With the announcement yesterday that Chris Drury could not
be bought out of his contract this month as was anticipated there was some
consternation over what it meant to the Rangers offseason plan. The biggest question was whether the Rangers
had to make other moves in order to sign Brad Richards and keep all the
restricted free agents in the fold under the summer cap. The answer is that they can, but the money
will be tight.
Using the rumored $62.2 million cap number and the 10%
overage allowance as a base to fit all the players under the summer limit of
$68.42 million on the Cap Geek Cap
Calculator the following roster
emerged...
As you can see the wiggle room in this scenario is very minimal (445K) and the projections on the salaries for the restricted free agents and Brad
Richards could obviously vary in either direction, but the estimation gives an
idea of what could play out. Once camp
hits however the Rangers would come remove $13.55 million in dead cap space with Redden being moved down, and Drury being moved to LTIR. There is salary to be brought up in the form of players like Tim Erixon and/or another
defender (s) that could be added to the roster.
The potential LTIR relief from Drury would allow the Rangers to go as
high as $7.05 million over the cap number, but that cannot happen until
September.
One key to this working for the Rangers would be either the
belief that players in the minors can fill the remaining couple roster spots
they would be unable to sign players for or the ability to get players to take
professional tryouts in coming to camp without a contract until the Rangers can
have the flexibility to sign them at that point.
