NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Rangers’ sell-off that general manger Chris Drury warned fans would be coming as part of a retooling process is now underway.
They traded defenseman Carson Soucy to the crosstown-rival New York Islanders on Monday in exchange for a third-round pick in this year’s draft. None of Soucy’s $3.25 million salary was retained.
It is just the fourth between the teams and first since 2010.
The Islanders have been looking for a left-shooting defenseman since Alexander Romanov injured his right shoulder and had surgery in November, sidelining him for five to six months. That timeline means Romanov could return at some point after the playoffs begin in mid-April.
Soucy, 31, is a pending unrestricted free agent and would be a rental addition for the Islanders, who have shifted into contending mode in GM Mathieu Darche’s first season in charge. No. 1 pick Matthew Schaefer emerging as a young star and the rookie of the year front-runner raised the organization’s expectations, and making the playoffs in a wide-open Eastern Conference is now a realistic expectation.
The opposite is the case for the Rangers, who are now surprise sellers. Underachieving in Mike Sullivan’s first season as coach prompted a change of course for Drury, who got a multiyear contract extension from owner James Dolan in April and is getting the chance to fix a flawed roster.
In a letter to fans posted on social media Jan. 16, Drury said the team would not stand pat and that “a shift will give us the ability to be smart and opportunistic as we retool as a team.”
“This will not be a rebuild,” Drury said. “This will be a retool built around our core players and prospects. We will target players that bring tenacity, skill, speed, and a winning pedigree with a focus obtaining young players, draft picks, and cap space to allow us flexibility moving forward.”
Artemi Panarin, the team’s leading scorer every season since signing an $81.5 million contract in 2019, like Soucy is set to be a free agent and could be the best player moved before the NHL’s March 6 trade deadline. Panarin is 34, counts $11.6 million against the cap and has a full no-movement clause, which allows him control over where he goes.
Just about everyone in the organization, aside from franchise goaltender Igor Shesterkin, top defenseman Adam Fox and prospect Gabe Perreault, figures to be available at the right price.
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New York Rangers defenseman Carson Soucy (24) in action during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Washington Capitals, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's bloody crackdown on nationwide protests killed at least 6,126 people while many others still are feared dead, activists said Tuesday, as a U.S. aircraft carrier group arrived in the Mideast to lead any American military response to the crisis.
The arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and guided missile destroyers accompanying it provide the U.S. the ability to strike Iran, particularly as Gulf Arab states have signaled they want to stay out of any attack despite hosting American military personnel.
Two Iranian-backed militias in the Mideast have signaled their willingness to launch new attacks, likely trying to back Iran after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened military action over the killing of peaceful protesters or Tehran launching mass executions in the wake of the demonstrations.
Iran has repeatedly threatened to drag the entire Mideast into a war, though its air defenses and military are still reeling after the June war launched by Israel against the country.
Both the Houthis and Kataib Hezbollah sat out from Israel’s 12-day war on Iran that saw the United States bomb Iranian nuclear sites. The hesitancy to get involved shows the disarray still affecting Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” after facing attacks from Israel during its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The new figures Tuesday came from the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in multiple rounds of unrest in Iran. The group verifies each death with a network of activists on the ground in Iran.
It identified the dead as including at least 5,777 protesters, 214 government-affiliated forces, 86 children and 49 civilians who weren't demonstrating. The crackdown has seen over 41,800 arrests, it added.
The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll given authorities cutting off the internet and disrupting calls into the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s government has put the death toll at a far lower 3,117, saying 2,427 were civilians and security forces, and labeled the rest “terrorists.” In the past, Iran’s theocracy has undercounted or not reported fatalities from unrest.
That death toll exceeds that of any other round of protest or unrest there in decades, and recalls the chaos surrounding Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The protests in Iran began on Dec. 28, sparked by the fall of the Iranian currency, the rial, and quickly spread across the country. They were met by a violent crackdown by Iran’s theocracy, the scale of which is only starting to become clear as the country has faced more than two weeks of internet blackout — the most comprehensive in its history.
Iran’s U.N. ambassador told a U.N. Security Council meeting late Monday that Trump’s repeated threats to use military force against the country “are neither ambiguous nor misinterpreted.” Amir Saeid Iravani also repeated allegations that the U.S. leader incited violence by “armed terrorist groups” supported by the United States and Israel, but gave no evidence to support his claims.
Iranian state media has tried to accuse forces abroad for the protests as the theocracy remains broadly unable to address the country's ailing economy, which is still squeezed by international sanctions, particularly over its nuclear program.
Iran projected its power across the Mideast through the “Axis of Resistance,” a network of proxy militant groups in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, and other places. It was also seen as a defensive buffer, intended to keep conflict away from Iranian borders. But it has collapsed after Israel targeted Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon and others during the Gaza war. Meanwhile, rebels in 2024 overthrew Syria’s Bashar Assad after a yearslong, bloody war in which Iran backed his rule.
Yemen's Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, have repeatedly warned they could resume fire if needed on shipping in the Red Sea, releasing old footage of a previous attack Monday. Ahmad “Abu Hussein” al-Hamidawi, the leader of Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah militia, warned "the enemies that the war on the (Islamic) Republic will not be a picnic; rather, you will taste the bitterest forms of death, and nothing will remain of you in our region.”
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, one of Iran’s staunchest allies, refused to say how it planned to react in the case of a possible attack.
“During the past two months, several parties have asked me a clear and frank question: If Israel and America go to war against Iran, will Hezbollah intervene or not?” Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Kassem said in a video address.
He said the group is preparing for “possible aggression and is determined to defend” against it. But as to how it would act, he said, “these details will be determined by the battle and we will determine them according to the interests that are present.”
Associated Press writers Edith Lederer at the United Nations and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.
A Hezbollah supporter waves an Iranian flag during a rally to show their solidarity with the Iranian government, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
This photo provided by the U.S. Navy shows sailors preparing a Boeing EA-18G Growler on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Indian Ocean on Jan. 21, 2026. (Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Daniel Kimmelman/U.S. Navy via AP)
Vehicles drive past portrait of the late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, left, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People walk in front a billboard with graphic showing a U.S aircraft carrier with damaged fighter jets on its deck, and sign reading in Farsi and English: "If you sow the wind, you'll reap whirlwind," at the Enqelab-e-Eslami (Islamic Revolution) square, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
