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Isles Dip Into Free Agency Waters, Sign Duclair
To suggest the Metropolitan Division has been busy this summer might be a bit of an understatement.
The Washington Capitals continued their aggressive offseason by trading for Jakob Chychrun, signing Brandon Duhaime and signing Matt Roy. The New Jersey Devils signed Brenden Dillon and Brett Pesce after trading for Jacob Markstrom. The Columbus Blue Jackets reunited Johnny Gaudreau with his former Calgary Flames teammate Sean Monahan. The New York Islanders signed Anthony Duclair in free agency, while Matvei Michkov signed his entry-level contract with the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Rangers got in on the action on Monday. The Penguins traded forward Reilly Smith to the Rangers, in exchange for a 2025 conditional fifth-round pick and a second-round pick in 2027. The Penguins will retain 25% of Smith's salary, while the 2025 pick will be the worse one owned by the Rangers and Minnesota Wild.
Which GM did better in the swap? Here are our grades for both teams.
New York Rangers Grade: BFor the Rangers, this was about making an addition to their roster, with the caveat they still have other financial considerations to make now and in the future.
The Rangers' championship window is open, and they are about to reach that stage in which cap space becomes even more difficult to manage. Both Ryan Lindgren and Braden Schneider are restricted free agents this summer, which meant there was some, but not much, flexibility.
Next offseason gets more difficult, when the Rangers have seven RFAs, including Kaapo Kakko, Alexis Lafreniere and K'Andre Miller. That's also the same offseason in which Igor Shesterkin will be an unrestricted free agent.
It's what made going after Smith a bit of a responsible play. He has one year left on his contract before he hits the open market, and his salary cap hit fits within what the Rangers can achieve now. He also has extensive postseason experience from his time with the Golden Knights.
For Smith's career, he has 26 goals and 79 assists in 106 playoff games. But he just had his lowest regular-season output -- 13 goals and 40 points in 76 -- since the 2014-15 season, when he replicated those exact numbers.
The Rangers hope that Smith can boost the secondary scoring output in the postseason, but didn't have to pay up too much in order to do so.
Pittsburgh Penguins Grade: BTrading for Kevin Hayes during the draft created questions about who could potentially be leaving the Penguins, and the answer became Smith.
Hayes gives the Penguins another center, adding to Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Lars Eller. They have proven top-six wingers such as Michael Bunting, Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust, and Drew O'Connor scored just seven fewer points than Smith at a fraction of the price ($925,000).
So why hold onto a player with a $5 million cap hit in the last year of his deal when you could move him, free up some salary cap space and receive some draft capital in return?
Retaining 25% of Smith's salary means they'll have an extra $1.25 million on their books in addition to what they already have with retaining part of Jeff Petry's salary. Overall, it leaves the Penguins with $2.812 million in dead cap hit on their books.
CapFriendly projects the Penguins now have $6.924 million in salary cap space, which means there's still room for them to make some additions either in the coming days or at some point before training camp starts.
It's possible that having those extra funds available could prove useful either in the preseason or ahead of the trade deadline, as the Penguins were just three points out of the final Eastern Conference wild-card spot last season.
