How the Rangers Can Deal for Patrick Kane

On Saturday, before the Blackhawks traveled to San Jose, Kane stayed back in Chicago so as to establish he is no longer playing for the Blackhawks. This means that the next time Kane laces up his skates, he will be doing it inside Madison Square Garden. Adding a player of this high offensive skill-level will help a Rangers team that ranks 12th in goals-for, become a more dangerous offensive team, on the power play as well, but what will it cost? Here are the pros and cons of such a deal.

What Kane Adds to Ranger Offense

The Rangers have a pretty good offense because the Boston Bruins are the best team in the NHL and they have two players with 20 goals or more and one with 30, in David Pastrnak. The Rangers have Mika Zibanejad who has 30 and Chris Kreider who has 25. After that there depth is similar because they both have nine players with ten or more goals. Let"s not forget about Artemi Panarin, who Kane played on a line with from 2015-2017. During that time, the two combined for 345 points and Kane scored 106 points during the 2015-16 season.

Kane has scored thirty goals in five different seasons and this year has 16 to go with 29 assists and 45 points. This means he is not as dominant as he was during 2018-19 when he scored 44 goals because he is on pace to score 30, at the most, considering there are 28 games left. Would Kane play on the Rangers" first line or second line? He has the ability to play on either one, but this decision would depend on which is better for the Rangers. The best choice as of now would be to put him on the second line with Panarin and Vincent Trocheck, but that would be a physically weak line as all the players are under six-feet tall. In today"s NHL, you cannot put a finesse line out on the ice in the playoffs and this is a big question mark surrounding bringing Kane onto Coach Gerard Gallant"s team.

Is Making this Trade Possible?

Now, how is a trade involving Kane going to the Rangers even possible, considering he earns $10.5 million per year? The Rangers have 1.6 million available cap space now, after sending Vitali Kravstov to Vancouver. They also placed Jake Leschyshyn on waivers which, if he"s claimed, will clear an additional 700,000. This brings the cap space to 2.3 million.

To make this work, the Blackhawks need to retain 50 percent of Kane"s salary as part of the trade. Also, a third team needs to get involved and retain 25% of his salary. Understanding that the Rangers have to stretch their cap space from where it is now to 2.3 million in order to afford 25% of Kane"s salary, this trade looks more feasible. The only thing is convincing a third team that they will benefit from taking on part of this all-star"s salary so the Rangers can acquire him.

I hate involving Ryan Lindgren in this, but because he was injured in the first period of Saturday"s game against the Capitals, he may miss the rest of the season. If he does, then that would give the Rangers $500,000 more cap space to work with. So far, Leschyshyn has not been claimed off waivers and it"s likely it stays that way. That means the Rangers will probably release Leschyshyn (sorry Jake) to clear off more cap space and I"m guessing since he"s earned 60% of his $766,000 salary for this season, releasing him shaves $306,500 off the Rangers cap, bringing it from 1,705, 617 to 2,012,117. At this point they still need to get roughly another 215,000 in space to be able to afford Kane"s 2.25 million (25% of his salary).

Ok, Let"s Make a Trade

Chicago should be interested in several Ranger prospects but the ones who have shown they can hang in the NHL are the second-round pick in 2020, Will Cuylle, who played in four games this season and 2019 third-round pick, Zachary Jones who played in 16, and scored a goal. The Rangers could also send Libor Hajek who has 110 games of NHL experience and was competent during that time. But it may not be necessary for the Rangers to send more than one prospect and one second or third-round pick because the only team Chicago can trade Kane to is the Rangers based on Kane"s demand.

NYR Gets: Patrick Kane

CHI Gets: Rangers 1st round pick (from Dallas), 6th round pick, and forward Will Cuylle

I think for trading one of the top-five regular season and playoff forwards from the last decade, who has won three Stanley Cups, the minimum should be a first-round pick and a good prospect. But it remains to be seen if Chris Drury has to trade this much to Chicago since Kane will only waive his no-trade clause to go to the Rangers, which has boxed the Blackhawks into making a deal with one team.

All in all, trading for Patrick Kane is a sexy proposition. Bring another all-star onto a team that has Panarin, Zibanejad, and Igor Shesterkin as their goaltender two months before the playoffs begin. What makes it more of a realistic outcome is that Kane really wants to leave Chicago, who are rebuilding, and wants to play for the Rangers where he can reunite with his old teammate Panarin. We will see if this happens from now until the Mar. 3 trade deadline.

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