One New York Rangers RFA signed, three more to go
With an arbitration hearing scheduled for Halloween, the New York Rangers got some business out of the way by signing goalie Alexandar Georgiev to a two year contract. The deal is valued at $4.85 million with an Average Annual Value of $2.425 million. In salary, he makes $2.2 million in year one and $2.65 in year two.
Re-signed. ☑️
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) October 15, 2020
The Rangers have agreed to terms with RFA goaltender Alexandar Georgiev. pic.twitter.com/iT9f7pAssX
With Georgiev signed, it means the Rangers still need to sign Ryan Strome, Brendan Lemieux and Tony DeAngelo. All three have their arbitration hearings scheduled with DeAngelo’s the first one up next Tuesday.
With the signing, it means that the Rangers have $15,679,367 in cap space left. They have issues with performance bonuses that will have to be resolved by the end of the season, but that’s the number going into the 2020-21 season.
According to capfriendly.com, Georgiev’s $2.425 million cap hit ranks 39th among NHL goalies under contract. He’s in the vicinity of netminders like David Rittich, Anders Nilsson, Pavel Francouz and Jaroslav Halak.
Georgiev, 24, was coming off a three-year Entry Level Contract he signed in 2017 that paid him $925k annually. He had some leverage in this negotiation as the Rangers had committed to him as part of their goaltending tandem with Igor Shesterkin. Despite signing Keith Kinkaid as a free agent, Georgiev was really the only option to play with Shesterkin considering that no one in the prospect pool is ready to move to the NHL.
Georgiev cemented his role with the team when the Rangers bought out Henrik Lundqvist. Ironically, Lundqvist just signed with the Washington Capitals for $1.5 million, almost a full million dollars less than Georgiev’s AAV with the Rangers.
It’s been a storybook career for the only Bulgarian to make it to the NHL. He was an undrafted free agent signed by the Rangers who came out of nowhere to win a starting job in the NHL. With this contract he is going to be around for at least two years. After the 2021-22 season he will be an arbitration eligible RFA once again.