New York Rangers: Buyouts are very rare for the Blueshirts

The buyout window closes on Sunday.  The New York Rangers have three candidates for buyout, but based on prior history, it’s not likely.

Buyouts are a last resort for any team, including the New York Rangers. They don’t make sense unless there is no alternative. Before this season, the Rangers have executed buyouts only four times in team history.  Two were compliance buyouts, granted to teams when the salary cap was not increased during the lockout of 2012-13 and had to be used within two years.

The first year they used their first compliance buyout on Wade Redden who had signed a six-year, $39 million contract in 2008. In their final compliance buyout, the Rangers got out from under Brad Richard’s nine-year, $60 million contract in 2014.

The only other buyouts in team history were Chris Drury and Dan Girardi.  Drury had signed a five-year $35 million contract in 2007 and the team bought out the last year of his deal.  It saved the team almost $4 million in cap space in 2011 and cost the team $1.6 million in cap space the following year.  The Drury buyout made sense in that there was immediate substantial savings and a moderate cap hit the next season.

The Girardi buyout

The Dan Girardi buyout was a necessity, but it will continue to be painful for at least one more season. Girardi had signed a six-year, $33 million contract in February of 2014.  Faced with losing an integral part of a Cup Finalist defense, the Rangers chose to retain Girardi and let Anton Stralman walk as a free agent.  To make matters worse, they signed Marc Staal to a big contract one year later.

Girardi’s contract was bought out in June 2017, just a few days before a modified no movement clause was to kick in.  Though the buyout saved the team a boatload of cash, the cap hit was less, but still impactful.  The first year, the cap hit was $2.6 million, last season it was $3.6 million and 2019-20 it will be the same.   To put that in perspective, that would be about one third of Artemi Panarin’s potential salary.  It doesn’t end after this season, there are three more seasons of cap impact at $1.1 million per year.   The team won’t be clear of Girardi until July 2023.

The “good” news is the Rangers used the cap space created by the buyout to sign Kevin Shattenkirk.

Today’s buyout

You will be reading about a buyout that was exercised today that affected the Blueshirts.  The Vancouver Canucks bought out Ryan Spooner’s contract.  Since the Rangers retained some of Spooner’s salary when they traded him to Edmonton, the buyout will include the Rangers.  They had retained a $900k cap hit that would have ended with the 2019-20 season.

The buyout reduces the New York cap hit this season by $600k, but adds $300k to the cap in 2020-21.  That $660k could be helpful as the free agency window opens in just a few hours.

There’s been a lot written about potential buyouts of Staal, Smith or Shattenkirk.  Based on past practices and considering that all three of their deal are up after two more seasons,  a buyout doesn’t seem likely.