Zibanejad, 23, set NHL career highs in goals (21), assists (30), points (51) and shots on goal (184) in 81 games with Ottawa last season. He has shown steady improvement over each of the past three seasons, with 33 points in 69 games in 2013-14, and 46 in 80 games in 2014-15.
A restricted free agent after this season, Zibanejad finished 167th in Yahoo's performance-based rankings last season. He was not in Pete Jensen's top 200 overall rankings for July prior to the trade.
Zibanejad will join the Rangers' top-six forward group and could replace Brassard, who centered Rick Nash and Mats Zuccarello last season. Zibanejad, who was probably going to break out this season regardless of where he was playing, is also likely to replace Brassard on the Rangers' first power-play unit, which will help his production considering New York was ranked 12 spots higher than Ottawa in converting on the man-advantage last season.