The New York Rangers finally snapped a five-game losing streak after beating the Montreal Canadiens 4-3 on Saturday afternoon, so it’s time for everyone to calm down.
Last week Rangers general manager Chris Drury created quite a stir after sending a league wide memo that the team is interested in making moves and shaking up their roster with Chris Kreider and Jacob Trouba’s names being indicated as potential options in a move.
This news ultimately became public, causing rampant trade speculation, which is an unnecessary distraction for the Rangers at this point in the season.
This report also led to some confusion among opposing teams on what the Rangers were exactly looking to do.
“And you know, people have heard Trouba’s name before,” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said. “They hadn’t heard Kreider’s name before. And I think in the aftermath of that, what teams were trying to figure out was, what are the Rangers really, really willing to do? Are there other players who could be available? And since Trouba and Kreider have partial no-trade clauses, where would they really be willing to go?”
Friedman adds that the Rangers both want to calm down the situation while also keeping control of the situation, which is why the Rangers did not give anyone permission to speak to Trouba or Kreider.
“I think also, in the middle of this, the blowback was so crazy, and the result this week so poor until today, I think even New York wanted to tone down the heat and just pause before they jumped into anything really too intense or that they might later regret. So, things kind of cooled down a bit,” Friedman said.
“I think the interesting thing here is that the Rangers did not give anyone permission to speak to Trouba or Kreider. They want to keep control of the process, and that’s critical because earlier this week, the NHL sent out a memo.”
As of right now, things have really calmed down in Rangers world with these trade rumors losing steam.
All teams go through adversity throughout a season, so it’s on the Rangers to see how they ultimately handle it and move forward.
