Following up on yesterday's blog and piggybacking on something Elliotte Friedman noted in his latest 31 Thoughts (always must-read material), I talked to a source last night who said that unless the Rangers turn things around fast, there is a strong chance they try to move impending UFA Rick Nash "well ahead of the trade deadline."
The thought behind that is that it's often better to do it that way than to play a game of chicken near the deadline, and while Nash has a fairly flexible no-trade clause (a 12-team list), these things still take a lot of doing.
Right now in the NHL though, the prime time to consider trading assets is not when they are rentals in their final contract year but when there is one additional season left. The prices go higher if the player is in high demand (but lower in "salary dump" scenarios).
From what I was told last night, it is NOT impossible that Mats Zuccarello or even Ryan McDonagh could be made available if a team knocked New York's socks off with an offer. All of this barring a turnaround by Christmas, of course, but it is not on the immediate radar screen. Still worth keeping an eye on, because we're talking about landscape changing type of acquisitions for contenders if the Rangers go into a bit of a rebuild mode.
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