Rangers Fill Their Shopping Cart

Going into this offseason, Chris Drury had three things on his to-do list: 1. Hire a coaching staff; 2. Fill out a roster that as of June 30 had only 14 players signed for the 2023-24 season; and 3. Do it in a way that left him enough cap space to re-sign his two most valuable RFAs: Alexis Lafreniere and K'Andre Miller.

Mission accomplished on all three.

I've already written at length about the Laviolette signing so I won't bore you any further with it. That leaves us with items two and three.

Let's face it: with only $11.7 million to work with, Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko were never more than pipe dreams for the Twitterverse. There was no way Drury was going to be able to keep either player. The mathematics just wasn't there. And since Drury had made up his mind that he wasn't going to trade or buyout Barclay Goodrow, that meant that the players he was looking at were, shall we say, the bargain basement variety. 

But that doesn't mean he bought crap. Indeed, Drury deserves high marks for his cap creativity. Not one player came in over $825k. And every one filled a need that was sorely lacking. Blake Wheeler ($800k) gives new head coach Peter Laviolette a scoring right wing he can slot anywhere in the top nine; Nick Bonino ($800k) is a legit center that will anchor the fourth line and can also kill penalties; Tyler Pitlick ($787.5k), Riley Nash ($775k) and Alex Belzille ($775) are gritty wingers who will compete for a spot on the fourth line with Will Cuylle; Erik Gustafsson, who played for Laviolette in Washington last season, is a solid left-handed defenseman with some offensive upside, that will play on the third pairing with Braden Schneider; and Jonathan Quick ($825k) was a two-time Stanley Cup winning goaltender with the LA Kings and will now backup Igor Shesterkin.

After the ink dries, Drury will still have $6.9 million left in the kitty to re-sign Lafreniere and Miller, which barring an offer sheet on one or both, should be more than enough.

Were there better options out there? Of course there were, but none that fit within the budget. And in a league that for some godforsaken reason saw fit to raise the salary cap a measly $1 million, the budget Drury had work with was as tight as a drum. Consider this: the Rangers were one of the few teams in the NHL that wasn't forced to giveaway or buyout a single player under contract; nor did they overpay for the players they signed. Betsy Ross couldn't have threaded this needle any better than Drury.

That being said, there are some concerns. Wheeler will be 37 by the start of the season; Bonino is 35; and Quick is nowhere near the goalie he was when the Kings were winning their Cups. A pessimist would say that Drury is taking a big risk here. But it was a risk Drury had to take. Anybody who thinks they could've done better needs to step forward now or forever shut the fuck up. And that goes for a certain individual whose named after a rodent at Disney World.

Now for the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Is this a better team than the one that took the ice at the start of last season? Yes, it is. But as Rangers fans know all too well, it isn't how you start the season that counts; it's how you end it.

Or as a cook might say: the proof is in the pudding.