Chris Drury and the Rangers had a chance to circle back to a familiar face, but Mats Zuccarello is heading elsewhere.
Multiple reports say Zuccarello has agreed to a one-year deal with the Los Angeles Kings. According to The Athletic’s Chris Johnston, the contract carries a base salary of $1 million, with the possibility of bonuses. The exact bonus structure has not been made public.
For Rangers fans, that makes this one sting a little more. Zuccarello was one of the names that stood out on a free-agent market thinned out by players signing extensions with their current clubs. With the market looking more like a bargain bin than a splash zone, a reunion in New York always felt like a realistic possibility.
It won’t happen now.
The fit on paper was obvious enough. The Rangers could use more offense, and Zuccarello has continued to produce late into his career.
He is coming off back-to-back 54-point seasons, and in this year’s playoffs he put up two goals and seven assists in eight games. That kind of production would have been useful for a team trying to find more punch.
Instead, Zuccarello is joining a Kings team that is expected to be in the playoff mix next season. That’s a different outlook than the Rangers, who are trying to get back to the postseason after finishing last in the Eastern Conference.
There’s also a little extra irony here. Los Angeles already has a few former Rangers ties: Artemi Panarin is there on a new two-year contract, Erik Gustafsson agreed to a one-year deal, and Peter Laviolette is now the head coach. Zuccarello never played with Panarin or Gustafsson and never had Laviolette behind the bench, but he becomes another ex-Ranger headed to the same franchise that beat New York in the 2014 Stanley Cup Final.
Winger may not have been the Rangers’ biggest need, but scoring help was on the list. Zuccarello would have made sense. He just won’t be making that return after all.
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