It appears Matthew Tkachuk could be leaving Calgary soon, with the 24 year old forward being taken to salary arbitration by his club. Tkachuk would reportedly be interested in a US city, and it's thought the New York Rangers would be one of his preferred destinations.
The chances of that desire being realized though, are very low indeed. With the Rangers having signed Vincent Trocheck to a seven year deal last week, and with contracts coming due to Alexis Lafreniere, K'Andre Miller, Zac Jones, Vitali Kravtsov and Filip Chytil next season, it's hard to see how the Rangers could add yet another big name on a long term contract.
In order to clear $10 million in Cap space to account for Tkachuk, the Rangers are somewhat restricted by the NMCs the've handed out to Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, Jacob Trouba, Artemi Panarin, and more recently, Vincent Trocheck.
The five players account for around $40M in Cap space, with untouchable players Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin added an additional $15M or so.
The only way this would work is if they somehow also got one of that group, like Panarin, Trouba or Kreider, to waive their NMC to go to Calgary, which seems highly unlikely given they all set career marks here last year and seem well settled in New York.
In addition, the Rangers would likely have to deal additional players like Kakko, Chytil and perhaps a guy like Lundkvist, which perhaps could be overcome by the addition and the remaining depth in the organization.
Without the headliner going the other way though, it seems unlikely that this type of move would be possible.
