The absolutely craziest thing about the 2021 New York Rangers

When it comes to the New York Rangers there’s one number that  is absolutely stunning

No, it’s not Mika Zibanejad‘s goals per game average or the height of Artemi Panarin‘s leg kick.  It’s the amount of money the New York Rangers are paying players to not play for the team. That number is precisely  $12,994,444.

That’s more money than Connor McDavid makes, meaning that the Rangers have a dead cap hit that is more than any one player in the NHL is paid. That’s 15.9% of the total budget for Rangers player salaries. If you think that buyouts are routine and the Rangers are one of many NHL teams in the same boat, think again.

Here’s the buyout hit for the rest of the teams in the NHL.

• No buyout hit (12 teams):   Boston, Chicago, Colorado, Islanders, Minnesota, San Jose, St. Louis, Tampa, Toronto, Vegas, Washington and Winnipeg.
• Less than $1 million:  Arizona, Buffalo, Dallas
• Less than $2 million: Vancouver, Pittsburgh, Columbus,
• Less than $3 million:  Nashville, Florida, Carolina, Philadelphia, Calgary
• $3.5 million:  Detroit
• $3.67 million:  New Jersey
• $3.83 million:  Edmonton
• $3.96 million:  Montreal
• $4.06 million: Los Angeles
• $4.93 million:  Ottawa
• $6.62 million:  Anaheim
• $12.99 million: New York Rangers

The number is even more stark when you consider that some clubs ate the buyout cost of high priced players from other teams because they had cap space.

The Rangers’ hit comes from buying out four players.

• Kevin Shattenkirk:  $6,083,333
• Henrik Lundqvist:  $5,500,000
• Dan Girardi:   $1,111,111
• Ryan Spooner: $300,000

The Spooner buyout is based on a salary retention deal and he was actually bought out by Vancouver.

What’s done is done

Buyout cap hits are the punishment for teams that make bad decisions.  When it comes to the Rangers, they’ve made a few.   While the big contract awarded to Henrik Lundqvist makes some sense, the undeniable fact is that in the first year of a seven year contract, he was 32 years old. The fact that he made it through six years is remarkable.

Kevin Shattenkirk signed a four year, $26.6 million deal as the final piece of a Stanley Cup puzzle.  In hindsight, it was a gross misjudgment of the team’s talent. Less than eight months after he signed, the Rangers threw in the towel and committed to a total rebuild.

Dan Girardi was 30 when he signed a six year, $33 million contract.  Three years later he was bought out and the team is still paying him for not playing.

The impact

The common consensus is that the Rangers are going to be in a fight to make the playoffs this season, will be in the playoffs next season and will be a Stanley Cup contender after that.  That makes perfect sense, but ponder this.

How much better would the Rangers be if the Rangers had Mike Hoffman (who plays both wings) and his 29 goals on the right wing?  How much better would the team be if they had the dollars to sign Brenden Dillon away from the Washington Capitals to play with Jacob Trouba?

Those are just two of the free agents who were available this fall.  While Hoffman and Dillon may not be the answer, the buyout hit effectively handcuffed the team from making any moves.

If they had been able to make those kinds of moves, we’d be talking about an accelerated time frame with Stanley Cup contention as early as this year.  Why is that important? Because of Mika Zibanejad.

Rick Carpiniello of The Athletic (subscription required)  said the unthinkable in a recent piece. He noted that come 2023-24 it is very possible that Mika Zibanejad will not be a Ranger.   That’s because he will be 29 years old in 2022 when it will be time for a new contract and if he keeps up his excellent play, he will be looking for big money and long term. That’s precisely how the Rangers got into the situation that they are in now.  That means in order to take advantage of Zibanejad at his peak, they need to win it all in the next two years.

Deja vu

Did they learn anything from this lesson in salary cap economics?  Not if you look at the last big deal that they doled out, the seven-year, $45.5 million deal they gave to Chris Kreider in February.  The deal starts this season and that means that he will be 30 just four months into the new season, the first of seven  years the team is committed to him.

What does that mean?  It means that five years into this deal, when Kreider is 34 and the Rangers need to buy him out, they have a dead cap hit of $3 million in 2025-26, $4 million in 2026-27 and $1.5 million each of the next two years.  Sound familiar?

How about the other two big deals they committed to, for Artemi Panarin and Jacob Trouba?  Panarin will be 34 going into the last year of his deal and if a team was going to commit to one player for so much for so long, Panarin was the right guy to sign.

Trouba makes even more sense as he will 31 in the last year of his deal, as he is nearing the end of the his prime years.

The future

This may all have a happy ending.  Maybe the national television deal the NHL cuts will allow an increase in the salary cap that will enable the Blueshirts to absorb Kreider’s contract and allow them to sign Zibanejad.  May be they will be able to persuade Zibanejad to take a deal for short term and big dollars.   Maybe Chris Kreider, who is a fitness fanatic, will be able to play at a high level into his mid thirties.

Then again, we may be sitting around before the start of the 2023-24 season bemoaning the fact that Zibanejad has just won the Hart Trophy (for another team) and that a 33 year old Chris Kreider is showing his age with four more years left on his deal.

There has been a lot of talk that the Rangers wouldn’t have signed Kreider if they knew that they were going to get Alexis Lafrenière.

While that is probably true, the fact is that making the playoffs last spring was a hope and not a sure thing,  Moving Kreider was the smart move.

They were on the verge of reaping a king’s ransom for Kreider at the deadline as the most attractive rental in the market.  Instead, Jeff Gorton and company went for immediate gratification and signed Kreider.  While signing  Kreider for four or five years makes sense, a seven year deal for a 30 year old player is an invitation to buyout city.

Of course, if they win the Stanley Cup in the next three years, all is forgiven.