Henrik Lundqvist’s Ranger future looks grim

Henrik Lundqvist’s career with the New York Rangers is coming to a close

New York Rangers President John Davidson had the most decisive word so far on the future of Henrik Lundqvist in discussing the team’s goaltending situation.  Davidson and General Manager Jeff Gorton spoke to the media about the series loss to the Hurricanes and the draft lottery.

According to Vince Mercogliano of Lohud.com, Gorton confirmed what we all know, there will be no three-headed goalie monster next season.  He told Mercogliano “our plan is to have two goalies when the season starts.”

Davidson addressed the Lundqvist situation directly.  “Knowing the professional individual that Hank is I can tell you that when we got off the plane back from Toronto, I did have a discussion with him.  It was a personal discussion; we’ll leave it at that. We will continue having our discussions to figure out what avenues we’re going to take as we move forward. We’ll handle things the right way and just move forward with this.”

Davidson continued “Hank is a great person who wants to be in the know, we’re the type of people who want to do the right thing,” He continued,  “He has Don Meehan as his agent. We’re all getting together here trying to figure out what we’re going to do as a group and just do the right thing. We’re in the process of trying to dissect everything and then we’ll all move forward as a group here, doing things the right way.”

The message is obvious, the Rangers know what they have to do, but are going to be patient and logical about it.  The messaging that they are going to “do the right thing the right way” was consistent from both Gorton and Davidson.

The good news is while they are taking care to handle this delicate situation with care, they are moving forward.  If Davidson’s message to Lundqvist was that he no longer has a future with the organization, the ball is in the Swede’s court.  If Lundqvist believes he can still be competitive in the NHL he can either okay a trade or accept a buyout.  If he wants to go out a Ranger, he can choose to retire.

With the flat salary cap next season, whatever he decides will be important to the Rangers.  If he retires, it will save the team $5.5 million in cap space for next season.  A buyout will save the team $3 million in cap space next season and cost the team $1.5 million the following year.  The team could trade him and retain half of his salary, saving $4.25 million towards the cap.

Another factor are the decisions the team will be making about their roster.  Gorton said that they will spending time having organizational meetings via Zoom and they will have to figure out why the team stepped in what Davidson called a “pothole.”   Gorton has made it clear that he feels the Rangers should be “harder to play against” and that will affect decisions moving forward.

The Rangers will be tight to the cap next season and will have to be ready to decide what to do with their Restricted Free Agents, particularly Ryan Strome and Tony DeAngelo.  The deadline day for all of these issues will be right after the draft is held on October 9-10.    In the meantime, you can be sure that the Rangers brain trust will be very busy and Henrik Lundqvist will have do some soul searching.