the offense and were a major reason why the Rangers were fighting for a playoff spot when the season shut down due to COVID-19. Panarin has been a major positive to this team, but now five years later, opinions have changed in regard to the impact he has had on and off the ice.
After failing to record a point after Game 1 against the New Jersey Devils, a majority of the fanbase has changed their opinion on Panarin. He is a good regular season scorer but has failed to show up in the playoffs for two consecutive seasons. While he did have 16 points in 20 playoff games during the 2021-22 season, he was rarely a factor in those games. Last season was even worse as he only had two assists in the seven-game series against the Devils. Fans wanted him gone this summer and although that did not happen, they are still going to be sour on him going into 2023-24.
Impact on the Rebuild
The trade for Trouba and the Panarin signing had a big impact on the rebuild. It made the Rangers think that they were better than they actually were at the time. During the 2019-20 season, so many things were going right for the team. Panarin was having a Hart Trophy-caliber season, Zibanejad was scoring almost every game and the surprising arrival of a rookie goalie named Igor Shesterkin really helped mask the problems the team still had. When the season shut down in March 2020, the Rangers were fighting for a playoff spot and had all the momentum in the world. However, when they returned for the Bubble Playoffs, they were not the same team.
The Rangers got destroyed by the Carolina Hurricanes in three games and just like that, their season was done as quickly as they got back. They got lucky a few weeks later when they won the draft lottery and got the first overall pick which got them Alexis Lafreniere, but that hasn’t worked out for them yet. Lafreniere hasn’t gotten the chance to prove himself because he is the third-best left-winger on the team behind Panarin and Chris Kreider. And since the Rangers thought they were better than they were, they kept their veteran players like Kreider and signed him to a long-term deal that is hurting them to this day.
While the Panarin and Trouba moves were exciting at the time, their contracts have become anchors for this team. Almost $20 million of the Rangers’ cap space is locked up in these two players and neither of them can be moved due to the trade protection in their deals. The 2019 offseason gave the Rangers’ rebuild a big boost, but it also impacted the path it was going in, and looking back, it seems like they should have stayed the course instead of going out and making big moves.