As team president John Davidson said, the Rangers trade deadline had “balls in the air all over the place.” And when they fell, Brady Skjei was gone.
The Blueshirts traded the 25-year-old defenseman to the Hurricanes before Monday’s 3 p.m. deadline in exchange for a 2020 first-round pick. Carolina has two first-round picks this June, having previously collected one from Toronto, and can choose which one it wants when the draft comes. The other will go to the Rangers.
But maybe more importantly for the Blueshirts, with a deep pipeline of lefty-shot defensemen behind Skjei and a handful of players on the current roster on the final years of their respective contracts, the club got rid of his $5.25 million salary-cap hit that goes for the next four seasons.
“I think we looked at everything,” general manager Jeff Gorton said. “Organizational depth is real strong, the players we have coming, the opportunity — we spent a lot of time talking to our scouts, and this is a strong draft. We just felt like the position we’re in to add another first-round pick, to have some flexibility with the cap, when you add it all up, we just felt like it was the right move.”
Quickly, Davidson added: “It gives us 19 picks in the next two drafts; three in the first round, one in the second, and four in the third. And that’s important to us in going through the process of building a franchise.”
Skjei had struggled to find consistency in his game since his terrific rookie season of 2016-17. He was the club’s first-round pick (No. 28 overall) in 2012, but never quite turned into the definitive first-pair defenseman the Rangers had always wanted.
Now the club has a little more room to think about a longer deal for pending restricted free-agent defenseman Tony DeAngelo, 24, who is sixth in the league in scoring (45 points) among defensemen. Ryan Strome and Brendan Lemieux are two other pending RFAs, while Jesper Fast is set to be an unrestricted free agent.
“Flexibility is important as we go forward,” Gorton said. “We look at a little bit of everything when we make these decisions, it’s not just based on the cap. But that’s a part of it.”
A big part of it is also the quartet of young lefty-shot defensemen in the system. As Gorton said, “We’re pretty comfortable with our depth in the organization.”
Most immediately, it starts with Libor Hajek and Yegor Rykov down with AHL Hartford. Next is K’Andre Miller, who could consider leaving Wisconsin and turning pro by next year, with Matthew Robertson, playing junior in WHL Edmonton, also an option.
It all added up to Skjei moving on.
“Trading Brady Skjei is difficult,” Groton said. “He’s a special guy, he’s a really good person, he’s a good player. He’s been a good Ranger. We do nothing but wish him the best. It’s just a move we thought we had to make.”