The New York Rangers had a relatively successful season in 2007-08, although many may have expected last season’s acquisitions of Chris Drury and Scott Gomez, along with the emergence and development of several young defensemen to carry the team further into the postseason. Next season may see a number of different players in key roles for New York. The departure of Jaromir Jagr to Russia freed up a large amount of money for the Rangers to play with and they made a couple of gambles which may or may not pay off in the upcoming season. Troublemaker Sean Avery was not pursued, and was signed by Dallas. While Avery made as much noise off the ice as he did on it, the Rangers were a consistently better team when he was in lineup, and it will be interesting to see how the team fares without him.
Former NHL scoring leader Markus Naslund was wooed away from Vancouver, to play on the big stage at MSG. Unfortunately for New York, Naslund scored only 25 goals and 55 points last season. Totals like that will not be nearly enough to fill the hole left by Jagr’s departure, and unless Naslund can return to some form of his previous play, New York’s gamble may come back to bite them. The Rangers took another risk by signing aging defenseman Wade Redden to provide experience and veteran leadership to a blueline corps with many rising stars, like Mike Rozsival and Marc Staal. Veteran defenseman Dmitri Kalinin was also signed, helping to add depth in front of standout netminder Henrik Lundqvist.
Acquring Kalinin and Redden gave the Rangers the ability to move young defensemen Christian Backman and Fedor Tyutin to Columbus, in exchange for center Dan Fristche and the talented Nikolai Zherdev. The Rangers also signed role players Patrick Rismiller and Aaron Voros, while locking up backup goaltender Stephen Valiquette.
If Naslund and Redden can play like they did in the prime of their careers, the Rangers will come out of this offseason looking like geniuses. If not, they will be stuck waiting for a bunch of former stars to retire..