The Ducks have acquired veteran winger Chris Kreider from the New York Rangers in exchange for Carey Terrance in a deal that also involved draft picks, the team announced Thursday.
Kreider, 34, had played his entire career in the Big Apple, beginning in 2012-13. He will arrive in Orange County with two years left on his contract at an annual average value of $6.5 million. He’d been the Rangers’ alternate captain for the past seven seasons and this trade will reunite him with another one-time Blue Shirt who wore the “A”, Ryan Strome, and a former Rangers captain, Jacob Trouba.
All three were in Manhattan during the 2021-22 season, when Kreider scored a career-high 52 goals to tie for the second most in a single season in the Original Six franchise’s history. He followed it up with efforts of 36 goals and 39 goals before tapering off considerably last season with 22 goals and 30 total points.
Yet that campaign was one of turmoil in New York that saw contentiousness between team and player in various instances as the Rangers desperately tried to foist recently valued veterans Trouba and, before him, Barclay Goodrow, on other clubs to clear cap space. A memo from general manager Chris Drury to the other 31 clubs overtly put established players, Trouba and Kreider among them, on the trade block.
The result was not pretty as the Rags went from conference finalists in 2024 to missing the playoffs altogether in 2025 amid tepid performance on the ice, which led to the sacking of coach Peter Laviolette.
Kreider won silver with the United States at the 4 Nations Face-Off and had previously garnered three medals with the Americans, bronze and gold at the junior level and bronze at the senior World Championships. He twice won the NCAA title with Boston College.
At the NHL level, Kreider has considerable playoff experience, having made four runs to the conference finals (2014, 2015, 2022 and 2024) and having been the last remaining Ranger from the 2014 team that lost to the Kings in the Stanley Cup Final.
Terrance, 20, was a second-round selection (No. 59 overall) by the Ducks in 2023. Last season, he captained his junior club, the Erie Otters, and competed in the World Junior Championships for the United States. While his scoring hasn’t seen any major uptick since his draft year, Terrance projects to be a two-way forward with a powerful skating stride and sound intangibles.
The Ducks hope Kreider can be even more than that, and sooner, given his seasoning and skills. At 6-foot-3 and 230 pounds, Kreider combines size and speed to create a powerful melange. His nose for the net and supple hands in tight quarters complete a package that, barring decline from age, should bolster the Ducks offensively at even strength as well as on the power play, where they had the league’s lowest conversion rate last season.
The Ducks also sent a 2025 third-round pick to New York and received New York’s 2025 fourth-round pick.