from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Derick Brassard, who took a step backward last year even while recording a personal-best 27 goals that led his team, is gone, off to Ottawa for Mika Zibanejad. It was a center-for-center swap in which the Blueshirts came away with the younger, faster, bigger and cheaper player, plus a 2018 second-rounder, to boot.

Cap space was cleared, $2.375 million of it with the newest Swede to join the team in at $2.625 million for the year while Brassard carries a $5 million hit. The Blueshirts now have a fair amount of maneuverability both immediately and into the season. But the added space is more a byproduct of the deal than the motivating force behind it.

The Rangers wanted — if not needed — a different kind of center behind Derek Stepan and they got it in Zibanejad, who is stronger without the puck and in his own end and projects to be feistier and tougher than the gifted, finesse-oriented Brassard.

They acquired a center who they believe will be a better match against bigger, physical pivots and thus alleviate some of the burden on Stepan, whom coach Alain Vigneault had come to rely on almost exclusively — and ultimately to No. 21’s detriment — the last two years in power-against-power matchups.

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from Ken Warren of the Ottawa Citizen,