New York Rangers: Banking on free agency is a risky proposition

The New York Rangers have ample cap space available in the near future for elite players in free agency. However, banking on those elite players reaching the July 1st window is a risky proposition.

The modern NHL roster construction is designed to maximize cap space when a significant chunk of the team is still under team control. This allows a front office to prioritize elite talent and not have to give up the overall quality of the roster in the name of keeping a singular player. Take the New York Rangers during the summer of 2015.

The organization was littered with veterans who went through four deep consecutive post season runs. A veteran team is expensive to maintain, and in the salary cap era, pretty much impossible to sustain for more than two or three years. That summer, the Ranger’s front office had to sell off assets for pennies on the dollar because there was no legitimate way to keep any of them.

The team’s front office had prioritized locking up long term assets on the blue line in Marc Staal and Dan Girardi. With the way the current salary structure operates, these veteran defenseman who hit unrestricted free agency at age 29 or 30 are the biggest possible gamble for a team. Unfortunately for the Rangers, both contracts have flopped and clogged up cap space that could have been used for better players.

Now that the Rangers are on the other end of the spectrum as a young and rebuilding team, their players are much cheaper. Having a 19 year old Lias Andersson under team control for $925,000 per season is a lot more appetizing than 28 year old Derek Stepan for $6.5 million per season as a rebuilding team.

The risk

This should go without saying, but typically, NHL franchises like to keep their elite talent. An organization without any game breaking players is one that is easy to play against and often towards the bottom of the league. The situation up in Detroit should serve as a warning to the rest of the league as to the effects of long term success and not knowing when to walk away from veteran players.

Somehow, the Red Wings have ten players on their active roster with a no trade clause of sometime. The unbelievable thing is that neither of the team’s blue chip prospects for the future, Dylan Larkin or Andreas Athanisou have one of the aforementioned ten deals.

The part that is concerning for the Rangers if they were banking on opening the check book come next July is the simple fact elite players do not hit unrestricted free agency except for very specific situations. In the past five years, only two elite players, Steven Stamkos and John Tavares have made it to July,1 without signing an extension.

Of course, Stamkos is still the Lightning’s captain and Tavares’ Toronto Maple Leaf pajamas are now world famous. This feeding frenzy that occurs on the first day of July is why illogical things like the Vancouver Canucks signing Jay Beagle to a four year deal worth $3 million per year lead on TSN instead of true mega deals.

The reality

In a nutshell, the Ranger’s biggest problem going forward is a lack of an elite player to build around. The team has a handful of players that should prove to be quality NHL players like Andersson, Filip Chytil, Vitali Kravtsov, K’Andre Miller and Libor Hajek. However, none of these players is in the same tier of prospect as someone like Rasmus Dahlin.

That is why the team banking on free agency or a trade is a risky proposition. Giving up assets when a team is close to being a contender is one thing, but trading away picks or prospects while in the early stages of a rebuild is counterintuitive. Trading for Artemi Panarin would set the Rangers back another calendar year and tie up close to $10 million in a single player once an extension was signed.

On the other hand, if a front office’s entire plan for a rebuild is riding on being able to sign players come July, 1 they’ll have a pair of issues. First, signing players as free agents instead of drafting them or trading for them while still under team control is far more expensive. Then there is the possibility of getting caught when the music stops. If a team’s entire plan for a rebuild is contingent upon signing a free agent and the free agent re-signs with their current team, there is no alternative.

If the Rangers are banking on some combination of Panarin, Tyler Seguin and Jacob Trouba being available come next summer, the rebuild is going to take longer than expected.