Rangers' Will Borgen on signing extension with club: 'Kind of a no-brainer for me'

GREENBURGH — Will Borgen didn’t know what to expect after he was acquired by the Rangers last month.

An original member of the 2021 expansion franchise Seattle Kraken, Borgen, 28, was having kind of a down season. He was playing on the third defensive pair for a Seattle team that was battling to stay in the playoff hunt in the Western Conference.

Then, a week before Christmas, Borgen was in Chicago with the Kraken when he was notified that he had been traded for Kaapo Kakko. He joined the struggling Rangers in Dallas, stepped right into the lineup and focused on playing hockey.

The whole thing was a whirlwind. He was in the last year of his contract and living out of a suitcase for weeks while waiting to get some clothes and his car shipped from his home in Seattle to New York.

But the 6-3, 204-pound Borgen played the kind of steady hockey the Rangers were in need of — solid defensively, physical, edgy — and the Rangers slowly began to turn things around.

On Saturday

, the Rangers rewarded the native of Moorhead, Minnesota, by signing him to a five-year, $20.5 million contract extension that he said was “kind of a no-brainer for me’’ to sign.

“I guess I never really knew what was going to happen,’’ Borgen said at Monday’s practice. “I don’t think there’s any certainty when I got traded here, but, you know, once they started talking to me and my agent, it was a pretty easy choice.

“I wanted to be here. I think it’s a great place to play. I said before, Madison Square Garden is my favorite rink to play in. I always enjoyed coming here, and it’s just, it’s really fun to play here.’’

A few days before signing, Borgen was talking about how nice it was to get the opportunity for a fresh start with the Rangers. His role with Seattle the last couple of years had been to match up against other teams’ top forward lines, but that had changed this season. In 33 games before the trade, he was averaging only 15 minutes, 12 seconds of ice time, had one goal and one assist and was a minus-13.

With the Rangers, he’s been a consistent top-four defenseman, partnering mostly with fellow Minnesotan K’Andre Miller and again matching up with opponents’ best players on a nightly basis. In 18 games, he has two goals and two assists and is a respectable minus-1 while averaging 18:31 of ice time.

The Rangers are 9-6-3 since he’s come aboard, though his turnover in Sunday’s game against Colorado led directly to Artturi Lehkonen’s tiebreaking goal with 14.7 seconds left.

“I feel like he came in here and he’s already done great things for us,’’ Miller said. “He’s been leading on and off the ice with his play and his personality. He’s a very good leader. I don’t want to say he’s a vocal leader by any means, but I think he leads by example. And he’s a really good guy.’’

“For me, it’s his mobility and his defensive detail that he has,’’ coach Peter Laviolette said on Sunday. “He closes [on opposing forwards] quick, he arrives with some attitude into the battles, makes a good first pass and looks to contribute offensively. So to get a player like that under contract I think is outstanding for us.’’

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.