Sports

Rangers must decide price for shipping out Kevin Hayes

GLENDALE, Ariz. — This is when a long season becomes painful for weaker teams that managed to harness enough early adrenaline and belief to be at least moderately successful before Thanksgiving but just aren’t blessed with enough of the right stuff to be a long-term factor.

The last few weeks have provided a flashback to last season for the Rangers — a harder-working group, for sure, but not appreciably stronger in its own end, coming through the neutral zone or below the offensive zone hash marks. This team has a greater presence and has more on-ice camaraderie — and that’s not nothing — but is settling into the long, hard winter that had been projected.

As such, this is a good reminder that the focus is on what comes after 2018-19, not during it. When the Rangers face the Coyotes on Sunday afternoon, the match’s greatest significance is its effect on positioning for the lottery. Beyond that, management (if not some of the affected players) has its focus trained on the Feb. 25 trade deadline.





Does the inexorable, post-Thanksgiving 5-8-5 slide have an impact on the status of Kevin Hayes? Wait. Let’s rephrase. How much of an impact does the slide have on management’s decision whether to trade or extend the impending free agent? It does not bode especially well for the “sign Hayes” camp that the team, A) has been deficient during his ascendancy and, B) seems in for a full-length, no-shortcuts rebuild.

The suspicion in July, when the current one-year deal was announced, was that both sides implicitly understood this was going to be a one-and-done in which the Rangers used Hayes to enhance his value on the trade market and Hayes used the Rangers to enhance his value on the free-agent market. It has resulted in a beautiful friendship.





Hayes has soared while taking significant steps for a third straight season. He has been the team’s most multi-faceted, complete and dangerous five-on-five player. He and Marc Staal are the lone players to exceed expectations each of the past two years. In doing so, Hayes has established a market that is probably too rich for general manager Jeff Gorton not to explore fully.

Rebuilds are rarely accelerated by the dumping of a team’s best player. The Capitals traded Jaromir Jagr to the Rangers in late January 2004 prior to cleaning out the cupboard before drafting Alex Ovechkin first overall, but that’s an exception, and the Caps had been looking to dump No 68’s salary for a year.





Hayes may have positioned himself as the top rental on the market. It is unclear what that would yield, though the standard late first-rounder plus a reasonable prospect does not seem nearly enough. Draft choices may be currency at the deadline, but acquiring teams are not seeking to subtract from their NHL rosters. So, no, the Jets are not likely to sacrifice Jacob Trouba for a rental piece.

Ideally, the Rangers would be able to pick up a non-playoff team’s first-rounder plus a young player who could play in the NHL next season as either a top-nine forward or top-four defenseman, perhaps plus another pick or player if there is enough interest. Carolina is desperate for help up front, may miss the playoffs and has depth on defense through the organization that includes the rights to Harvard righty “D” Adam Fox.





Clearly, there will be much interest in Hayes. It would be foolish for Gorton not to play the field but only if he retains the option for signing No. 13 to what ideally would be a five-year deal. But that is if also only if Gorton hadn’t decided last summer that this would be that one-and-done, that the Rangers had their first-liner in Mika Zibanejad and that they would need to clear a spot for Filip Chytil to move into a top-six role at his natural position sooner rather than later to give the building process a foundation.

If that was the GM’s thinking entering the season, the Rangers’ past six weeks probably have not changed it.





Share this: