In a week the first of four New York Rangers who have filed for arbitration will have a hearing
To the surprise of no one, the four remaining unsigned New York Rangers Restricted Free Agents filed for arbitration and the league has set the dates for their hearings. The Rangers have the most arbitration cases of any NHL team, tied with the Ottawa Senators with four. Here are the dates for the hearings (with their last annual salary in parentheses):
- Tony DeAngelo: Tuesday, October 20 ($925k)
- Alexandar Georgiev: Saturday, October 31 ($925k)
- Ryan Strome, Thursday, November 5 ($3.1 million)
- Brendan Lemieux, Friday, November 6 ($925k)
There is no doubt that the Rangers will try to get all of these players under contract before their hearings. The last time the team let a player get to arbitration was in 2009 when forward Nikolai Zherdev was awarded a $3.9 million salary by an arbitrator. The Rangers exercised their right and didn’t honor the award making Zherdev a free agent.
An arbitration history
In the last decade, 22 Ranger players have filed for arbitration and all of the cases were settled before the hearing. One reason is that the arbitration process is unpleasant with the team making a case for paying less than the player is asking for.
While Mats Zuccarello signed before his hearing in 2013, the brief prepared by the Rangers is available on the internet and it shows how it get nasty. The brief indicates that Zuccarello’s “impact has been minimal.” Granted, Zuccarello hadn’t busted out as a great player, but he had been an important playoff asset and the next season would score 19 goals in the regular season.
When it comes to the 2013 playoffs, the brief says that “Zuccarello has failed to portray himself as an outstanding player in the playoffs,” pointing out that ” he did not score any power play goals, short-handed goals, or game winning goals” and concluded that the “7 points that he did register were certainly important, but are overshadowed by the fact that his plus minus rating was -2 for the playoffs.”
The forward avoided the hearing and signed a one year deal for $1.15 million, a raise over his $700k salary.
Last summer Pavel Buchnevich and Jacob Trouba were both headed for arbitration and signed before their hearings. Trouba is no stranger to arbitration. In 2018 he took the Winnipeg Jets to arbitration and was awarded a one-year deal at $5.5 million, almost doubling his salary. He was headed for arbitration last year, but signed his seven-year, $56 million deal after he was traded to the Rangers.
Buchnevich signed his two-year deal just three days before his scheduled hearing. Coming off a season when he scored 21 goals, he got a contract with an Average Annual Value of $3.25 million, tripling his Entry Level Contract payout.
What’s ahead
The Rangers are in no rush, especially when it comes to Strome and Lemieux who won’t have their hearings for over three weeks. The key negotiation to watch will be with Tony DeAngelo whose hearing is in a week. If he has a future with the team, they will try to sign him for longer term, but considering their surplus of righthanded defense prospects, that is probably not an option.
Coming off a season when he ranked among the best offensive defensemen in the league, DeAngelo will be looking for a huge raise, especially after he was forced to sign for $925k after a short holdout before last season. Often described as trade bait, any deal will probably wait until after he is either signed or has his arbitration award determined. No teams have the cap space to gamble on taking him on with his salary for next season unknown.
The Georgiev negotiation should be resolved before a hearing, but by buying out Henrik Lundqvist, it leaves the Bulgarian netminder as the de facto backup. He did lose some leverage when the team signed free agent netminder Keith Kinkaid.
Once the DeAngelo situation is resolved, it could open up some trade possibilities. The Rangers could seek to swap DeAngelo for a second line center and then walk away from a Strome arbitration award. One important factor is the Rangers can only walk away if the award is over $4,538,958. While he is expected to be seeking a salary over $5 million, it is an exposure for the Blueshirts.
A worse case scenario would be if the Rangers traded DeAngelo for a second line center and if Strome then got a $4.5 million award. Then they would be stuck with both centers and have no cap space.
Finally, the Brendan Lemieux contract situation should be easily resolved, but he wasn’t a happy camper when he was forced to take the $925k salary last year and he is represented by his father Claude. It could get ugly.
In a flat cap world, every penny counts and it’s clear that the Rangers are tiptoeing around a dangerous cap situation. With potential performance bonus payouts and arbitration hearings looming, it is not a good situation and it must be keeping Jeff Gorton up at night.