Why do the rangers trade anything for him when they can just sign him as a free agent in August? Maybe they give up like a third to have early signing rights to him before he can talk to anyone else but that would be it.

NYR should just make a contract offer, and they will probably not match the deal for doing an RFA contract. Cuz he causes problems.

It's August of 2020 tho....make an offer in July, highly doubt Carolina makes any type of effort to match.

Oh I thought it was this year, my mistake.

Either way still really dumb to try and trade for a guy who won't stay just make a contract offer shouldn't have much of an issue signing him.

Any team will be free to offer him a contract. The goal here is to give his rights to a team to get something in return.

If that were to happen tho, rangers make the contract offer and he accepts, couldn't Carolina Match and he'd then be forced to stay with Carolina? Or Carolina would then have more control over him and could trade him for more than the RFA compensation would be? Am I right or am I missing something?

Carolina could sign him in that case, but would they really want to sign him if he is causing this much issue?

I'm just saying, then they'd have more control over him and could get more for him in a trade, seems to make sense in that way, no?

Yes, but again he also has the chance to say no to any offer a team makes. Fox might say no to certain Contracts, but he could just tell Carolina screw themselves he waits another year then everyone else can sign him.

He only becomes a UFA in 2020 and is more than NHL ready now. Rumour is if the Canes trade him to a team he wants to play for he'll sign now instead of playing his last year of college. So if the Canes want to get anything out of this situation they have to find a proper trading partner this offseason because if they wait too long he walks and they get nothing.

This whole situation is amateur hour, the NHL needs to do something to avoid these situations in the future because as it sits now, if I'm an NHL team I don't even bother drafting college players.

Hit the nail on the head there. Its a joke how these NCAA guys can basically decide where they wanna go.

So if I'm the Rangers, I can trade one of my young top 6 wingers so I can sign a rookie Dman, or I can wait a single year and sign him for free. If Rangers refuse that asking price, another team can come in and then watch him walk over to the rangers in a year. If Im adam fox and I want to be on the Rangers, but I get traded to the Devils, I'll just finish getting my free Harvard degree and go sign with the rangers in a year.

Best case scenario, you get a 2nd rd pick. Probably will end up being a 3rd.

A reasonable price for his rights is about a 2nd. Maybe a 2nd and a 4th or 5th. And that's assuming the team gets permission to talk to him ahead of time and he agrees to sign.