New York Rangers: J.D. must get creative with Dolan’s money
By Ed Stein
Triage
If the goal is to be a contender in 2021, some tough decisions need to be made. The first of which is who on the current roster can help them get there. Once that’s decided, the next step is to remove those who can’t help or are not worth the money required to keep those players around. The final step is disposing of those assets in a way that helps the organizations future endeavors.
Some of those moves may be unpopular. For example, Mats Zuccarello was an extremely popular player to the New York Rangers faithful, but his contract was running out and the money it would take to keep him in New York could have put a serious cramp in the rebuild. Don’t be surprised if something similar happens between the draft and the 2020 trade deadline in March.
Who sticks around to be part of the Rangers glorious resurgence? Right now the easier question is who has to go. Next season’s salary cap is expected to be $83M. Going by recent trends, it will probably escalate two-to-four percent the following year. According to CapFriendly, the NYR payroll is estimated to be a hair under $64M with Tony DeAngelo, Fredrik Claesson, Jacob Trouba, Pavel Buchnevich, and Brendan Lemieux as unsigned restricted free agents. Some breathing room is needed if they plan to sign a marquee free agent.
Trouba is going to get paid, probably in the neighborhood of $7.5-8M per season. That’s fine, its what the Blueshirts expected when they traded for him. Before getting back to the RFA’s, Davidson and Gorton have some other dirty work to do.