It sucks to depart with a 2023 first, but the Rangers had two. Teams tend to need eight or nine capable defensemen over long playoff runs, so Mikkola essentially kills two birds with one stone for New York. Mikkola, meanwhile, is a 6-foot-4 depth defenseman who'll join Braden Schneider on the Rangers' bottom pairing, bumping Ben Harpur to the press box. Yet the left-shooting right winger did establish a new career high in points last season (82 in 75 games) and pitched in 29 points in 38 contests this season for the Blues. Having undergone multiple shoulder surgeries over the past few years, Tarasenko, 31, is no longer that caliber of game-breaker.
Over that stretch, only Alex Ovechkin and John Tavares racked up more goals. Tarasenko scored 182 times in 395 games from 2014-15 through the 2018-19 season. (Panarin is fourth among NHLers in passes to the slot per game, while defenseman Adam Fox ranks 15th.) And guess who loves to tee off on slot passes? Tarasenko, who's scored 30 goals six times and has a lightning-quick release. More specifically, the Rangers' top players hammer the slot area with passes. His arrival takes the pressure off the so-called Kid Line - Filip Chytil between Alexis Lafreniere and Kaapo Kakko - and opens the door for improvement both at five-on-five, where the Rangers rank 15th in the NHL in goals for per 60 minutes, and on the power play, where they rank 24th. The sixth guy? The replaceable Jimmy Vesey.Īfter the trade, the top six now includes a second high-end finisher in Tarasenko. New York just landed its missing puzzle piece up front.īefore the trade, the Rangers' top six featured a world-class playmaker in Artemi Panarin, a proven sniper in Mika Zibanejad, two net-front menaces with scoring touch in Vincent Trocheck and Chris Kreider, and a reliable puck hound in Barclay Goodrow. Rangers' side of the deal Steph Chambers / Getty Images Let's dig into the two perspectives of the deal and some league-wide takeaways.
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