Though a contract had been previously reported by CapFriendly, the New York Rangers officially announced that they have agreed to terms with goaltender Marek Mazanec on a one-year contract. Mazanec had been scheduled to become a restricted free agent, but will ink a two-way deal that pays him $650K at the NHL level.
Mazanec looked like he was on his way out of North America for good last summer when he agreed to mutually terminate a contract with the Nashville Predators so that he could sign in the KHL. Instead of staying in Russia though, Mazanec played just 23 games there before signing with the New York Rangers and spending half the season with the Hartford Wolf Pack. Terminating the contract with the Predators made him an unrestricted free agent, despite them qualifying him and coming to a contract agreement earlier in the summer.
Now he’ll remain in the Rangers organization for another year, and the question becomes whether he’ll be given a chance to become Henrik Lundqvist’s backup for 2018-19. Ondrej Pavelec, who served in the role last season, is scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent, while none of the other goaltenders in the system have much NHL experience. Mazanec has 31 NHL games under his belt including four with Nashville in the 2016-17 season, but hasn’t found much success there so far. Even last season wasn’t very promising in the minor leagues, where Mazanec recorded just a .905 save percentage.