New York Rangers should wait another year to buy out Marc Staal

Marc Staal’s play has clearly declined over the past few seasons. The obvious choice is to buy him out as soon as possible. The New York Rangers would actually benefit by waiting one more season to do so.

When talking about the weaknesses of the New York Rangers, the defense is usually brought up. The team has had a wide range of mediocre to bad blue-liners making up their defensive corps over the past two seasons.

What was once the strong point of the team became a liability.

Ryan McDonagh was amongst the best defensemen in the entire league until recently. The former Wisconsin Badger was traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning, along with J.T. Miller, in exchange for a 2018 first-round pick, a conditional 2019 first-round pick, prospects Libor Hajek and Brett Howden, along with center Vladislav Namnestnikov.

The only other defenseman that could be considered above average on the New York Rangers right now is Kevin Shattenkirk. He wasn’t given the chance to prove that this year, only playing 46 games. He was held back by a knee injury for a large portion of the year.

One of the bleakest parts of the team’s defense right now is Marc Staal. Once considered a great player, a combination of age and injury has sent him into a downward spiral. In addition to his less than stellar play, the real issue is his albatross of a contract.

Fans have been begging management to buy him out for the past few years. However, that might not be the best choice, in terms of leftover salary being paid and cap space.

A Career in Decline

While Marc Staal was never known for being an offensive defenseman, he also wasn’t always playing as poorly as he is now.

At the conclusion of the 2009-2010 season, his third with the team and in the NHL, he had eight goals and 19 assists for a total of 27 points. The next year, he scored seven goals and 22 assists, totaling 29 points.

At this point, Staal was still just 24 years old. It looked like he had the best years of his career ahead of him. To fans of the New York Rangers, he was just getting started.

But, unfortunately, he became plagued with injuries. The worst of which came in 2013 when he took a slapshot to the eye. In addition to the serious eye injury, Stall has had several concussions during his NHL career. Adding all of those crippling injuries together and it is not hard to see why Staal has declined.

After the injury and the surgery following it, his play just hasn’t been the same. While his point totals declined gradually, they hit an all-time low this past season.In 72 games, he had just one goal and seven assists for eight points altogether. This was a career low in goals, obviously.

Staal had only had fewer points in the 2011-2012 season when he played just 46 games and scored five points. He had seven assists again in the 2016-2017 season and has only had fewer than that in the 2011-2012 season as well with three.

His defensive play has declined drastically as well, looking its worst in 2015-2016 and fluctuating between mediocre and terrible since then. All of these factors make him seem like a great buyout option for right now.

Benefits of Waiting

So, if Marc Staal has gotten this bad this quickly, why wait another year to buy him out? According to his results on the Buyout Calculator on CapFriendly, holding out for one more year actually helps the team more than it hurts them.

First, we ran CapFriendly’s Buyout Calculator tool for Marc Staal on June 19th, 2018. This would mean that for the 2018-2019 season, his cap hit would be $2,055,556. For 2019-2020, it would go up to $3,055,556.

For 2020-2021, it would increase again to $3,855,556. Then, he would cost $1,355,556 per season until the end of the 2023-2024 season. His final total cap hit would be $13,033,333.

Then, we ran the simulator for a year later, on June 19th, 2019. His cap hit would be $2,900,000 for the 2019-2020 season, up to $3,700,000 for the 2020-2021 season, and then back down to $1,200,000 per year until the end of the 2022-2023 season.

His final cap hit would be $9,000,000. The Rangers would spend one less year paying him off, and would ultimately even save some money. Additionally, the buyout lasts four seasons instead of six.

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If the team was still in “win-now” mode, the choice to buy out Marc Staal would be one of the easiest decisions for the organization. But, since the team is in the early stages of a rebuild and isn’t exactly planning on winning now anymore, waiting out one more year of Marc Staal’s contract to save some time and money would definitely benefit the team and make them a little better.

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