There are so many teams being anchored down by some bad contracts. So why should the New York Rangers come to their rescue and take away other teams’ albatross deals?
The offseason provides a chance for teams to readjust their rosters so they could be even stronger for the next season. This means figuring out what to do with some less than desirable contracts. Expensive, long-term deals given to players that have not produced to their expectations since can really weigh a team down in this salary cap era. One or two bad contracts on a team could really stranglehold them, taking away the team’s room to grow, or worse, setting them back.
That is where the New York Rangers come in.
The Rangers are in the early stages of their rebuild where they need acquire as many assets as possible. Only the Islanders and the Hurricanes have less money on the books for the 2018-19 season than the Blueshirts at this point. Using that cap space as an asset to acquire more picks/prospects for bad contracts is a very smart way to stock up.
The Rangers did this at the trade deadline by taking on Matt Beleskey’s contract. Instead of just acquiring a first round pick and Ryan Lindgren for Rick Nash, the Rangers got the Bruins to throw in Ryan Spooner in exchange for taking half of Beleskey’s cap hit for the next two seasons.
I took a look around the league to find a few awful contracts that teams may try to move away from this offseason. Here are five players the Rangers could add to bolster their asset pool.