Rangers trade Kakko to Kraken for Borgen, pair of picks

The New York Rangers traded forward Kaapo Kakko to the Seattle Kraken in exchange for defenseman Will Borgen, a 2025 third-round pick, and a 2025 sixth-rounder, the teams announced Wednesday.

Kakko has put up four goals and 14 points in 30 games this season while averaging 13:17 of ice time.

He missed Sunday's 3-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues as a healthy scratch. Rangers head coach Peter Laviolette said the decision was about "putting fresh legs in the lineup," but Kakko expressed frustration with the move Tuesday.

"I was surprised, yeah," he said. "I know you got to do something as a coach when you're losing games, but I think it's just easy to pick a young guy and boot him out. That's how I feel, to be honest."

Kakko returned to the lineup for the Rangers' 2-0 defeat against the Nashville Predators on Tuesday but played a team-low 10:14 of ice time.

New York drafted the Finn with the second overall pick in 2019. He registered an impressive 22 goals and 38 points in 45 games with TPS in the Finnish Elite League during his draft year.

Kakko has yet to meet the expectations of his high draft positioning, but he put up a career-high 18 goals and 40 points in 82 games in 2022-23. He missed 21 games due to injury last season but was on pace for around 17 tallies and 26 points over a full campaign.

The 23-year-old will represent Finland at the 4 Nations Face-Off in February.

Reports emerged in November that Kakko was among the Rangers available on the trade block. New York also took calls on him ahead of the 2024 deadline, though nothing came to fruition.

Kakko ends his Rangers tenure with 61 tallies and 131 points in 330 career games. He carries a cap hit of $2.4 million and can become a restricted free agent with arbitration rights this summer.

"We've been kicking tires on different things, and with (captain Jordan Eberle) out, we're short on the right side," Kraken general manager Ron Francis said. "(Kakko) gives us somebody that can play the right wing. He's a big boy, and he's got some skills.

"So, we thought it was the right move to make."

Eberle hasn't played since mid-November and was given a three-month recovery timeline after undergoing pelvis surgery.

Three of the top four picks of the 2019 draft are no longer with their original team, as the Chicago Blackhawks traded Kirby Dach to the Montreal Canadiens in 2022 and the Colorado Avalanche sent Bowen Byram to the Buffalo Sabres in March.

Borgen, meanwhile, has been a serviceable third-pair rearguard for the Kraken since 2021-22.

The 27-year-old hit the 20-point mark in each of the past two campaigns while appearing in every game, but he's recorded just one goal and one assist in 33 contests this season while averaging a career-low 15:12 minutes of ice time.

Borgen, who stands at 6-foot-3 and is a right-handed shot, has a cap hit of $2.7 million and can become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.

The Rangers have lost 11 of their last 14 games and also traded captain Jacob Trouba earlier in December. The Kraken entered Wednesday's slate in sixth place of the Pacific Division with a 15-16-2 record.