With Barclay Goodrow on waivers, Rangers are poised to make moves

There was a chance New York Rangers general manager Chris Drury wasn’t going to change anything this summer. His team won a Presidents’ Trophy and its first seven playoff games before running into the brick wall that is the Florida Panthers, who could be skating around the ice with the Stanley Cup this weekend.

It’s an old online joke by now, but “run it back” might not have been the worst strategy for the Rangers heading into next season.

Around 2 p.m. Tuesday, we all got a statement from Drury: We’re not resting on any laurels. Barclay Goodrow, who was Drury’s first big addition in the summer of 2021, is likely on his way to being a former Ranger with news of him being placed on waivers. The Rangers may indeed be seeing if someone will bite on three years and a $3.642 million cap hit remaining — maybe the hope is the San Jose Sharks, Goodrow’s first NHL team, would want him back to mentor Macklin Celebrini and help San Jose get to the salary-cap floor — but it feels a lot more like this is the first step in a process that ends with the Rangers buying Goodrow out.

It’s a unique buyout structure, one that has the Rangers actually gaining $247,222 in cap space next season while the biggest dead cap hit comes in 2026-27 for $3.5 million. The NHL salary cap could be $100 million by then. Rangers owner James Dolan could have moved on to a new front office by then. Drury understands the job he has and what it entails, so action is always better than patience, even on a team as good as the one he runs now.

The first buyout window opens 48 hours after the end of the final, so that could be as soon as Sunday. If Goodrow isn’t claimed, it’s hard to see how the Rangers could then turn around and keep the 31-year-old who gave the Rangers a jolt of confidence when Drury traded for his rights from the Lightning and immediately gave Goodrow a six-year deal worth $3.64 million per.

It was too much money and too much term for a complementary player who had just won back-to-back Cup titles. But Goodrow, a quiet, by-example type guy, did what he was brought here for: serve as a utilityman on any number of lines and raise his game in the playoffs. The 2024 postseason will end up as Goodrow’s finest stretch as a Ranger, with six goals in the postseason, five of them in a six-game span over the Carolina and Florida series. He had five goals in the other 90 games he played last season, a bit of an indication that having $3.64 million tied up in a fourth-liner is untenable when you need to get better.

Clearly, Drury feels the Rangers need to get better. Goodrow raised his game in the playoffs after a blah regular season — how many of the other, longer-term members of the Rangers core can say the same? Igor Shesterkin, whose next contract will almost surely be the biggest the Rangers have ever handed out, was the star of the playoffs. Alexis Lafrenière, also in the market for a new deal after next season, was probably next on the list. Then Vincent Trocheck, then Goodrow. Then …?

So Drury has started to show us what he’s going to do in the coming weeks. The Rangers need one more top-six forward to round out a very solid group. As it happens, there are no fewer than four elite right wings possibly hitting the market July 1. If the Rangers buy Goodrow out, they will have around $13 million in cap space for next season.

Braden Schneider and Ryan Lindgren need new contracts — if it’s a two-year deal for Schneider and a one-year deal for Lindgren, that probably eats up $6 million or so.

So the Rangers could, with a Goodrow buyout, be in there swinging with the top-line quartet of UFA wingers: Jake Guentzel, Steven Stamkos, Tyler Toffoli and Jonathan Marchessault. Perhaps you throw in Elias Lindholm, too. Drury reportedly made inquiries before the trade deadline this season on three of those five (Guentzel, Toffoli and Lindholm), so he’s studied whether any one of those players could be a fit for the Rangers.

When you tally up the stats on Drury’s previous three offseasons as GM, it’s a mixed bag. His first, which began with the Goodrow trade, wasn’t all that successful — sending Pavel Buchnevich to the Blues to avoid having to pay the young, top-line winger created a void on the right side of the Chris Kreider–Mika Zibanejad duo that still hasn’t been filled on a consistent basis.

Goodrow was just what the 2021-22 Rangers needed, but the cost to sign him created the process that began Tuesday. Sammy Blais, Ryan Reaves, Patrik Nemeth — all came and went in a vain attempt to get the Rangers beefier and nastier. The summer of 2022 will stand out for Drury’s bold decision to spurn Ryan Strome and Andrew Copp for Trocheck, who is a true-blue Ranger through and through.

Last summer’s bargain-bin dive yielded Jonathan Quick, another feather in Drury’s cap to find a rejuvenated Hall of Fame player and Hall of Fame teammate whom Shesterkin enjoys sharing the net with. Blake Wheeler, Erik Gustafsson, Nick Bonino, Tyler Pitlick — well, Drury had pennies to spend, so there’s no fault in trying to buy in bulk.

And no shame in trying to improve on what was already a strong team. Perhaps there’s more subtractions to come in the next couple of weeks. Kaapo Kakko’s one-year, $2.4 million extension is far from an assurance that he’ll still be a Ranger next season, especially if Drury needs more cap space. Jacob Trouba being dealt feels like a bigger decision than is needed now — trading a player just elevated to captain two years ago sends a problematic message to the rest of the league, even if Trouba is an $8 million third-pair player at the moment.

Lindgren could hold firm on longer than a one-year deal, too, though he’s another core Ranger you’d find it difficult to replace. Not just for his play but for what he represents: A toughness of mind that maybe does not run terribly deep through this roster.

We’ve seen it in online comments, in comments here throughout the playoffs and in our mailbag: Rangers fans aren’t satisfied with the last three years. Clearly, Drury isn’t, either. He’s sacrificing the first player he brought in as GM, the player he identified as one who had the traits the Rangers lacked, to try and get over the mountain and bring the Rangers all the way to a final and to another parade in lower Manhattan.

It’s a big decision. And it’s just the first move of what could be several to come. The Rangers have accomplished a lot under Drury, enough to be the envy of the majority of NHL franchises who have barely sniffed a conference final or Presidents’ Trophy in the last two decades.

But that isn’t stopping the Rangers from trying to make moves. They are about to lose a core player for the first time in this three-year stretch. What they could add now will be bigger and better.

Run it back? Not here.

(Top photo: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)