The NHL Trade Deadline finally wrapped up a while ago. For the Rangers, they didn’t do too much in the grand scheme of things. Instead, team president and general manager Chris Drury made two separate moves to acquire the one player he coveted.

As expected, the Rangers traded veteran forward Reilly Smith back to the Golden Knights in exchange for a 2025 Sharks third round pick. I had a hunch that Smith would wind up back in Vegas where he had his most success – helping the Golden Knights win a Stanley Cup.

In 58 games, Smith recorded 10 goals and 19 assists for 29 points in his only season as a Ranger. Originally acquired from the Penguins last year for a 2025 fifth round pick and a 2027 second round pick, Smith moved up and down the lineup after starting the season with Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider. Although he isn’t what once was, Smith’s still a versatile forward who can play anywhere. He was tied with Will Cuylle for second on the team with two shorthanded goals. The injured Kreider leads them with three.

Once it became clear that Smith didn’t have a future with the Rangers, he was held out for trade purposes, with Brett Berard taking his place in the lineup. Now, Smith is back with Vegas, who is quite familiar with him. He returns after two years away.

With Drury still in the market for an experienced defensive defenseman who could play either side, he used the Sharks third round pick he got and sent it to the Canucks for Carson Soucy.

Now 30, Soucy brings size (six-foot-five, 208 pounds) to the Rangers blue line. A gritty player who likes to use his physicality to hit and block shots, Soucy was having a down year with the Canucks. After going a plus-10 with 64 blocks, 65 hits, and just 14 giveaways in 40 games last season. Soucy declined to a minus-13 with 92 blocks, 86 hits, and a career worst 65 giveaways.

With Soucy signed through 2025-26 at a reasonable $3.25 million cap hit, he’ll be part of the top six moving forward. He was averaging 18:22 of ice time in Vancouver. That was up from 17:29 in 2023-24. Soucy was particularly effective as a defensive defenseman with the Wild. He continued to play well for the Kraken, even putting up career bests in goals (10) and points (21) during 2021-22. Ironically, he scored his third goal of this season in a Canucks win over the Ducks on Mar. 5. It proved to be the game-winner. If there’s a positive, he was a plus-3 over his final three games. Maybe he can carry that over when he meets the team in Ottawa for tomorrow afternoon’s game.

If there’s a downside to the move, it’s that Zac Jones is likely to be the odd man out again. For whatever reason, coach Peter Laviolette doesn’t like playing him. Jones brings more speed, skating, and offense to a back end that’s limited in that capacity without Adam Fox. Jones took a hooking minor that led to Alex Ovechkin’s tying power-play goal on Wednesday night in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Capitals. It’s always the same song and dance with this coach. Other culprits stay in the lineup.

Figure Soucy to join Braden Schneider on the second pair while recently re-signed Urho Vaakanainen teams up with Calvin de Haan. Drury gave Vaakanainen a two-year contract with a $1.55 million cap hit. He was acquired from the Ducks in the Jacob Trouba deal. Here’s what I’d expect the defense to look like for Saturday:

K’Andre Miller-Will Borgen

Carson Soucy-Braden Schneider

Urho Vaakanainen-Calvin de Haan

Drury Believes In Group

For whatever it is worth, Drury believes in this group. To his credit, he made some nice upgrades over the past week to get more mobile on the blue line by adding de Haan, who’s a better skater than Ryan Lindgren. Vaakanainen has worked out alright as well. Though his possession numbers are underwhelming. Let’s put it this way. He isn’t great defensively.

“I wanted to make some changes these last few days, this last week, to show them that the way they played, to me, is how you have to play, night in & night out. I do believe in the group. I think we have enough talent to push forward,” Drury told reporters at today’s press conference.

Obviously, he’s referring to more of a commitment defensively that’s seen the Rangers tighten up against opponents. Even the first place Caps found it difficult to get consistent offense against the improved defense, which has seen a better effort from several forwards. Having kids like Berard and Brennan Othmann has helped. The team is playing more physical, with K’Andre Miller finishing checks. His stock has risen recently to boost his value in a contract year. Just as long as Drury doesn’t overpay in both salary and years this summer.

Drury also emphasized his excitement for both Kreider and Fox to eventually return. Kreider’s closer to coming back. He practiced with J.T. Miller and Mika Zibanejad on the first line, with Will Cuylle out sick. As for Fox, nobody knows when he’ll be ready. Aside from having some struggles on the power play, they don’t exactly miss him. Nobody can tell me that Fox hasn’t been compromised by the pair of knee on knee hits he got hurt on last year. He is slower and struggles with physicality. Would anybody put it past this organization to not have Fox get surgery when he probably still needs it?

Here’s the bigger question for the Rangers looking ahead. Is a blue line that includes Soucy better for the foreseeable future? Assuming Jones eventually gets moved in the off-season, they still haven’t found a new defense partner for Fox. Miller and Will Borgen work well together and are the match-up pair. That leaves Vaakanainen and Schneider as the third pair. Maybe we’ll have our answer in free agency or a trade this summer.

Chances Are

If you’ve been keeping a close eye on today’s deadline, you already know that both the Hurricanes and Devils got worse. Carolina never worked out for Mikko Rantanen, who was then rerouted to Dallas for a slew of draft picks and Logan Stankoven. The Stars win that trade easily due to Rantanen re-signing for eight years with a $12 million cap hit due to no state income tax.

Once again, the Hurricanes came out losers after acquiring a big name. Last year, it was Jake Guentzel, who produced for them but then left to sign with the Lightning. Now, they only had Rantanen for 13 games, with him only posting two goals and four assists for six points. They gave up Martin Necas and Jack Drury to the Avalanche in the original deal. Necas has been money with the Avs while playing with Nathan MacKinnon. Joe Sakic looks like a genius.

Now, Carolina has plenty of futures with a pair of conditional first round picks in 2026 and 2028 along with a pair of thirds. How does that help the current roster? They look like pretenders.

As for the Devils, they lost Jack Hughes for the rest of the season due to shoulder surgery stemming from the incidental collision with Jack Eichel that sent him flying into the boards against the Golden Knights. General Manager Tom Fitzgerald revealed that Jonas Siegenthaler will miss the remainder of the regular season and that Dougie Hamilton will be out an extended time.

Fitzgerald overpaid for veteran Brian Dumoulin, who was penciled in on the second pair tonight with recently re-signed defenseman Jonathan Kovacevic (5 years, $4 million AAV). He also traded for Cody Glass and added veteran forward Daniel Sprong, who was on waivers three times this season. Most of the Red and Black Army are up in arms over the lack of activity from Fitzgerald. Hasan touched on it in his recent post. I can only imagine what he must think of these moves.

If you’re looking at where the Rangers are in the division, they trail the Blue Jackets by a point and are five behind the Devils, who at last check were already trailing the Jets 2-0 at home. With 20 games remaining on the schedule, it’s all in front of them. They have the Senators tomorrow and then the Blue Jackets on Sunday.

While the Hurricanes, who have 78 points probably are out of harm’s way, the Devils are within reach. It isn’t out of the realm of possibility for the Rangers to catch their close Hudson rivals. Following the pre-Christmas disaster, the Devils were only too excited to troll our side as only they can do. At the time, the gif was appropriate. The Rangers were a tire fire headed nowhere. Now, the roles are reversed. There is one regular season meeting remaining on Apr. 5. You can now circle the date. It could prove pivotal down the stretch.

A lot can happen between now and then. We’ll see what happens.