The New York Rangers were two wins away from reaching their first Stanley Cup final since 1994 last season, blowing a 2-0 lead against the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2022 Eastern Conference Final to bow out in the final four. Although the team has been above average in the regular season again this year, compiling a 27-14-8 record to earn a top-three spot in a competitive Metropolitan Division heading into the All-Star break, the team is not good enough to win a Stanley Cup the way it is currently constructed. The NHL trade deadline is around the corner and the Rangers will certainly be buyers this season, with Hawks superstar Patrick Kane at the top of their wishlist.
Although boasting star power up front with superstars Artemi Panarin and Mike Zibanejad, Norris Trophy winning Adam Fox on the blue line and last year's Vezina Trophy winner Igor Shesterkin manning the crease, the team's depth is a huge question mark. The Rangers are starved for point-producing wingers after Panarin, especially as Chris Kreider is having a down year after scoring a career-high 52 goals last season.
Aside from that, the slower maturation of No. 1 overall pick Alexis Lafreniere and No. 2 Kaapo Kakko has made it even more obvious that the Rangers need a dynamic top-six winger. This would serve two purposes: increasing the team's overall offensive production, specifically on the power play, and pushing one of those two further down the lineup to get easier matchups with less pressure to perform.
Besides the significant need for a top-six winger in New York at the NHL trade deadline, the Rangers also need to shore up their defense core by adding a versatile bottom-two defenseman to play with 2019 first-round pick Braden Schnieder. The Rangers have two first-round picks at their disposal this year after trading young defenseman Nils Lundkvist to the Dallas Stars, and all of the team's offensive problems could be solved with one simple move: trading for Patrick Kane.
Reunite Hawks' Patrick Kane and Rangers' Artemi Panarin
Although the Rangers have a few great options to choose from in terms of offensive wingers, including San Jose Sharks' Timo Meier and Saint Louis Blues' Vladimir Tarasenko, hockey fans will not soon forget the electric duo that was Kane and Panarin with the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2015-16 season.
In their first campaign together, Panarin took home the Calder Trophy as the league's top rookie while Kane grabbed the Hart and Art Ross Trophies, scoring an outrageous 106 points, just four below his career high. Across two seasons together before Panarin was traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2017, Kane racked up 80 goals and 195 points while Panarin posted 61 goals and 151 points.
Kane said in 2020 that the most fun he ever had playing hockey was with Panarin, and it was an absolute treat for hockey fans, regardless of who you cheer for. The electric duo were creating magic on a game-by-game basis, and for that reason alone, Kane should be the No. 1 target for the New York Rangers.
Patrick Kane has had a down year in the final year of his contract, likely diminishing his trade value slightly, and there is no team better suited for his talents than the Rangers. Slot him back in with Panarin in 2023 and the Rangers immediately vault back in Stanley Cup contention. They have the extra first-round pick to trade the rebuilding Hawks for his services, and as Kane has a no-trade clause, playing at Madison Square Garden is likely one of the only places he'll agree to be traded to: both as the center of the hockey world in the United States, and as a chance to play with Panarin again.
Trade for Vladislav Gavrikov
Besides their glaring need for a scoring winger, the only other place the Rangers should be looking to upgrade is their third defensive pairing. Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren, along with Jacob Trouba and K'Andre Miller, are mainstays in the team's top four, but they haven't been able to find a partner for Braden Schneider that will stick this season. The 21-year-old Schneider, who has played mainly with Zac Jones (who is now in the minors) and Libor Hajek, needs a steady partner for the sake of his development as well as for the good of the team.
They should look no further than Blue Jackets' defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov. Although he will be in high demand at the deadline, he would be the perfect partner for Schneider. His style of play is exactly the type of defender that coach Gerard Gallant would covet in a third-pairing role. He can play a ton of minutes, breaks up plays well, and withstands pressure on the forecheck. He's exactly the type of player that a team needs in the bottom of their lineup to make a deep Stanley Cup run, which is what the Rangers will be looking to do again this year.
The Rangers approach the trade deadline with the right assets, the location players want to play on Broadway and the win-now mentality to pursue Patrick Kane from Chicago and add Vladislav Gavrikov from Columbus. With the NHL trade deadline set for Mar. 3, if they can find a way to get those two players by that time, or at the least one of Kane/Meier/Tarasenko, they will be in much better shape to beat a team like the Lightning when the postseason rolls around.
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