The Stanley Cup Finals may come to an end tonight and the New York Rangers can certainly look at them as a missed opportunity. Despite winning the President’s Trophy during the regular season, the Rangers were outclassed by the Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference Finals, dropping the series in six games despite a heroic performance in goal from Igor Shesterkin.
With the Panthers one win away from a potential Cup, it has to sting the Rangers that they were arguably the second-best team in hockey and didn’t even get a trip to the Finals to show for it. Rangers’ GM Chris Drury has his work cut out for him and has already begun tinkering with his roster, placing playoff star Barclay Goodrow on waivers to try and create some salary cap room while re-signing restricted free agent Kaapo Kakko to a one-year deal worth $2.4 million.
There’s a lot of business for Drury to attend to this offseason, so let’s take a look at some of the questions he will have to answer over the summer.
Pending Free Agents
The unrestricted free agent class for the Rangers is filled with either deadline rentals (Alex Wennberg, Jack Roslovic, Chad Ruhwedel) or veteran fliers from the previous offseason (Blake Wheeler, Erik Gustafsson). None of this group are likely to return, leaving the intrigue with restricted free agents Ryan Lindgren and Braden Schneider.
Schneider isn’t arbitration eligible yet so expect Drury to pursue a bridge contract like the Rangers have done with most players eligible for this situation. Lindgren is the more difficult call since he plays a physical brand of hockey and is likely to command a raise off the $3.3 million per year he played for on his previous contract. Replacing Lindgren would be challenging since he has been playing alongside star Adam Fox for years, leaving a difficult balancing act for Drury to consider as the Rangers negotiate a new contract.
Extensions
The Rangers are projected to have over $33 million in salary cap space next summer but will need to use a significant chunk of it on contract extensions. The biggest deal will likely go to Shesterkin, who is vastly underpaid at $5.67 million a year, but how much of a raise he gets will determine how much wiggle room the Rangers have to build the roster up around him.
The restricted free agent group for next summer includes K’Andre Miller, Alexis LaFreniere and Kaako, who could be traded this offseason. LaFreniere’s emergence this season makes an extension a good opportunity for the Rangers to lock him up to a relatively team-friendly deal while Miller is in line to earn a nice raise as the team’s top pair defenseman from the left side. Expect Drury to complete at least two extensions this summer to give the organization a better sense of long-term planning with key pieces.
External Additions
The biggest hole the Rangers will have to try and fill will be the top line right wing slot, which Kaako, Wennberg, Roslovic and Filip Chytil all cycled through last season without much success. Another defenseman to replace Gustafsson is also a need while more depth on the fourth line, especially if the Rangers either buy out Goodrow or bury him in Hartford to hide his cap hit, is an understated issue.
Drury has also to weigh whether his core needs a shakeup to get over the final hump to reach the Stanley Cup Final and snap a 30-year title drought. The majority of the team’s highly paid players aren’t movable as Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad have no-move clauses while Chris Kreider and Jacob Trouba’s clauses convert to modified no-move clauses this summer, requiring each player to submit 15 team no-trade lists. While most fans are eager to move on from Trouba, whose play didn’t match his $8 million salary this year, it could create some issues in the locker room as he is the team’s captain.
The path forward isn’t easy, as the Rangers are in a window to win that may not be as long as previously anticipated giving the advancing ages of some of the team’s highest-paid stars. The organization previously went through a window of deep playoff runs without claiming a Cup, raising pressure on Drury to ensure he doesn’t make the same mistakes as the previous regime.
Just End The Suffering 