NY Rangers put Kreider, Trouba on trade block; Berard and Rempe remember

On November 28, 2024By Littum

TARRYTOWN – Brett Berard was putting the finishing touches on his pregame suit when his cell phone started buzzing Sunday.

It was Rangers assistant general manager Ryan Martin who informed the 22-year-old forward that he would not be playing for AHL Hartford that afternoon. Instead, he would travel to New York to prepare for his NHL debut on Monday night.

The first person he broke the news to was his father, David, followed by his mother, Lynne, and younger brother, Brady.

“I tried to call the three most important people in my life,” Berard said after Monday morning. “They’ve been with me throughout my journey. I definitely owe it to them, so it was pretty cool to hear their voices. My mom shed a few tears.”

Berard’s family, girlfriend and a group of friends from his hometown of East Greenwich, Rhode Island will make the trip to watch him take the ice at Madison Square Garden against St. Louis Blues, where he will be tasked with replacing the veteran striker. Chris Kreider and brings the speed and hustle he is known for to the lineup.

“That’s my game and that’s what I’m going to try to do — try to bring energy,” said Berard, who leads the Wolf Pack with 13 points (seven goals and six assists) through 16 AHL games played. “The way I play is fast. I try to play as physical as I can, even as an undersized guy. Try to throw my body around. . . . If I do that, it should be a fun night.”

‘We have to kick into gear’

According to the team, Kreider is dealing with an upper-body injury and will miss his first game since January 2023. It’s unclear exactly when the 33-year-old suffered the ailment, and although he saw slightly reduced ice time in the third period of Saturday’s 6- 2 loss to the Edmonton Oilers, he still finished the game with three turnovers in the final 10 minutes.

The Rangers also recalled forward Matt Rempe from Hartford and will insert him into Monday’s lineup at the expense of Jonny Brodzinski. Center Filip Chytil will miss his fifth straight game with his own upper body injury.

But while the injuries provided an opening for the Rangers to turn to Berard and Rempe, head coach Peter Laviolette acknowledged that the search for a spark amid the team’s recent poor play added motivation to shuffle the lineup.

“We’re definitely looking for that,” he said. “We’ve got to play a faster game. Some of it is the way we play the game, some of it is our engine. We’ve got to shift gears. We weren’t as fast as Edmonton was the other night. There’s a way we can play the game that can be faster, and then we can also boost our own engines and get them up to speed.”

Back-to-back ugly losses to end last week’s western road trip have brought those issues to a head, but the Rangers have been headed in the wrong direction for much longer than that.

For the past month, they’ve played a generally unsustainable brand of hockey that’s far too reliant on their stellar goaltending duo of Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick — and in truth, you can trace that back even further. The Blueshirts have been a middling five-on-five team for years, entering games struggling to control and advance pucks, especially against some of the NHL’s most aggressive forecheck opponents. It has resulted in lopsided possession battles that expose their defensive frailties and vulnerability against the rush.

They have gone 7-6 in their last 13 games, but have done so while allowing a league-worst 34 shots per game. 60 minutes in that time. A look under the hood is just as concerning, with an average of 3.41 expected goals against per 60 ranking 28th out of 32 teams, according to Natural Stat Trick.

“We’ve got to get more out of the offense,” Laviolette said. “We’ve got to do things that make our game better offensively. Just a chase inside the offensive zone, more people to the net, more pucks to the net – all of that could be better. We’re just on our heels a little too much .”

Kreider, Trouba on the trading block

Kreider is far from the only reason for these diminishing returns, but his underwhelming production has become harder to ignore.

He has scored nine goals in 19 games played, but only two have come at 5v5 and he is still looking for his first assist in any situation this season. His 43.26% xGF ranks dead last among New York’s regular skaters, apparently prompting team president Chris Drury to put him on the trade block.

After Sunday’s loss to the Oilers, he sent a message to all NHL general managers that the Rangers are open for business and motivated to shake up their core, according to two sources who spoke to lohud.com, part of the USA TODAY Network, on condition about anonymity. Kreider and captain Jacob Trouba are the candidates Drury is most actively trading, but very few are considered off limits. Defenseman Ryan Lindgren is another who is believed to be available.

Forwards Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck and Mika Zibanejad each have full no-movement clauses, meaning no trade can be made without their consent, but both Kreider and Trouba moved to modified 15-team no-trade lists this offseason. Rangers attempted to move the latter over the summer, but those efforts were thwarted, with the belief that they would try again in 2025.

A Kreider trade would come as a bigger surprise, as he has spent all 13 of his professional seasons on Broadway and sits third on the franchise’s all-time list with 313 career goals. But Drury has grown increasingly concerned about that core plateau after reaching the Eastern Conference Final two of the last three years and is now making everyone aware.

A league source questioned the chances of a major deal happening this far ahead of the March 7 trade deadline — a rarity in the NHL. The extensive contracts will also be prohibitive. Kreider is due an average annual value of $6.5 million through the 2026-27 season, while Trouba has one year remaining after that at $8 million. That will add layers of difficulty to any potential trade, testing Drury’s motivation and creativity.

Whether he can pull off a franchise-altering trade before Christmas remains to be seen, but what has become increasingly clear is that the Rangers have reached a crossroads and something will eventually have to give.

NY Rangers (12-6-1) expected lineup: Game 20 vs. St. Louis Blues (9-12-1)

When: Monday, November 25 at 7 p.m

Where: Madison Square Garden

TV/radio: MSG Network/1050 AM

Extenders

Top line ⊳ Artemi Panarin (LW) ⋄ Vincent Trocheck (C) ⋄ Alexis Lafrenière (RW)

Second line ⊳ Will Cuylle (LW) ⋄ Mika Zibanejad (C) ⋄ Brett Berard (RW)

Third line ⊳ Adam Edström (LW) ⋄ Kaapo Kakko (C) ⋄ Reilly Smith (RW)

Fourth line ⊳ Jimmy Vesey (LW) ⋄ Sam Carrick (C) ⋄ Jonny Brodzinski (RW)

Defenders

Top couple ⊳ K’Andre Miller (L) ⋄ Adam Fox (H)

Second pair ⊳ Ryan Lindgren (L) ⋄ Jacob Trouba (H)

Third pair ⊳ Zac Jones (L) ⋄ Braden Schneider (H)

Goalkeepers

Starting ⊳ Igor Shesterkin

Backup ⊳ Jonathan Quick

Healthy scratches: F Matt Rempe

Damaged: Filip Chytil (upper body) and Chris Kreider (upper body)

Vincent Z. Mercogliano is the one New York Rangers beat reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Read more about his work at lohud.com/sports/rangers/ and follow him on Twitter @vzmercogliano.