The Rangers continue to sort through their group of fringe NHLers.
Adam Edstrom was traded to Nashville in exchange for the No. 148 pick and prospect Massimo Rizzo, the team announced during the second day of the NHL Draft at KeyBank Center in Buffalo on Saturday afternoon.
The move comes one day after Brett Berard was shipped to Montreal as part of a prospect swap for William Trudeau.
The Rangers don’t plan to extend a qualifying offer to Rizzo, who weighs more as a career AHLer.
With the emergence of players like Jaroslav Chmelar and Adam Sykora last season, the Rangers had a bit of a logjam of bottom-sixers building up. Moving Berard and Edstrom allows for some other, more promising players to have a clearer path to an opportunity.
Edstrom, the 6-foot-7 forward the Rangers drafted 161st overall in 2019, was ravaged by injuries during his New York tenure.
Suffering two long-term lower-body injuries in the span of 10 months, Edstrom was limited to 51 games in 2024-25 and 35 games last season. Despite returning from a fractured ankle that required surgery in March, the 25-year-old was a healthy scratch in the final 11 games of the 2025-26 season.
The injuries never allowed Edstrom to gain any traction in the Rangers’ lineup, but the fit wasn’t quite right either.
Head coach Mike Sullivan even experimented with Edstrom at center, a position he hadn’t played at the NHL level. It was short-lived and created an even larger question mark over Edstrom’s head entering the offseason.
Read the expert take on the Blueshirts
Sign up for Inside the Rangers, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.
Thank you
President and general manager Chris Drury was able to recoup a fifth-round pick for Edstrom, who finished his Rangers tenure with 10 goals and six assists in 97 games over parts of three seasons.
The Rangers also traded up to pick No. 102 to select center Spencer Bowes out of the Ontario Hockey League. Sending the 131st and 148th picks to Seattle, Drury padded their depth down the middle with another skater on the NCAA track.
“I love the fact that they traded up to get me,” he said with a smile. “I love their fans, too, like watching that NBA series. I’m pumped.”
Bowes is committed to Providence College for the 2027-28 season. He said the plan is for him to go back to the Ottawa 67’s for another season before making the jump to college hockey.
