Joe's Reaction of the Week (Chip's Version): The Schneider Problem
The Rangers love talking up Braden Schneider. They just don’t seem to trust him. Six years after a draft-day trade-up, it might finally be time to find him a new home.
Braden Schneider is not a new problem—he's just a problem with no new solutions.
I remember Oct. 6, 2020 very clearly. For days and weeks there had been no question that the New York Rangers were going to take Alexis Lafrenière with the first overall pick. Sure, there was a little noise that they could pivot and take Quinton Byfield instead, but, despite the organizational need at center, that was routinely dismissed. Lafrenière was the consensus No. 1 player on the board and he would go first overall. No, the only question lingering was what would the Rangers do with their second first-round pick that evening.
I remember sitting there on my couch, watching as Hendrix Lapierre, Mavrik Bourque, and Connor Zary continued to fall, thinking to myself, "They're going to get the center anyway." Then came the announcement of the trade: The Rangers were sending the 22nd overall pick and a third-rounder to the Calgary Flames to move up ahead of the New Jersey Devils. Then-president John Davidson was shushing everyone in the room (as if that was going to somehow affect their ability to make the pick). He pumped his fist like someone had just delivered him a meatball parm hero. Here it was …
And since then, the question has been: what to do with Braden Schneider.
Baby Trouba joined an organization that had Adam Fox, Tony DeAngelo, and Nils Lundkvist. DeAngelo would implode, but the Rangers went out and added actual Jacob Trouba in his place. Eventually, Schneider would supplant Lundkvist as president and general manager Chris Drury dealt the disgruntled, undersized, oft-injured blueliner to the Lone Star State for a first-round pick.
Good news: The Rangers had a spot for Schneider.
Bad news: Schneider hasn't been particularly good.
The interesting part about Schneider is that the way the Rangers have talked about him has never matched up with how they've acted where he is concerned. Repeatedly you'll hear Rangers coaches and various front office staff talk about his talent. They tout him as "Baby Trouba" and mean that as a compliment (which is in and of itself befuddling), but at the same time, they don't create lanes for him to move up in the lineup from his third-pair spot.
