Brass’ goes bye-bye
Needed deal cuts to Rangers’ core
THE Rangers had become comparatively slow, too easy to play against, much too lax without the puck through the neutral zone and in their end of the ice, and horrid on the penalty kill. The dynamic that had previously produced admirable results was no longer dynamic. The mix had grown stale. Those truths were self-evident.
But Jeff Gorton wasn’t about to do just anything simply so he could say he had done something. Rather, the general manager has been seeking to remedy the ills that undermined last season’s club. And so, on Monday, the GM pulled off a deal that struck at the team’s core and was designed to address those issues.
Derick Brassard, who took a step backward last year even while recording a personal-best 27 goals that led his team, is gone, off to Ottawa for Mika Zibanejad. It was a center-for-center swap in which the Blueshirts came away with the younger, faster, bigger and cheaper player, plus a 2018 second-rounder, to boot.
Cap space was cleared, $2.375 million of it with the newest Swede to join the team at $2.625 million for the year while Brassard carries a $5 million hit. The Blueshirts now have a fair amount of maneuverability both immediately and into the season. But the added space is more a byproduct of the deal than the motivating force behind it.
The Rangers wanted — if not needed — a different kind of center behind Derek Stepan and they got it in Zibanejad, who is stronger without the puck and in his own end and projects to be feistier and tougher than the gifted, finesse-oriented Brassard.
They acquired a center whom they believe will be a better match against bigger, physical pivots and thus alleviate some of the burden on Stepan, whom coach Alain Vigneault had come to rely on almost exclusively — and ultimately to No. 21’s detriment — the last two years in power-against-power matchups.
“We feel we’re getting a player who’s just scratching the surface and who has a lot of upside,” Gorton said of the 23-year-old, who recorded 21 goals and 51 points last year while centering Ottawa’s second line, most often between Bobby Ryan and Mike Hoffman. “He kills penalties, he’s [good] on draws.
“And he can play against the better, bigger centers around the league. At the end of the day, we felt this makes us a better team.”
Look, the Rangers aren’t getting Anze Kopitar here. It’s not as if the Blueshirts have pulled one over the Senators’ eyes. Zibanejad has had his issues with consistency, too. His effort has sometimes left something to be desired. But there’s the potential for growth here. And his attributes combine to comprise a round peg that fits into a Rangers’ circular hole.
I called him “Big Game Brass” for his production in the playoffs that reached its height with his hattrick, five-point performance in the elimination-avoiding Game 6 of the conference finals in Tampa Bay in 2015. Fact is, Brassard led the Rangers in goals (18), assists (26) and points (44) through his four postseasons in New York.
But the final image of Brassard in the playoffs is from last year’s first-round Game 5 elimination match in Pittsburgh where he was casually and easily shrugged off the puck in the defensive zone high slot by Bryan Rust a second or two before Matt Cullen waltzed in for the 4-2 goal that for all intents and purposes slammed the window shut on The Core’s Last Ride.
The Rangers and Gorton needed to do something, but not just anything. They needed to address specific weaknesses. They needed to get faster, stronger and tougher in the one-on-one battles, better on the penalty kill and more diligent without the puck.
That’s what this trade was about.