The seven-game heater the Rangers carried into Tuesday night’s high-rent district confrontation with Dallas on the Garden has not erased all doubts. The winning streak that began the sport before the All-Star break has not quite done that.
But this run is somewhat harking back to the 18-4-1 getaway that stamped the Blueshirts as an upper-echelon team in a league with no single great one. There are not any 1982 Islanders, 1992 Penguins, 2002 Red Wings or 2013 Blackhawks casting a dark and daunting shadow over the proceedings.
And this stretch surely justifies general manager Chris Drury pushing his chips to the center of the table because the March 8 trade deadline approaches. The Rangers should not one piece away just like the Islanders after they acquired Butch Goring on the 1980 deadline in essentially the most impactful trade in pro sports history. There are imperfections dotting the lineup.
But after surveying the national landscape during which the Blueshirts entered Tuesday fifth overall within the league, two points out of second and five points out of first with the NHL’s fourth-highest winning percentage, Drury and the hierarchy must be approaching this with a “Why not us?” attitude.
There are different interpretations of what pushing the Rangers’ chips into the center would mean. It doesn’t mean making a trade comparable to Tony Amonte for Stephane Matteau and Brian Noonan. It doesn’t mean sacrificing Brennan Othmann. It actually doesn’t mean forfeiting the rights to Gabe Perreault. It doesn’t mean trading Kaapo Kakko because, well, come on, did that ever make the slightest sense?
However the 2024 first-rounder will probably be in play, because it actually should. Anyone in AHL Hartford apart from Othmann — and that features Brett Berard and maybe Adam Sykora — needs to be on the table, in fact depending on the return to Recent York. Drury has allotted draft picks like Pez in exchange for rentals on the last couple of deadlines and that just isn’t a sustainable strategy.
But this can be a team that has won once in 84 years that has been built to win now. I’m fairly certain everyone at 4 Penn Plaza would love for Igor Shesterkin to be a sure thing, but that’s going to must ride on faith. It’s self-explanatory that the Rangers won’t win with average — let alone, subpar — goaltending.
There may be this, as well, prematurely of this test against a Dallas team that entered Tuesday’s confrontation one point ahead but .003 percentage points behind the Rangers in the general standings, that there isn’t a Butch Goring in the marketplace.
In a league with no dead-solid perfect team, this can be a deadline with more buyers than sellers and with no dead-solid perfect rental to tip the scales. For essentially the most part, the bazaar will feature role players and maybe goalies.
The Rangers are in need of a right wing to skate with Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider. They might surely use an upgrade in the course of the developing third line featuring Kakko and Will Cuylle on the flanks and Jonny Brodzinski at center. They usually could use muscle on the left side of the third defensive pair though the staff could also be satisfied to keep on with the offense-driving Erik Gustafsson.
The Post has learned that the Blueshirts have identified Seattle center Alex Wennberg as an individual of interest to fill that spot in the course of the third line. The Swede is a pending free agent working on the ultimate 12 months of a free-agent deal he signed with the Kraken in 2021 under which he carries a $4.5 million cap hit.
Wennberg has some size at 6-foot-2, 190 kilos, skates well and would probably play down within the lineup as a third-liner. The Swede, 8-14-22 this season, doesn’t necessarily have the identical shooting mentality of Brodzinski playing between straight-liners Kakko and Cuylle, but he has 42 games of playoff experience, skates well and is a no-doubt legit two-way NHL center ending his tenth 12 months.
The Rangers, we’re told, should not alone regarding their interest in Wennberg. The Bruins, who might have a top-six center, have been identified as in the combo. The price — which can be impacted by Seattle retaining 50 percent of the cap charge that may enable Drury to conduct further business — won’t be low-cost. The Blueshirts, though, can’t empty the piggy bank for a third-line center.
Drury can have to be adroit juggling assets over these next two-plus weeks in attempting to rework what has been a really successful regular-season roster brimming with talent during the last three seasons right into a playoff lineup with enough fiber and physicality that it might win 4 series and 16 games. There are holes and there are questions.
But there are holes and questions just about in every single place across the East and across the league. The Rangers have been at the highest of the division day-after-day since Oct. 24. They won six straight early, they’ve won seven straight now.
They’re considered one of the league’s best teams they usually have played well enough to justify the GM pushing his chips into the center of the table.
