MTPS: Get Zibby Wit’ It: Waiving NMC Dreams and Maple Leaf Schemes

Author's Note: For what it's worth, almost as soon as I wrote this column, Mollie Walker of the New York Post reported that Mike Sullivan flew to Sweden to meet with Mika Zibanejad personally. That was followed by Mika's wife saying that any notion that her husband was going to waive his NMC was silly. Seriously, I need to learn to use these powers for good...anyway, enjoy the read.

Oh, Arthur Staple…

With one throwaway line in a meaningless column, the Islanders insider who trolls as a Rangers insider managed to get everyone in Rangerland more excited than Bob Costas in Baseketball.

“There’s a chance that Drury has already worked it out with Zibanejad, who has five years at a $8.5 million average annual value remaining plus a full no-move clause, that moving on would be best. They’d still need to find a fit —the Leafs might have some interest and some space to fill — but trading Kreider’s BFF soon after dealing Kreider would produce the impact on cap flexibility and team culture Drury so badly wants.”

This fairly meaningless, certainly vague, line has spurred a renewed enthusiasm among Rangers’ fans that number 93 could be out the door. Do I buy it? Meh. 

First things first: Like Chris Kreider and Ryan Lindgren, Mika's tenure in New York will be more tainted by recency bias more than it should be. The trade that brought Mika here was one of Jeff Gorton's few home runs, and the contract Chris Drury gave Mika was not only reasonable, it was a smart bit of business at the time. It just turned to poo faster than Taco Bell with an Ex-Lax chaser.

Look, Mika’s a complicated, emotional guy who really wants to be great. I think it weighs on him—almost as much as it weighs on fans—that he hasn’t lived up to his contract. I also think that the idea of playing somewhere else isn’t something he wants to entertain. When he says he negotiated a no-movement clause it's not to be a dick about it, it's because he doesn't want to leave. He wants to turn things around, here, as a Ranger. He wants to be the player we all thought he was capable of being, the player who broke out in 2018 and was on the precipice of superstardom only two years ago when he tallied 91 points in 82 games.

I also think there’s a path back for that player. While his two best years took place under Gerard Gallant, the breakout started with David Quinn. It was Quinn who was the first one to really unlock Mika and elevate him to that 1C position. Now Quinn is back, not as the head coach, but if his knowledge of Mika and what makes him tick can help Mike Sullivan break Mika out of this two-year funk, then the Rangers will surely reap the benefits. 

Having said all that, this isn’t a column about why the Rangers should keep Mika. That’s for another day, another time, another place. This is a column about what the Rangers could get back for Mika if they opted to trade him and—for the purposes of this column—we will assume that Mika is willing to waive his NMC to facilitate a trade.