The New York Rangers are reportedly among the list of five teams to which Rick Nash would agree to be traded prior to the NHL trade deadline.
The Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins, San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings are also on Nash's wish list, the Columbus Dispatch reports.
The Rangers have been rumored to be interested in acquiring Nash, who has scored 40-plus goals twice during his career, 30-plus goals six times, and at least 27 goals in every year since his rookie season. But acquiring him could be a giant task, warns the Rangers blog Blueshirt Banter.
Now, onto the hard part about big trades, what the Rangers would need to give up. Let's start with Nash's cap hit. Nash is slated to make $7.8 million a year until 2018. That's a hefty contract, and one that would require some movements if the Rangers wanted to fit him under the cap (currently the Rangers have just over $1.5 million in cap space).
The salary can, incidentally, be shed in the trade itself, depending on what Columbus would actually want. If Brandon Dubinsky ($4.2 million) and Wojtek Wolski ($3.8 million) were involved, then the Rangers would free up $8 million in space, actually saving the team $200K in cap space. ...
Obviously Wolski and Dubinsky alone wouldn't get the deal done. Some combination of Chris Kreider, Christian Thomas, Matts Zuccarello and other picks or players would need to be involved.
Nash has scored 18 goals with 21 assists so far this season.
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