Do you truly want Sabourin over Smith to close the season? I doubt if Smith M NTC includes Ottawa this season.

Trading Andersson with Smith for any UFA player to any team would allow NYR to keep Kreider, Strome, Buchnevich, DeAngelo, Skjei, etc, for next season.

I'm agreeing with you trading Smith is "necessary" by the Rangers. Finding a team that on is on his M NTC list and wants his cap....that's the issue. There are so many teams close to the cap that want to dump some moderately priced and good NHLers, it's a buyers market. It's mostly non contending teams that have cap space, and M NTC players just might not want to go to those teams.

Agree... But if NYR could find a taker for Smith, according to my math Gorton could keep everyone else and be under the salary cap in 2020-2021.