The Rangers made their second trade in as many weeks on Sunday, acquiring Tyler Motte from the Ottawa Senators for Julien Gauthier and a conditional seventh-round draft pick in 2023.
This will mark his second stint with the Rangers, who acquired him last season around the NHL trade deadline from the Vancouver Canucks. He appeared in nine games in New York that time around and helped the Rangers reach the conference finals
Now he returns to the Big Apple with nine points (3 goals, 6 assists) in 38 games for the Sens this season as the Rangers hope he can help them make another run this time around. Motte isn’t known as a goal scorer, but the bottom-six can be a big help on the penalty kill.
It appeared that a trade would be coming in the near future after Motte was held out of Sunday’s game between the Senators and St. Louis Blues for “trade related reasons.” The Rangers had been in the mix, but Larry Brooks from the New York post reported that the asking price was higher than the fourth round pick that the Rangers gave up to get him from Vancouver last year.
That clearly ended up being the case with Gauthier and a seventh round pick headed back to Ottaway in the deal.
Gauthier has appeared in 40 games this year for the Rangers and had six goals and three assistts in that span for New York. He was originally acquired by the Rangers in 2020 when he was picked up in a deal with the Carolina Hurricanes.
If the the Rangers do end up advancing past the first round of the playoffs this year than the pick will improve to the lower of the Rangers’ or the Winnipeg Jets’ 2023 sixth-round selection. The Rangers own a sixth round pick from the Jets from last year’s traade that brought Andrew Copp to Broadway.
