Rangers Pony Up for Yandle

There is just no waiting for the theatrical nature of the actual deadline day this year, as another whopper of a blockbuster descended upon the NHL on Sunday afternoon, getting a big jump on the proceedings on Monday.

The first of a couple trades by the New York Rangers, saw them acquire Keith Yandle from the Arizona Coyotes, mortgaging their youth going forward to do so.

		2015 Season				Cap Hit
To New York	POS	GP	G	A	P	2015	2016
Keith Yandle	D	63	4	37	41	$5.3 mil	$2.65 mil
Chris Summers	D	17	0	3	3	$600k	$600k
2016 4th Round Draft Pick
---
To Arizona	POS	GP	G	A	P	2015	2016
John Moore	D	38	1	5	6	$851k	RFA
Anthony Duclair	F	18	1	6	7	$773k	2 years, $773k
2015 2nd Round Draft Pick
2016 1st Round Draft Pick
50% retention of Yandle's salary

There's no question that the Rangers have improved their blueline, exponentially, with this move to acquire Yandle, at only 28 years old, still has quite a bit of upside for years to come, if all goes according to plan.  The Rangers will boast a very talented blueline going down the stretch, especially when you consider they still have Ryan McDonagh, Marc Staal, Dan Girardi and Dan Boyle already there.  This move likely gives them the best blueline in the NHL today.  The entire back end will get interesting as well, once Henrik Lundqvist gets back from injury in a week or two.

There is absolutely no hiding the fact that the Coyotes are now in full rebuild mode.  Moving their best player did net them an impressive prospect in Anthony Duclair, not to mention a couple of great draft picks over the next couple of years, but that is a whole lot of uncertainty to take on by moving Yandle and keeping half of his remaining salary for the rest of this season and all of next season (his last year of his current deal).  The high picks are coveted around the league and the onus will be on their scouts to rebuild this team from the ground up, it would seem.

If awards and accolades were what helped your pool team do well in a season, then a Stanley Cup wouldn't be out of the question for Yandle and the Rangers and Kristy & Don would be really happy about the whole thing.  I don't think it will work that way, exactly, given that Yandle was a big minute man in the desert and he's now moving to a team that already has numerous big minute defenders at their disposal.  How are they possibly going to share those minutes?  This will definitely be a test of Yandle's overall talent, more of how he can translate less time into more points, if that is at all possible.