Pavel Buchnevich Autograph Card

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The New York Rangers made waves yesterday by trading 26-year-old Pavel Buchnevich to the St. Louis Blues for Samuel Blais and a second-round pick; I've read a lot of nonsense online about how the Rangers got fleeced in the deal, essentially giving up a first-liner for a bottom-six forward and a pick that will at best be a plugger - but that is simply not true. Blais often played on the Blues' top unit, making space for Ryan O'Reilly and David Perron to create plays, and was a heart-and-soul member of the 2019 Stanley Cup-winning team. Buchnevich, on the other hand, finally played up to his offensive potential, posting a career-high 48 points in just 56 games - two more than he had put up in 68 games in 2019-20 - just in time to cash in on a four-year deal worth $5.8M per season; he was arbitration-eligible and could have gone to free agency next summer.

That's deifnitely top-6 money, and he's definitely a top-6 talent, but some Blues fans may be asking too much of him to fill in for injury-depleted former star winger Vladimir Tarasenko - prime-level Tarasenko was elite, whereas Buchnevich's upside is a one- or two-time All-Star "at best" (it's still pretty freaking good on a team that won a Cup recently and has hardware winners).

Both teams will get what they want out of this trade,but chances are the Rangers have a better shot at feeling like they got more than expected, whereas the Blues may end up 115% underwhelmed compared to what they felt they were obtaining.

Here is Buchnevich on one of my favourite themed sets, the Signature Pucks sub-set from Upper Deck's 2018-19 Trilogy collection, wearing the Rangers' classic white (away) uniform and featuring a silver-sharpied autograph on a minuscule puck embedded in the card itself:

That level of penmanship is rare nowadays. This card once had a book value of roughly $15, it now oscillates between $40-50.

Pavel Buchnevich Jersey Card

The New York Rangers dealt with one of their more pressing issues by signing RFA Pavel Buchnevich to a two-year, $6.5M deal worth $3.25M per season on the salary cap, which amounts to more than triple his salary from the previous three seasons.

While his points-per-game average has improved in each of his first three seasons (from 0.49 to 0.58 to 0.59), his possession and shot differential stats have fallen quite a bit (50.1 CF to 48.6 to 47.4), showing that previous head coach Alain Vigneault had sheltered him at first and that perhaps current Blueshirts bench boss David Quinn can live with a few defensive lapses on his part if he can also produce at the other end of the rink.

While it's been a surprisingly reasonable summer for RFA contracts, the Rangers still currently sit at $4M above the cap with only 20 of 23 players currently on the roster after the signings of Buchnevich, Jacob Trouba and Artemi Panarin.

Common wisdom is they'll be shopping around forwards like Chris Kreider or perhaps even Buchnevich himself, but the smarter deal would be to find a way to rid themselves of an overpaid defenseman with some sort of no-movement/no-trade clause (like, say Kevin Shattenkirk or Brendan Smith) ahead of the Seattle expansion draft, or else they won't be able to protect the right players.

At age 24, we should get to see Buchnevich evolve into a flashy, consistent top-six forward who produces some 50 points per year for the two years of his bridge deal, then in the 60-70-point range on his next contract.

In the meantime, here's a jersey card from #89, card #RS-PB from Upper Deck's 2016-17 SP Game-Used Edition set and Rookie Sweaters sub-set:

It shows him wearing the Rangers' classic blue (now-home) uniform with a matching jersey swatch from a rookie photo shoot, and is numbered #499/499. I got it in a trade a couple of years ago.