Some time in the past few days, Rangers general manager Jeff Gorton looked at the gap between what he wanted to give Kevin Hayes in a contract extension and what the pending unrestricted free agent was looking for, and he decided it was too large to bridge. And so Gorton shopped the rising, 26-year-old center and took the best deal he got in return just hours before Monday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline.
Gorton sent Hayes to the Jets in exchange for a first-round pick, hard-nosed, 22-year-old forward Brendan Lemieux — son of former Devil Claude — plus a fourth-round pick in 2022 if Winnipeg ends up winning the Stanley Cup. No salary was retained, so the Jets took on the full prorated value remaining on the one-year, $5.175 million deal Hayes signed this past summer.
This was the likely outcome for Hayes, who had matured into one of the Rangers’ best players over the past two years. Gorton showed some interest in retaining him, but the length of the contract created the large divide. That same issue makes it unlikely Hayes would come back to the Rangers as a free agent this summer.
So this is the next step as Gorton continues to rebuild the franchise. He sent fan favorite and another pending unrestricted free agent, Mats Zuccarello, to the Stars on Saturday in exchange for two conditional picks — a second-rounder in this upcoming draft that becomes a first if the Stars win two playoff rounds, and a third-rounder in 2020 that becomes a first if the Stars re-sign him. Unfortunately, Zuccarello was hurt in his first game playing for Dallas on Sunday, suffering an upper-body injury that could keep him out up to four weeks.
The stockpiling of picks is almost staggering considering how few top picks the Rangers had for almost a decade, when they were constantly trading them away while chasing the elusive Stanley Cup that stayed just out of their reach.
As of now, they have five picks in the first two rounds of this upcoming draft: their own first-round pick, Winnipeg’s first-round pick, their own second-round pick, then either Dallas’ second-round pick or first-round pick, plus either Tampa Bay’s second-round pick or first-round pick, the condition being if the Lightning win the Stanley Cup, it goes to a first. That was part of the deal at this time last year that sent Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller to Tampa.
If no conditions are met, and they don’t flip any picks, the Rangers could end up making seven picks in the first round from 2017 through 2019. They had two in 2017 — Lias Andersson (No. 7) and Filip Chytil (No. 21), both currently on the NHL roster — and three in 2018 — Vitali Kravtsov (No. 9), K’Andre Miller (No. 22) and Nils Lundkvist (No. 28).
Since the NHL-WHA merger in 1979, no team has made more than seven picks in the first round over a three-year period.
But this was the declaration from Gorton and the rest of the front office when they sent that famous letter to the fans on Feb. 8, 2018. It was a turning point for the organization, making it crystal clear they were looking toward the future rather than the present. Set to miss the playoffs for a second straight year, and with head coach David Quinn establishing himself in his first year behind the bench, the rebuild is in full force.
And more moves are still probable before the deadline comes, with at least another to-be unrestricted free agent, defenseman Adam McQuaid, set to be traded.
It was an unceremonious end to Hayes’ tenure on Broadway, having spurned the Blackhawks, who drafted him with the No. 24-overall pick in 2010, and choosing the Rangers as a free agent out of Boston College in the summer of 2014. He ended up playing 361 games for the Rangers over parts of five seasons, notching 87 goals and 216 points. He also skated in 34 playoff games (two goals and 10 points), making a run to the conference final in his rookie season of 2015, and winning one round in 2017 before losing to the Senators.