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Anton Stralman or Marc Staal Leaving NY Rangers

By BT Farley |

Left defenseman Christian Ehrhoff was just recently bought out by the Buffalo Sabres

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The New York Rangers have a few decisions to make this summer. Namely Unrestricted Free Agent

Anton Stralman

and his high contract stance. Let’s face it, its’ inevitable the New York Rangers are going to have a rookie or three on their roster next season. Ideally as a team you’d like to graduate one or two every season to keep the salary down and keep youth in the lineup. Right now I’m sure a lot of the daily operations have to do with the Entry Draft. There is of course a list of Unrestricted Free Agents

Glen Sather

and company might want to keep.

Right handed defenseman are coveted in the National Hockey League. In fact two/thirds of NHL defenseman are left-handed shots. Anton Stralman had the twenty-eighth best on ice Corsi in the entire league. If Marc Staal is looking for his big UFA contract. Why not trade the lefty Marc Staal and resign the righty Anton Stralman? They will get a pretty good return on Marc Staal. It may help to trade Marc Staal to a team with a deep prospect pool and clear his four million dollar cap hit off the books. New York could then sign Christian Ehrhoff in his place for the same or maybe less than what Staal was getting. Left defenseman Christian Ehrhoff was recently bought out by the Buffalo Sabres, making him a UFA getting paid by Buffalo to play elsewhere.

Is Anton Stralman deserving of a contract worth five million!

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Buffalo Sabres were correct to take Rasmus Dahlin in 2018
Buffalo Sabres were correct to take Rasmus Dahlin in 2018 /

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    • He’s a top four right handed defenseman. There’s not too many of those floating around in free agency. Especially defenseman with Corsi For percentage at 56.5%, eighth best among defenseman in the entire NHL.

    NHL Player Dashboard Stats | Extra Skater

    . In comparison

    Ryan McDonagh

    had an on ice Corsi of 51.1% and

    Dan Girardi

    49.9% Corsi for percentage. These are good  numbers for the top two defenseman with all the minutes they play against the top competition. They both play in all three main situations, power play, penalty kill, and even strength. If the New York Rangers lose Anton Stralman they’ll need to find another right-handed defenseman. They should resign

    Raphael Diaz

    but he’s for depth and isn’t able to play top four minutes.

    Kevin Klein

    was a great fifth defenseman but faked it for years in Nashville as a top four defenseman.

    The NY Rangers have four Restricted Free Agents to re-sign that were important parts of the team that went to the Stanley Cup Finals!

    RFA’s Brassard and Zuccarello are important players. Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports

    “If you don’t have it, you can’t pay it,” Glen Sather said. “But you want to keep your own team intact, if you can” Glen Sather to NHL.com after the 2014 draft

    Per Capgeek.com 

    Glen Sather has $23 million to spend with twelve players under contract. That leaves roughly $2.161 million per roster opening. Currently the New York Rangers are paying $3.835 million per skater. This makes it imperative some of the teams young prospects step into full-time rolls on the team next season on Entry Level Contracts.

    Glen Sather

    has a way of using every single advantage he has at his disposal to play hardball with younger players under control by their RFA status. Case in point is last summer when

    Derek Stepan

     had to hold out

    trying to get his General Manager to crack.

    Derick Brassard

    and

    Mats Zuccarello

    are going to eat up some cap space with their raises. Probably around six or seven million between the two young playersProbably around six or seven million between the two young players combined.

    Would they dare trade Marc Staal to create cap space?

    “If you have players that aren’t willing to accept roles, then you have conflict all the time and that creates problems,” Sather said, “I’m not interested in problems. I want people who want to play within the team structure. That’s how you win,” Glen Sather via NHL.com

    The New York Rangers spend more money per defenseman on average ($4.268 million) than twenty-seven other teams in the National Hockey league.

    Marc Staal

    wants his extension done this summer. He doesn’t want to negotiate during the season after what happened to

    Ryan Callahan

    at last years deadline. I can’t blame him but I doubt that happens. There’s just too many other pressing issues to tend to this summer.  If it were up to me, Marc Staal would be the odd man out to clear his cap charge of close to four million dollars. Glen Sather still needs to find

    a top six centerman

    .

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