It was about this time last year that rumors started surfacing about Jack Eichel being traded to New York in a mega deal that lit up the Twitterverse. The names that were being tossed around as a possible return haul included Filip Chytil, Kaapo Kakko, a number one pick and a prospect or two. Putting aside Eichel's neck injury - which thankfully has healed since - it was simply too steep a price to pay, I argued at the time. And besides, the contract ($10 million AAV) would hamper Chris Drury's ability to field a roster capable of competing in an NHL that demands, above all else, depth.
Well, as it turns out, Eichel wound up in Vegas, and the Rangers, with a slightly more robust lineup, had their best season in seven years, advancing all the way to the Eastern Conference finals before finally losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Funny how things have a way of turning out.
Fast forward a year and another high-profile center's name has popped up as a potential trade target for the Blueshirts. To be clear, Pierre-Luc Dubois would make a great addition to the Rangers lineup. He's young (24), big (6'3" 218 lbs), and, unlike Eichel last year, completely healthy and ready to go on day one. And, as Larry Brooks wrote in The New York Post, he was Artemi Panarin's center back in the days when both played for the Columbus Blue Jackets, so there's no chemistry issue here.
I confess, the thought of this team having two number-one lines next season intrigues me. It also would make it harder for opposing coaches to key on Mika Zibanejad's line the way Rod Brind'Amour and Jon Cooper did in last year's playoffs. And let's be honest, the Rangers haven't had a genuine one-two punch since 1997 when Mark Messier and Wayne Gretzky were reunited for the last time. That was twenty-five years ago!
But I keep coming back to a salary cap that increases about the same way glaciers melt. The last two seasons, the cap was stuck at $81.5 million; next season, it increases to $82.5 million; and the season after that, it goes up to $83.5 million. It won't be until the 2025-26 season that the salary cap will resume its pre-pandemic upward trend. In the meantime, every general manager in the league will have to make some hard and unpleasant choices with respect to their rosters. Just yesterday, Minnesota Wild GM Bill Guerin was forced to trade the rights to RFA Kevin Fiala in exchange for a first round pick because they couldn't afford to re-sign him. The explosive winger finished second in team scoring behind Kirill Kaprizov. Think about the anguish that must've caused Guerin, who now has the unenviable task of finding a replacement for such a talented player.
Guerin isn't the only GM up against it. In Colorado, Joe Sakic is going to lose the services of his number two center in Nazem Kadri to free agency because the Avalanche don't have the cap space to re-sign him. In Florida, Bill Zito has about $3 million in cap space with which to sign six players. I imagine he's going to have a pretty busy summer. If Panthers fans thought it couldn't get any worse than being swept in the second round, just wait until they take a gander at what next season's roster is likely to look like. To quote the late, great Robin Williams, "Reality, what a concept."
Compared to what some of his fellow brethren are going through, Drury is living the high life. Including Vitali Kravtsov and Braden Schneider, the Rangers have 16 players on the active roster. The maximum number allowed is 23. That leaves them with about $10 million available to sign seven players. If he can unload Patrik Nemeth's contract, he would have an extra $2.5 million in the kitty, but then he would have to find someone to replace Nemeth, so some of that $2.5 million would be re-allocated.
Assume for a moment that Winnipeg GM Kevin Sheveldayoff is in a good mood and only asks for Filip Chytil and a draft pick in return for Dubois. Let's also assume that Vladimir Putin pulls all his troops out of Ukraine tomorrow while we're at it. The Rangers would gain $2.3 million in cap space, but would have to sign Dubois, who last season earned $5 million and is arbitration eligible. That means even without a long-term deal, Dubois is looking at an increase of somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.2 million. If the Rangers want to avoid a messy arbitration battle, they will have to come to the table with a substantial offer. Think $7 million x 7 years. That comes out to $49 million over the duration of the contract. And that assumes Dubois would even agree to that number. Let's not forget it costs a bit more to live in New York than it does in Manitoba. For what a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan goes for, you can buy three four-bedroom, two-bath houses in Winnipeg and still have enough left over to buy your own Zamboni.
But let's say they get it done. Consider the ramifications here. The Rangers would have a staggering $51.1 million committed to just six players. That's 62 percent of the team's salary cap. To put that in perspective, the top six players on the Toronto Maple Leafs comprise 65 percent - $53.5 million - of the team's salary cap. And the last time the Leafs won a playoff series, George Bush was still insisting the U.S. had won the war in Iraq. With K'Andre Miller and Alexis Lafreniere both up for extensions in '23, the Blueshirts are staring at cap hell. Is this really the model Drury wants to adopt? A roster so top heavy it will fail in the postseason? Somehow I doubt it.
What I think is going on here is that Drury is exploring all his options, which is the smart thing to do. Only a fool would shut the door on the possibility of adding a player as talented as Dubois. And Drury is no fool. But make no mistake about it, he took notes during the playoffs and he knows that even though they were denied in their quest for a threepeat, the Tampa Bay Lightning model is the correct way to go. If he's not entirely sold that Chytil has what it takes to assume the duties of 2C, and he's unable to re-sign Andrew Copp to a manageable number, he will look outside the organization for a player that will meet the team's needs while affording him the financial flexibility to build a Stanley Cup championship roster.
That's how every team that's been successful has done it in the cap era. The fact is, as exciting as fantasy teams might be, they seldom win in the playoffs. That's why they're called fantasy teams.
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