How Alexis Lafrenière upset the Rangers’ applecart

Domino #2 – Keeping Jesper Fast

This was a head scratcher at the time.  While the Rangers were making a move towards the playoffs, it was still a long shot and Fast could have been a decent trade asset.  In keeping him, the team probably assumed that they would be able to re-sign a “glue” player like Fast for a few more years at a reasonable rate.

When they got Lafrenière it also cost them a potential $2.85 million in performance bonuses and put them in a precarious cap position. Fast ended up signing for three years at $2 million a year, a price the Rangers would surely have been willing to pay if they had the money.  The Lafrenière performance bonus exposure put Fast out of reach even at that bargain price.

Domino #3 -The salary cap

Entry Level Contracts are very deceptive.  Alexis Lafrenière  may have signed for the standard #925k, but the NHL has made it possible for young players, particular star players to make much, much more. If Lafrenière hits all of his targets, he has the potential to earn #3.775 million each year, which is a helluva lot more than $925k.

The issue is that teams don’t get forgiveness, they have to stay within an allowance for  performance bonus overages and because of hefty bonuses that could be paid out to Lafrenière, Kaapo Kakko and Igor Shesterkin, the Rangers are on very thin ice.

In 2021-22, when when the team was counting on seeing a dead cap hit from the Lundqvist and Shattenkirk buyouts dropping by $11.5 million, they could be hit by a performance bonus overage of almost $4 million.  In a flat salary cap season, that’s a big figure.

Ironically, the Rangers gave Kakko and Shesterkin the maximum in performance bonus money ($2.85 million each) a decision that they probably regret. There’s no way they would have done that if they had known that they were going to luck into Lafrenière  who would also have to get the maximum.