Five Trades for the Rangers To Consider at the Draft
With the 2026 NHL Draft here, the Rangers need to prepare for all possibilities, including situations in which they may trade up or down. Here are five trade options for them on draft day.
The New York Rangers have a total of 11 picks in this coming NHL Draft, and while it's absolutely in their best interest to use most, if not all, of them throughout the course of this weekend, there are trades to be considered and potentially made that could improve the team, as well.
Here are five moves the Rangers should have in mind and ready to go depending on how the draft plays out.
Trading Down: Picks 26 and 64 to Vancouver for Picks 33 and 41
The Rangers might need to add a little something to this deal to equalize the value, but this is a move that could make a ton of sense for both sides. The Vancouver Canucks have picks 3, 24, 33, 41, 78, and 97 (among more later picks). Trading up for a third first rounder not only helps them advance their retool, but also makes sense if they're targeting two specific prospects.
I mentioned this in my feature on Markus and Liam Ruck, but it's hard to believe the Canucks wouldn't have an interest in drafting both of them. Any team in the league would surely be better off with both Ruck's on their roster instead of one or the other. They're each coming off 100+ point seasons with Liam doing more of the goalscoring and Markus the playmaking. The Canucks obviously had success drafting a set of twins in the past, and now that the Sedin twins are part of the group making the decisions for that franchise, it isn't that difficult to imagine they'd see the value in doing what they can to get both.
The way I have my mock drafts going, most of the players I'd like to see the Rangers get the most could be gone by 26. Others would still be available at 33. Unless a guy like Alexander Command or Ilia Morozov or Nikita Klepov are still somehow available, the Rangers could move down to 33 and still have a chance at guys like Ben Macbeath, Niklas Aaram-Olsen, or perhaps even Jack Hextall, who I feel they're going to want anyway. In doing this, you still get a good prospect, perhaps even one you already wanted, while being able to draft a second time in the second round, because with that 41st overall pick they could potentially get a Brooks Rogowski or Tomas Chrenko or Yegor Shilov.
