There is a repeated assumption here that if we sign a big-name free agent, the people we will have to dump later would be future RFAs like Stepan and McDonagh. This is wrong. There's no reason to not re-sign those guys. Instead, we can just trade others.
We could potentially keep our salary cap hit the same while signing Zach Parise. Trade Dubinsky and Boyle for a top rookie. Dubi and Boyle make about $5. We now have 10 defensemen on the active roster. Reducing this number to 7 defensemen would bring that number to about $7, about what Parise would get paid. Replacing Feds with Kreider, would save us a couple hundred as well.
Let's assume this scenario:
1. Dubinsky and Boyle, give or take a draft pick, for a rookie (I listed Charlie Coyle, but could be anyone else).
2. Sign a 4th line center like Taylor Pyatt.
3. Replace Feds with Kreider.
4. Re-sign MDZ, Prust and Biron.
The current 2011-12 payroll: $61,964,345
The 2012-13 payroll would be: $60,033,334
That's about $2 million less than our current payroll (due to the reduced hit on Drury). Meanwhile, this lineup would be clearly superior. The bottom-6 would remain more or less the same, while the top-6 would add an extra 20 goals and 20 assists.
And the truth is that we probably wouldn't have to do this. Even if we keep Dubi instead of a rookie like Coyle, we are still talking about our payroll of $63,258,334, about $1.15M under the salary cap, and only about a million above our current payroll.
Granted, we'd need more cap space in the future, but we could trade Dubinsky or someone else at that point. And for all we know, the cap will go up enough to make that unnecessary. Keep in mind that taking out the Drury hit in the summer of 2013 would help things as well.
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CAPGEEK.COM CAP CALCULATOR ROSTER
My Custom Lineup
FORWARDS
Carl Hagelin ($0.875m) / Brad Richards ($6.667m) / Marian Gaborik ($7.500m)
Zach Parise ($7.000m) / Derek Stepan ($0.875m) / Ryan Callahan ($4.275m)
Chris Kreider ($1.200m) / Artem Anisimov ($1.875m) / Charlie Coyle ($0.975m)
Michael Rupp ($1.500m) / Taylor Pyatt ($1.000m) / Brandon Prust ($1.400m)
Chad Kolarik ($0.525m) /
DEFENSEMEN
Marc Staal ($3.975m) / Daniel Girardi ($3.325m)
Ryan McDonagh ($1.300m) / Mike Sauer ($1.250m)
Michael Del Zotto ($2.750m) / Tim Erixon ($1.750m)
Stu Bickel ($0.600m) /
GOALTENDERS
Henrik Lundqvist ($6.875m)
Martin Biron ($0.875m)
BUYOUTS
Chris Drury ($1.667m)
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CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS
SALARY CAP: $64,300,000; CAP PAYROLL: $60,033,334
CAP SPACE (22-man roster): $4,266,666
Am I the only one that doesn't want us to sign Parise?
It would have been great for our predictions of finishing 5/6th, but guys... We're freaking FIRST!!!
We're first in the league, without Parise, and will have Kreider coming in. The only thing signing him could do is make us worse or nothing. So why sign him?
We need cap space to resign the kids too
Am I the only one that doesn't want us to sign Parise?
It would have been great for our predictions of finishing 5/6th, but guys... We're freaking FIRST!!!
We're first in the league, without Parise, and will have Kreider coming in. The only thing signing him could do is make us worse or nothing. So why sign him?
We need cap space to resign the kids too
that's a discussion to be had after the playoffs. just ask the vancouver canucks about improving after a first place finish in the regular season.
Am I the only one that doesn't want us to sign Parise?
It would have been great for our predictions of finishing 5/6th, but guys... We're freaking FIRST!!!
We're first in the league, without Parise, and will have Kreider coming in. The only thing signing him could do is make us worse or nothing. So why sign him?
We need cap space to resign the kids too
Several problems with this:
1. Being first in the regular season isn't what players play for. They play to win the Cup.
2. We won't be sneaking up on anyone next season. We will go for 82 games next without facing a backup more than a couple of times, maybe not at all.
3. The team as it presently stands depends purely on its defense, which is top-3 in the NHL and the best in the East. But our offense is 11th in the NHL and 7th in the East. This means our offense is barely playoff-level. Adding Parise will mean 25-30 more goals per season for the Rangers. We'd be the clear odds-on favorites to win the Cup in the next two seasons while Gabby is still here and Richards is still relatively young.
We now have 10 defensemen on the active roster. Reducing this number to 7 defensemen would bring that number to about $7, about what Parise would get paid.
Doesn't work that way.
We have no idea what the salary cap will be.
All your numbers are meaningless.
I'd prefer to have our eggs in the basket before trading Dubinsky. Sign Parise (or use the cap space elsewhere), then trade Dubinsky. If we signed Parise, I would do Dubinsky for Pajaarvi + Edmonton 2nd '13 on July 1st.
EDIT: I would not trade Dubinsky without certainty that we would be upgrading our LW position elsewhere.
Doesn't work that way.
We have no idea what the salary cap will be.
All your numbers are meaningless.
I would bet anyone any amount of money that the cap will not go down proportionally to the salaries. If there's a cap rollback, there will be a salary rollback.
Otherwise, a quarter to a third of the league will find it impossible to function and there would be mass give-away of good players for literally nothing just because so many teams would need to find cap space all at once.
And as I pointed out, we can get Parise while having our salary cap hit reduced by almost $2 million. There's no way that the cap down more than $2 without a salary rollback. Just impossible.
I'd prefer to have our eggs in the basket before trading Dubinsky. Sign Parise (or use the cap space elsewhere), then trade Dubinsky. If we signed Parise, I would do Dubinsky for Pajaarvi + Edmonton 2nd '13 on July 1st.
I could get behind something like that. I think Pajaarvi has some pretty high potential. Maybe 60-70 point scoring winger with great size and speed. Having Kreider and Pajaarvi on the wings would be a match-up nightmare for most teams.
