With a looming cap crunch for the Rangers, they will be hard-pressed to re-sign their pending restricted free agents to market-value contracts and round out the rest of their roster. To that end, Arthur Staple of The Athletic suggests (subscription link) that they may need to focus on bridge deals with defenseman K’Andre Miller and Alexis Lafreniere or even consider the possibility of moving Lafreniere this offseason. New York has more than $71MM in commitments to 14 players for next season per CapFriendly and a long-term deal for Miller would eat up a bulk of their cap space alone. It’s a problem they can ignore for now with the team aiming for a long postseason run but GM Chris Drury is going to have his work cut out for him to keep his core intact this summer.
More from the Metropolitan:
- The Flyers have returned goaltender Samuel Ersson to AHL Lehigh Valley, notes Olivia Reiner of the Philadelphia Inquirer (Twitter link). He had served as the backup for Philadelphia for the past two games with Carter Hart dealing with an illness. Ersson’s first taste of NHL action has gone relatively well this season as he has a 3.03 GAA and a .898 SV% in ten games while winning six of his eight starts.
- A pair of injured Penguins defensemen have returned to the ice. Justin Guerriero of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review notes that Marcus Pettersson skated on his own before practice today with head coach Mike Sullivan indicating that the 26-year-old is making progress. He’s currently on LTIR and isn’t eligible to return until April 13th. Meanwhile, Jan Rutta returned to practice in a non-contact jersey. He has been out with an undisclosed injury for the last two weeks. Pittsburgh is down three blueliners at the moment (Dmitry Kulikov is also out) and just narrowly holding onto the final Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference.
- The Rangers have re-assigned prospect Adam Edstrom to the minors, per an announcement from AHL Hartford. The 22-year-old forward more than doubled his point output from a year ago, collecting nine goals and ten assists in 42 games with SHL Rogle. With their playoff run now over, Edstrom will now get his first taste of playing in North America.
Move Panarin. Keep youth core.
Pretty sure that mailbag was done before they signed Chytil to a below market extension. Both Kane and Tarasenko will probably be gone after this season, my guess is Drury finds a way to extend Miller and then Laffy gets bridge deal but I doubt he moves either or Kakko this offseason. It’s more likely he attaches an asset to Goodrow and finds a taker for his contract.
I agree
Goodrow possibly gets moved for a 4th round pick and rangers give bridge deals to Laf and Miller. Than look at Kane and Tank to see which one is willing to take short term contract.
Laffy Duck?
Hockey Season!
Wabbit Season!
Goodrow + Lindgren to Detroit for Rasmusen + Chiarot ($1.25M retained)
NY loses $1.8 M salary, has a better and cheaper replacement for Goodrow and has a D-man at $3.5 M to replace Lingren and the big raise he will demand in the summer of 2024.
Yep. Fact is that neither Kane nor Tarasenko are particularly lighting it up for the Rangers; they’re both prorating out to 45-50 pts over a full season, which is decent enough, but superstar performance it ain’t.
Stick with the youth. Kane and Tarasenko will be gone unless Kane is willing to take a low, short contract. As mentioned above, need to move some vets. Goodrow would be ideal, but I think Trocheck (or Panarin/Kreider depending on interest out there) may be the piece that needs to move in order to move the kid line up a notch. I don’t think Lindgren would be considered as being moved. It’s like Leetch and Beuk. You just don’t tamper with it and he’s the closest thing to a physical presence on the team. Also, Othmann will be up next year, so that’ll help offset some of the pain at wing.
The Rangers now have 12 million and cap space to sign Laf, Miller, and a back up goaltender. With Othmann, Cuylle, and Sykora the team is going to have more than enough money to sign the RFA’s.
To everyone saying they need to trade Goodrow, why? Who on the team replaces what he does? He makes them harder to play against which was their goal last year which led them to the Eastern conference finals. Now you wanna just go back to try to Dipsy-do your way through the playoffs? That doesn’t work. You have to have some grit, and fight in your your group. And I’m sorry? But the top nine has about none of that right now.
Can get that grit for a much lower cap hit.