Rangers Offseason

Coming of their valiant loss to the Caps, the Rangers had a lot to do, and they've already made some important moves for the franchise with the draft more than three weeks away. With the Erixon trade now in the books, the Rangers have signed all but Kreider of their big prospects, and traded two others Werek and Horak, for a pair of Swedish cousins, the Rangers had heavily scouted for the `09 and `10 drafts. In fact, going back to the Gomez trade that brought McDonagh and Big V, the Rangers have continued to add highly coveted pieces from their past draft boards to fill out their farm.

I'm still not down with the Werek trade, but there had to be more to the story, and they did try to trade around to get Oscar last year. But as it is right now, we're going to have a lot of prospects either with the team or in Hartford next season. Not the kind of vets and old timers we used to keep in the AHL, but real prospects. That's very advantageous.

They still need to sign Kreider. Remember Stepan last year signed around the 2nd week of June, so keep an eye on this. I still think he's coming.

As for the draft, we now have a first, a fourth and 2 fifths. Of course, being prospect rich, we can pick up more picks with a trade down in the first or by moving some non-essentials. But as of right now, day 2 holds nothing for the Rangers.

Onto trades and free agency. We have a lot of ammo for trades, of course, much of it is future core, so we don't want to move it, but we are still loaded for trades because we have so many defensemen. Erixon makes one more, but we are stacked with young defensive talent in the NHL and the AHL, heck we even have Pashin and the rights to more overseas. So the theme of the next trades will probably involve moving defense for offense. I'm not sure who the targets might be on O, but I do expect them to sign Brad Richards in free agency.

On the, it's finally over front, both Drury and Redden should be off the books before camp. Go Rangers!