Not too long ago, there wasn’t a huge gap between Vlad Namestnikov and Ryan Spooner. Boy, how things changed in just two months.
Both Rangers players were add-ons to deals at last season’s trade deadline, and both were signed by the Blueshirts this summer as restricted free agents to matching two-year, $8 million deals. Yet on Nov. 16, Spooner was shipped to Edmonton in a straight-up trade for Ryan Strome, while Namestnikov is now playing his most assertive hockey in his short tenure on Broadway, raising his value — both internally and as a possible trade piece — with each passing game.