The potential path out of cap purgatory

The New York Rangers may have a tightrope to walk but there are solutions and light at the end of the tunnel.

The summer of 2019 continues for Jeff Gorton and the New York Rangers.  Their once comfortable cap space position is much smaller after their signing of Artemi Panarin on July 1st.  At this time the Rangers are at $74,406,466 with 21 players on the roster signed for the 2019-20 season per CapFriendly.  This leaves them with $7,093,534 to play with to get their four remaining restricted free agents under contract.

Recently acquired defenseman  Jacob Trouba and forward Pavel Buchnevich were among 40 restricted free agents from 20 NHL teams who filed for arbitration.  Those players have been given arbitration hearing dates to settle their cases. Trouba is scheduled for July 25th and Buchnevich is scheduled for July 29th.  Four of the 40 players have already reached an agreement prior to their hearing which is not surprising.  Over the past two summers, over 90 percent of arbitration cases have been resolved prior to the hearing date.

The long pole in the RFA tent is Trouba who reportedly is looking for a long term extension with the Rangers in the $7,500,00 per season range.  According to Rick Carpiniello of The Athletic,  the two sides are relatively close with just salary and bonus amounts separating them from finalizing the deal.  A contract of that magnitude will put the Rangers over the cap ceiling by $407,000.  As soon as the deal is announced the subsequent moves will become clear.

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The Buchnevich situation is a bit different.  The 24-year-old winger is coming off a career-best 21 goals however the timing of recent signings may affect his arbitration case.  The recent signing of San Jose Sharks forward Kevin Labanc for $1,00,000 is a comparable case in point.

Labanc scored 56 points for the Sharks which is 18 more than Buchnevich.  Using Evolving Wild estimates, Buchnevich comes in at $2,387,061 on a one year deal, and $2,874,385 on a two-year deal.

For analysis purposes I’m projecting Buchnevich will be no higher than $2,000,000 on a one year award or $3,000,000 on a two-year deal if the arbitration case goes the distance.

With Trouba and Buchnevich filing for arbitration, the Rangers are provided a secondary buyout window to account for the possibility of being over the cap. The logical candidate for a buyout is Brendan Smith with $3,379,167 in cap savings for the 2019-20 season.  In addition, the Rangers can bury Matt Beleskey’s contract in Hartford which will create an additional $1,075,000 in cap savings.  Notwithstanding the sequence of events, assuming a one year deal with Buchnevich, the Rangers would be $2,047,000 under the salary cap.

To conclude the restricted free agent round up, defenseman Tony DeAngelo and forward Brendan Lemieux are both coming off their entry-level contracts, but neither have arbitration rights.  The Rangers could simply open with the minimum qualifying offers of $874,125 for one-year contracts as a best-case scenario.  Eventually, Lemieux will likely sign for $900,000 per year as a bottom-six forward.  DeAngelo could sign a club-friendly deal as Leblanc did for San Jose at $1,000,000 and work on a longer-term deal next year.

Conceptually speaking, it is feasible for Gorton to traverse the restricted free agent tightrope without having to trade Chris Kreider, Ryan Strome or Vlad Namestnikov although from a roster perspective one of those three will not be here in September.  The Rangers have contingency options as well as the flexibility to make the moves necessary to navigate through the cap challenges.