New York Rangers: What if the team found a way to keep Yandle
The Rangers traded their top prospect, a first round pick and a second round pick for Keith Yandle at the 2015 trade deadline. The defenseman only played a season and a half in New York, what if the team kept him.
In a salary cap sport there are always going to be difficult decisions to make. In the case of a team like the New York Rangers, these are a persistent problem. Every few years, a crop of players have their entry level contracts expire at the same time. The jump from a players entry level contract to their first unrestricted free agent deal is usually at least $3 million.
In the case of the Rangers, they had made a habit of trading for premium assets at the trade deadline. For the most part, New York was right there on the cusp of being a Stanley Cup contender this decade. Coming off their loss in the Cup Final in 2014, the team signed 38-year-old defenseman Dan Boyle to remedy their power play issues. However, Boyle did not live up to his name reputation.
The veteran’s struggles forced general manager Glen Sather’s hand at the deadline. Sather traded for the biggest name on the market, Yandle. To that point in his NHL career, Yandle had been a strong possession player and dominant power play force. This seemed like a perfect match for a team that sorely needed a power play quarterback.
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The Rangers had to let Yandle go because they couldn’t afford to keep him. What if they found a way?
The Cost
Simply put, the salary cap made keeping Yandle impossible. At the time, the Rangers were up against the cap ceiling with less than $100,000 of space. The team had a variety of contracts that hamstrung their financial flexibility. Excluding Henrik Lundqvist, Rick Nash and Derek Stepan because they were positive players, the reasons for not keeping Yandle were obvious.
The Marc Staal and Dan Girardi contracts were the death knell for a Yandle extension. Girardi’s deal, which the Rangers bought out following the 2016-2017 season, was for $5.5 million per season. Staal’s contract, which was extended during the 2015-2016 season was at a cap hit of $5.7 million.
Having $11.2 million tied up in two ineffective players was a bad recipe for the team. This amount was a little less than 1/7 of the team’s entire salary cap. Couple this with the team needing to extend Chris Kreider, Kevin Hayes and the aforementioned Staal meant Yandle was low priority.
The Rangers ultimately traded Yandle’s unrestricted free agent rights to the Florida Panthers before the free agency window. The defenseman signed a seven year $6.35 million per season deal on June 24 of 2016.
What might have been
The very straight forward solution for the Rangers would have been to not extend Staal. With that free $5.7 million, the team would have had the cap space to at least make Yandle and offer. The team made a conscious decision to value Staal’s one dimensional defensive oriented game over Yandle’s balanced two way game.
It is not hard to imagine a world in which the Rangers keep Yandle and have a more well rounded team for the 2016-2017 season. Furthermore, the ripple effects of this deal would have been two fold. First, the team would likely have not traded Stepan prior to the 2017 entry draft. The conventional wisdom is that Stepan was traded to free up cap space for that free agency window.
With that cap space the Rangers signed defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk to a four year $6.65 million per season deal. If the Rangers kept Yandle, they would not have needed Shattenkirk’s balanced two way game. Of course, the New Rochelle native had a rough first season with New York due to a torn meniscus, so his worth was difficult to assess.
Next: Report card: Lias Andersson
The Rangers have a serviceable Yandle facsimile in Shattenkrik. By some measures, Shattenkirk is actually the better of the two players. However, potentially having Yandle and Stepan seems favorable to having Shattenkirk and Lias Andersson. The development of the number seven overall pick will ultimately determine if letting Yandle go was the right move.