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NHL

Rangers bring back Tyler Motte in trade with Senators

By
Mollie Walker
Published Feb. 19, 2023
Updated Feb. 20, 2023, 6:30 p.m. ET

Tyler Motte is back on Broadway.

The Rangers reacquired Motte, who came to New York at last season’s trade deadline and departed in the offseason as a free agent, on Sunday in a move to bolster their fourth line. In exchange for the high-energy penalty-killing specialist, the Blueshirts sent the Senators Julien Gauthier and a conditional seventh-round pick in the 2023 draft.

The seventh-rounder will become the worse of the Rangers’ two sixth-round picks if the Rangers win one playoff round.

As the Rangers prepare for another playoff run this season, Drury addressed the top-six and the bottom defensive pair first — by trading for Vladimir Tarasenko and Niko Mikkola from the Blues — before upgrading the fourth line with a familiar face in Motte.

The swap of Gauthier for Motte not only gives the fourth line more jump and speed, but it also adds another penalty killer to the Rangers’ rotation. Since Motte already spent over two months with the Rangers last season, the club knows he fits in with the group and that he can acclimate quickly.

The Rangers acquired Tyler Motte in a trade with the Senators.
The Rangers acquired Tyler Motte in a trade with the Senators. Getty Images

The 27-year-old winger has been limited to just 38 games with the Senators this season, primarily due to a 15-game absence with a broken finger. He’s scored three goals — including one shorthanded — and dished six assists while skating in Ottawa’s bottom-six.

Motte was one of the four players president and general manager Chris Drury brought in to bolster the Rangers lineup leading up to last season’s trade deadline. He skated in just nine regular-season games for the Rangers before he suffered a significant upper-body injury in the April 7 matchup with the Penguins. That kept him out for the remainder of the regular season and the first five games of the Rangers’ playoff run.

After returning in Game 6 of the first-round matchup with the Penguins, Motte chipped in two goals in 15 postseason games.

Between the Rangers’ cap constraints and what Motte was looking for in his next contract, the two sides couldn’t come to an agreement to keep him in New York this past offseason. Motte ultimately signed a one-year, $1.35 million deal with the Senators. He clearly made enough of an impression on the Rangers, however, to warrant being brought back with 11 days until this year’s trade deadline.

Motte should be in the lineup Monday night against the Jets, according to a source.

Tyler Motte with the Rangers during the playoffs on June 7, 2022.
Tyler Motte with the Rangers during the playoffs on June 7, 2022. Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Gauthier’s Rangers tenure ends at 131 games, over which the big-bodied power forward accumulated 11 goals and 15 assists in parts of four seasons. Toward the end of his time with the Rangers, Gauthier started to come into his own. He began finding the back of the net on his signature one-handed drive to the net and managed to set a new career high with six goals and three assists for nine points this season.

At the end of the day, Motte’s penalty-killing abilities were too valuable for the Rangers to pass up on.

The Rangers will likely make another move before the March 3 deadline. According to The Post’s Larry Brooks, Nick Bjugstad is on the Rangers’ radar, but the Coyotes center is apparently drawing a lot of interest around the league. An upgrade at the fourth-line center spot, as well as another middle-six piece, should be on the table.