Chris Kreider is the first roster casualty of the Rangers’ highly anticipated offseason shakeup.
Shedding his status as the longest-tenured Blueshirt, who first ventured to New York for the 2012 NHL playoffs at age 20, fresh off of Boston College’s campus, Kreider signed off on a trade to the Ducks Thursday morning, The Post’s Larry Brooks first reported.
The Rangers received forward prospect Carey Terrance, a New York native, and a 2025 third-round pick (originally Toronto’s) in exchange for Kreider and a 2025 fourth-rounder (originally Anaheim’s and acquired in the Jacob Trouba deal).
Anaheim is also taking on all of Kreider’s $6.5 million cap hit over the next two seasons, on account of the organization needing to spend more than $14 million this offseason to reach the cap floor.
It was a move the 34-year-old wing saw coming since the beginning of the offseason. Rangers management made a point to be up front with their intentions and maintain constant communication throughout.
Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury has also been in regular communication with Mika Zibanejad, Adam Fox and other veterans on the team about trading Kreider, per a source.
“We want to thank Chris Kreider for all of his contributions to the Rangers organization over his stellar career,” Drury said in a team press release. “Chris has been an integral part of some of the most iconic moments in Rangers history, including setting multiple franchise records and helping the team advance to the 2014 Stanley Cup Final. His leadership on the ice and tireless efforts in the community – which he was recognized for as the inaugural recipient of the Rod Gilbert ‘Mr. Ranger’ Award – only add to his distinguished Rangers legacy.
“Chris will always be a Ranger and we wish him and his family all the best.”
Presented with the trade earlier this week, which he had to approve since the Ducks were on his 15-team no-trade list, Kreider mulled over the situation and went to bed a Ranger one last time.
Not retaining any of Kreider’s salary was a key part of this deal for the Rangers, who now have enough cap space to match essentially any offer sheet if they want to.
While it’s come at the cost of shipping out a player who has been part of the organization for well over a decade, the Rangers wanted to have some cost certainty heading into the draft and free agency portions of the offseason schedule.
After the Rangers selected him 19th overall at the 2009 NHL Draft, Kreider made his NHL debut in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals against the Senators in 2012.
For all the peaks over his 13-season run with the team, however, this past season fell into a valley that the longstanding marriage could not get out of.
Aside from the multitude of injuries Kreider dealt with throughout the 2024-25 campaign, which undoubtedly impacted what was ultimately a career-low performance (in a full 82-game season), the veteran was also specifically named in Drury’s league-wide memo eliciting trade partners in late November.
There was a palpable disconnect between Kreider and the franchise he’s played for his entire career thus far.
As a result, Kreider follows several other former core members — captain Jacob Trouba, alternate captain Barclay Goodrow, second-overall pick Kaapo Kakko, 21st-overall pick Filip Chytil and blueline staple Ryan Lindgren — out the door.
A few familiar faces await the Massachusetts native in Orange County. Kreider will be reunited with Trouba, four-year Ranger Ryan Strome and one-time trade-deadline acquisition Frank Vatrano. He also has his offseason training partner in Trevor Zegras out there.
The legacy he leaves in Manhattan is still an unforgettable one — albeit one without a Stanley Cup.
Kreider, the first recipient of the “Mr. Ranger” award in April 2022, is perhaps the closest the organization has gotten to the honor’s namesake, Rod Gilbert. It’s difficult to imagine Kreider in anything other than red, white and blue, which he also wore under new Rangers head coach Mike Sullivan for Team USA at the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-off in February.
The two will not get to join forces again, but instead will square off twice in the upcoming regular season as teams in separate conferences.
Despite missing out on a Stanley Cup over his Rangers tenure, which included five trips to the conference final and one to the final in 2014, Kreider is all over the franchise record books.
Not only is he the leading playoff goal scorer of all time with 48, but Kreider’s 116 power-play goals are tied for the most. His 50 game-winning goals are good for second, while his 326 total scores are third all-time.
The 883 games he played in a Rangers jersey have him ranked eighth in franchise history.
And yet, the numbers and records don’t quite reflect the weight of Kreider’s time with the Rangers. They don’t reveal the community impact, the dedication or the countless times he delivered in big moments on the ice.
Kreider is tied with Mark Messier for the most goals in playoff games when facing elimination (16), the most in NHL history.
The extensive work he’s done with the Garden of Dreams Foundation — as well as many other charities — is well documented.
While it’s up for debate if anybody should be allowed to wear Kreider’s number again, there will never be another No. 20.
From cleaning up caps off his front lawn following his series-winning natural hat trick in Game 6 of the second round of the 2024 playoffs against the Hurricanes to his departure in a cap-space-clearing move, Kreider left his mark on the New York Rangers.
No matter how it came to an end.
