Ryan Strome

Throughout his tenure with the Rangers, Ryan Strome’s job security has seemed to be relatively thin.  Two years ago, the team acknowledged that they gave consideration to not tendering him a qualifying offer in part to avoid the risk of salary arbitration.  Instead, they agreed on a two-year, $9MM contract, one that ends in July.

For that money, New York has received a pretty good return.  Last season, the 28-year-old had 49 points in 56 games, the highest point per game average of his career (slightly besting his point per game average from 2018-19, his first full season as a Ranger).  This year, Strome is off to another good start with 10 points in 13 games.  Granted, a lot of that production has come alongside top winger Artemi Panarin but the combination has worked pretty well overall.

With that in mind, it would only seem logical for the two sides to be discussing an extension.  Not so fast, as Mollie Walker of the New York Post reports that there have been no such talks nor is there a plan for any to be held in the near future.

New York has some significant additions to their salary cap for next season which certainly plays a role in their current approach.  Mika Zibanejad’s AAV goes up by $3.15MM while Adam Fox goes from a base salary of $925K to a $9.5MM cap charge.  Add that to the likes of Sammy Blais, Kaapo Kakko, and Alexandar Georgiev all needing new deals as pending restricted free agents and all of a sudden, there isn’t a lot of money left; they have more than $70MM in commitments already per CapFriendly with the Upper Limit only expected to go up by a million or so for next season.

As a result, it looks like Strome could wind up being the odd one out even though it would open up a big hole inside their top six to try to fill, particularly internally with Filip Chytil looking like more of a bottom-six forward than a top-six option.  That’s something that GM Chris Drury will need to be mindful of as he looks to add to his current group with Blais out for the year.  In the meantime, Strome will look to pile up the points and hope that it will land him a sizable deal somewhere for next season, even if it’s not with Panarin and the Rangers.

Rangers center Ryan Strome had a career year in 2019-20 and finished third on the team in scoring.  Despite that, Larry Brooks of the New York Post reports that the team is undecided about whether or not to tender him a qualifying offer by Wednesday’s deadline.

The 27-year-old posted new benchmarks in assists (41) and points (59) and showed instant chemistry with their big 2019 summer signing in winger Artemi Panarin.  However, it’s possible that their connection is giving them some pause.

Before 2019-20, Strome was coming off of five straight seasons between 28 and 35 points.  Those numbers were good enough to keep him in the league but he was viewed as a frequent underachiever in his stints with the Islanders and Oilers before joining the Rangers in 2018-19.  That track record would be something they’d certainly mention in an arbitration case but his performance this season would still stand out in a hearing.  Was this a one-off or a sign of things to come?

Their answer seems to be the latter given this trepidation.  If they thought this partnership with Panarin is something that could be sustained, they’d go ahead and sign him without much concern.  But it would be hard to commit the salary that he’d receive in a hearing to someone that they believe could go back to that 28-35 point range.

Cap space is something that GM Jeff Gorton has done a lot of work to open up with the deadline trade of Brady Skjei to Carolina, the offloading of Marc Staal to Detroit, and the buyout of franchise legend Henrik Lundqvist (who strongly implied on his Twitter page today that he intends to keep playing).  Even so, with several others needing contracts (including blueliner Anthony DeAngelo and goalie Alexandar Georgiev), they’re not in a spot where they can just spend the extra money and hope it all works out in the end.

The qualifying offer in itself of $3.2MM (Strome’s 2019-20 salary) isn’t that bad.  But the key number here is $4,538,958, the threshold where the Rangers could walk away from an arbitration award if they thought it was too high.  Anything below that amount and they’re stuck with whatever is awarded.  But walking away leaves them weak down the middle with Filip Chytil not ready for a top-six role and a free agent market that is largely bereft of top-six options.

Is tendering the qualifying offer worth the risk of Strome’s contract coming in around the $4.5MM mark?  Is that risk still worth it considering the state of the free agent market?  Gorton now has less than 72 hours to figure out his answers.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.