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New York Rangers Can’t Give Away First Rounder to Dump Girardi or Staal

By John Williams

May 31, 2017; Las Vegas, NV, USA: General overall view of the T-Mobile Arena exterior on Las Vegas Blvd. on the Las Vegas strip. The facility will be the home of the NHL expansion franchise Vegas Golden Knights which will begin play during the 2017-18 season. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
May 31, 2017; Las Vegas, NV, USA: General overall view of the T-Mobile Arena exterior on Las Vegas Blvd. on the Las Vegas strip. The facility will be the home of the NHL expansion franchise Vegas Golden Knights which will begin play during the 2017-18 season. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports /
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No matter how enticing it might be to dump the salary of their maligned defensemen, the New York Rangers cannot afford to do so at the cost of another lost first round draft pick.

It has been beaten like a dead horse; the New York Rangers need to find a way to escape from Dan Girardi and Marc Staal’s contracts.

The question of how to go about that is one with a blurry answer. There are many ways that, theoretically, the Rangers can go about doing this, but none without some sort of downside. A new potential solution has been brought to the attention of Rangers fan via a comment made by Las Vegas Golden Knight’s General Manager and former Blueshirt George McPhee.

” A lot of teams offering us big contracts….We’ll take a few of those, for the right price,” McPhee told the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Steve Carp a few days ago.

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‘The right price’ likely means draft picks, since Vegas is going to want to build up their prospect pool. If we are talking about the contracts of one of Dan Girardi or Marc Staal, for Vegas and McPhee to take on one of their full contracts, the Rangers would likely have to part ways with their first round pick.

Why that would be a bad mistake

Yes, the Rangers are in a bad spot with holding those two humongous contracts. If they end up dealing their first round pick, they will be putting themselves in an even worse position.

Yes it’s a weak draft, but the Rangers have one of the weakest minor league systems in the sport. They haven’t had a first-round pick since 2012 when they selected Brady Skjei. They don’t have a second round or third pick either in this draft, so trading their first rounder would mean the team wouldn’t have a pick till the middle of the fourth round. That’s not something that’s gonna help their system.

Must Read: Now’s the time to buyout Girardi and Staal

And while it may be addition by subtraction to remove one of the defensemen from the roster, with their contracts, not getting an asset of value back in return for that pick while the cupboard of prospects is so dry would be a devastating move.

The Rangers are truly in a pickle. And I hate pickles. Seriously, they are the most disgusting looking, smelling and tasting excuse for food one can ever consume.

Anyway, if they end up buying one of them out–Girardi would be the best option for now since the cap penalty would be lighter than Staal’s–they may need to just bite the bullet by keeping the other on the third pair in sheltered minutes this next season before buying him out next off-season.

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It would be a no brainer if they could trade the one who isn’t bought out without giving up a key player or the first-round-pick. They can’t afford to if it’s gonna cost that pick, and that’s the bottom line. The Rangers’ front office has a lot of thinking to do. And fast.

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