New York Rangers: The key to a good offseason is budget signings

The New York Rangers have made their fair share of boneheaded free agent signings. However, the team has made good decisions on budget players.

The salary cap is the trickiest problem for maintaining a good team. Players that play well expect to get pay raises. Especially with the NHL’s punitive salary rules in which players cannot earn their first real pay day until age 27. This typically means that NHL players get only one big pay day before age 30. Being that age 30 is typically the beginning of a player’s production dropping off, this makes getting that one big contract extremely important.

This is why that come every July 1, a feeding frenzy ensues. With the biggest fish always being the players that are hitting unrestricted free agency for the first time. This summer, New York Islanders center John Tavares is expected to at least test unrestricted free agency. As one of the league’s elite players, Tavares will get more than ten million per season.

These are the contracts that have come back to bite the Rangers. The team’s checkered history of signing flashy free agents on the first day of the window only to later regret them were a running joke. In fact, since the institution of the salary cap, the Rangers have been far better off. This has forced the team to become more financially conscious to not just throw out deals all willy nilly.

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In fact, the team has landed several solid contributors on low risk deals. The teams that smartly pick off the bargain bin to fill out the bottom six are typically in better financial shape than those who make the big splashes.

The change of scenery candidate

The cliches that surround NHL players follow them for their entire careers. If just one “hockey guy,” says that a player has a bad attitude, that stays with them. Take the Evander Kane situation for example. Kane is obviously a talented player but has never produced at the levels he was capable of. The number four overall pick in the 2009 draft, Kane had only hit 50 plus points twice in his entire career.

Of course, spending a majority of his time with the perennial loser Winnipeg Jets and Buffalo Sabres did not help his production. However, it seemed that Kane was perfectly content to simply bide his time until he got out of Buffalo. A trade to the Sharks woke Kane up and he produced at a nice 14 points in 17 game clip.

In the Rangers recent history, the team has found a way to take on their fair share of players that fit this mold. Most recently, the team got two productive season out of Michael Grabner. Considering that the Rangers got Grabner off of the scrap heap on a team friendly, two year $1.65 million deal, the team was not expecting him to lead the team in even strength scoring.

Yet, somehow, Grabner found a niche on the team and produced at a level he never had before in his entire career. The regression that should have come, never did, he shot at an abnormally high 16.2% in 2016-2017 and 19.1% this past season. This was a deal the Rangers would do every single time.

The reclamation project

Aside from the change of scenery candidate, there is also the reclamation project. These are the players that do not live up to their draft hype. For every Connor McDavid at the top of the draft there are flops. Sometimes players are not the right fit, sometimes there are larger factors at play. A franchise can just mess up their evaluation of a player and try to make them into something they are not.

The Rangers have also found a way to make themselves a known reclamation project stop. The most obvious success the team had was with Benoit Pouliot. The Minnesota Wild originally drafted Pouliot with the number four overall pick in the 2005 NHL entry draft. The forward never found a place in Minnesota and was then traded to the Montreal Canadiens. Through his first seven seasons in the NHL, Pouliot never topped more than 32 points.

When the Rangers brought in Pouliot on a one year, $1 million dollar deal prior to the 2014 season. With New York, the forward posted the best statistical output of his entire career. For his 80 regular season games as a Ranger Pouliot posted 15 goals and 36 points on the team’s third line. In addition, Pouliot was a key cog on the team’s postseason run. During the team’s 25 game postseason run, Pouliot posted ten points on the team’s best line.

In conclusion

The Rangers definitely have holes in their roster. Realistically speaking, the team needs to bring in at minimum two forwards, two defenseman and a backup goaltender. The Rangers could solve a few of these holes internally, however, it is impractical to fix all of these holes in house. The team needs to smartly balance their cap space with logic.

Just because the team has cap space does not mean that they should jump into the free agent frenzy on July 1. In fact the team should be reserved and look for budget signings to serve as stop gaps. As a franchise, the Rangers have some interesting prospects in the pipeline. Yet, they are mostly at least one year away from being NHL ready.

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So budget free agent players to fill out the roster are a better idea than throwing a seven year $7 million dollar deal at the best unrestricted free agent this summer. In fact, recent team history says this would be a better course of action. The Rangers might even stumble into a 25 goal season by mistake.