Why Rangers should consider bringing Morgan Barron back to anchor 3rd line

As the New York Rangers seek to remake their roster into one possessing a harder-edged, tougher identity, they could very well consider dipping into their past to improve the future.

Watching Morgan Barron play heavy, important minutes for the Winnipeg Jets in their jaw-dropping Game 7 comeback victory against the St. Louis Blues on Sunday, might just entice the Rangers to consider a reunion with the 26-year-old center.

Barron was a sixth-round pick (No, 174 overall) by the Rangers in the 2017 NHL Draft and played 18 games on Broadway before he was traded to the Jets in March 2022 as part of the trade-deadline swap that brought veteran forward Andrew Copp to Broadway.

Though that deal will go down as a success – Copp played a key role in the Rangers run to the Eastern Conference Final that spring – Barron’s developed into the kind of player that his first NHL team so desperately craves now. Accordingly, Rangers general manager Chris Drury should take a run at re-acquiring Barron to bolster the bottom six.

Morgan Barron’s size, physicality suits what Rangers have long sought in shutdown center

Barron exhibited signs of the heavy, grinding game he was capable of bringing in his short stint in New York. His three full seasons north of the border have seen the 6-foot-4, 220-pound center establish himself as an NHL regular by playing precisely that style. Barron totaled at least 70 games in each of those campaigns with the Jets, scoring 30 goals, adding 30 assists, dishing out 362 hits and growing as a face-off force in 2024-25, winning a career-best 52.1 percent of his draws.

In Winnipeg’s Game 7 double-overtime win, Barron stepped up to play 26 rugged minutes, tasked with a bigger role since No. 1 center Mark Scheifele was injured and out of the lineup.

Barron will never be a star, but his skill set would fit the current Rangers to a ‘T.’ The Rangers are starved for a big, strong third-line matchup center, especially in a playoff series. One need only look at the impact of the Carolina Hurricanes’ Jordan Staal and the Jets’ Adam Lowry – both of whose teams are into the second-round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs – to know that having such a player is a key ingredient for success.

Perennially absent that element, multiple Rangers coaches have employed Mika Zibanejad in the role, one which he handled well at times. That, however, came at the expense of his offensive game, and may have contributed to Zibanejad’s decline from unquestioned No. 1 center to winger on J.T. Miller’s line in the latter half of this season.

The Rangers find a shutdown forward in the middle to anchor their third line next season – not to mention as many forwards as possible who can get to the net and create havoc. Those kinds of players are anything but easy to find; but Barron’s game is still growing, and a long career in just that role might be in the offing.

So why would the Jets want to move him? It’s a matter of economics and personnel. Even with the salary cap rising from $88 million to $95.5 million next season, Winnipeg is likely to face a financial crunch. The Presidents’ Trophy winners likely want to re-sign top-six winger Nikolaj Ehlers, an unrestricted free agent who carried a $6 million cap hit this season season and will command a raise. They’ll also be in the market for a bonafide No. 2 center, former Rangers journeyman Vladislav Namestnikov’s recent playoff heroics notwithstanding.

And the Jets have to re-up rising 25-year-old forward Gabriel Vilardi, a restricted free agent who will be looking for a long-term contract after recording career highs of 27 goals and 34 assists this season.

With nearly $70 million already projected to be on Winnipeg’s cap for 2025-26, and major financial commitments pending, things will get very tight very quickly for the Jets. Barron, a pending RFA with arbitration rights, will be looking for a salary increase and some term after completing a two-year, $2.7 million bridge deal. He can be an unrestricted free agent in 2026.

Even if the Jets are determined to retain Barron, there’s a question of roster fit. Ready for more responsibility, Barron’s path upward through the middle of Winnipeg’s lineup looks blocked. The Jets have Lowry, their captain and erstwhile third-line center, signed through next season.

Morgan Barron, Adam Lowry are redundant on Jets roster

Though he’s 32, Lowry remains highly effective, having scored an NHL career-high 16 goals in 2024-25 and posting a career-best plus-18 rating to give him a plus-35 mark over the past two seasons. Lowry is the Jets emotional leader, on the ice and off, and it seems likely the sides will try to work out an extension starting this summer.

That leaves Barron playing on the wing, which he’s done often for the Jets but limits his impact, or back in the middle of the fourth line. Will cap-challenged Winnipeg want to pay perhaps $2.5-$3 million over three or four years for a bottom-line center, one that might in some situations have to play out of position – especially when his skills are redundant with its captain?

It’s why the Rangers should take a run at Barron, who had eight goals, seven assists and some excellent underling metrics, per Natural Stat Trick, in 2024-25. A top-to-bottom center corps of Miller, Vincent Trocheck, Barron and Sam Carrick, with Juuso Parssinen and Jonny Brodzinski in the mix, has the look and feel of where Drury wants to take his roster.

While the Rangers don’t have much cap room either, they could undergo much more summer upheaval than the Jets. That means more cap space theoretically available to commit to someone who could finally fix their third-line center problem for awhile, and wouldn’t break the bank. And since Barron’s only 26, it’d be less painful for the Rangers to trade a young prospect or draft pick to get him.

Moving Barron was necessary for the Rangers three years ago. Now Drury needs him back. Barron represents what the Rangers want for their near future and they should put forth a serious effort to try to make that into a reality.