kovy will come with at least a 7.5 mil cap hit
marleau will come with at least a 6 mil cap hit
volchenkov will come with at least (bare min) a 4.5 mil cap hit
These players will be so expensive. Unrestricted free agency is the time of reckless overspending by this franchise. Taking a summer off from the extravagant spending sprees might do this franchise some good.
Lol, I understand, but it seems like people just ignore that part of it. They just assume it will happen "somehow".
Me, I like to figure out ways we can cut the dead weight so that we can do some shopping come Christmas time (July 1st) and be able to afford our RFAs in the coming years.
Edit: This in particular is what concerns me going forward:
Let christensen go - if ani can beef up over the off-season you give him a shot centering gaborik and prospal, who should also be resigned.
Sign Rene Bourque.
Lets see how prospects develop before we jump the gun and get that "last piece".
Bobby S. needs a shot next year. Before we fill up a d-spot with a UFA we should see if the answer is within.
then the following summer when we know more about stepan, grachev's, kreider's, werek, weise and other offensive talent, we decide whether to take a run at semin or thornton.
no sense in entering the bidding war for kovalchuk this summer. If he does get his ridiculous contract it'll be because he's the only elite ufa - don't want to destroy our cap flexibility for the next 8 years.
the UFA of 2011 is also when drury comes up and adds 7mill in capspace. If we dont trade rosie, he comes off too.. possibly redden buried in the minors, brashear off the books, We would have about 15million in salary with staal, girardi, and the rest of the guys we wanna keep signed.
Sign ONLY Volchenkov in this offseason
Next Season Sign Markov, Semin, and one of Thornton or Brad Richards
Let christensen go - if ani can beef up over the off-season you give him a shot centering gaborik and prospal, who should also be resigned.
Sign Rene Bourque.
Lets see how prospects develop before we jump the gun and get that "last piece".
Bobby S. needs a shot next year. Before we fill up a d-spot with a UFA we should see if the answer is within.
then the following summer when we know more about stepan, grachev's, kreider's, werek, weise and other offensive talent, we decide whether to take a run at semin or thornton.
no sense in entering the bidding war for kovalchuk this summer. If he does get his ridiculous contract it'll be because he's the only elite ufa - don't want to destroy our cap flexibility for the next 8 years.
Volchenkov is the type of D-man this organization lacks. He's a shut down D-man that can bang (but doesn't take himself out of position doing so), log a ton of minutes, play on the PK, clear the crease, and is a shot blocking machine. At the right price he is someone i'd love the Rangers to have. Pair him with MDZ and let MDZ go to town on the offensive side of the game. Not to mention he is only 27 years old.
Also, if Jokinen keeps playing the way he has (albeit it's been a very small sample size), i'd bring him back for one or two years if he comes down from his current salary, which he should since he is on pace for just 50 pts.
EDIT: And I would not take a run at Thornton in the summer of 2011. He is a playoff choke artist and will be 32 years old going into the 2011-2012 season. No thanks. Semin could be interesting to take a run after, but his asking price will more then likely be through the roof. Not to mention i'd rather have Kovy locked up long term then Semin, if the Rangers were willing to take a run at either and spend the necessary cash for them.
the UFA of 2011 is also when drury comes up and adds 7mill in capspace. If we dont trade rosie, he comes off too.. possibly redden buried in the minors, brashear off the books, We would have about 15million in salary with staal, girardi, and the rest of the guys we wanna keep signed.
Sign ONLY Volchenkov in this offseason
Next Season Sign Markov, Semin, and one of Thornton or Brad Richards
I think Staal will get a 3 year contract around a $3 million cap hit a la the likes of Brent Seabrook and Ryan Suter.
Volchenkov is the type of D-man this organization lacks. He's a shut down D-man that can bang (but doesn't take himself out of position doing so), log a ton of minutes, play on the PK, clear the crease, and is a shot blocking machine. At the right price he is someone i'd love the Rangers to have. Pair him with MDZ and let MDZ go to town on the offensive side of the game. Not to mention he is only 27 years old.
I'd go for Volchenkov over the others because of this. I definitely agree. We're very soft on the blueline and aside from Staal the defenseman who we'll have for a while aren't physical. Getting a guy like Volchenkov at his age would be great.
Kovalchuck is a great player but how many max contracts can we have? We can't just sign the best free agent every summer. At some point we need to build the rest of our team. Gaborik worked out great, now we should work on improving other parts of the team rather than giving another top winger $8 million a year.
Kovalchuk...if we can shed some more salary and lock up Staal.
OT but related. I'd rather ride out the dead weight for a couple years and use UFA money to lock up our core in anticipation of Grachev, Kreider, Stepan, etc joining in by the time Drury's time is up and Redden has a managable buy-out in the same year. Then see who or whats available that fits our needs at that time. The benefit of being NY is we can always buy 1st line talent to fill in the gaps of a solid team, which is something we never seem to do, it's usually the opposite and we wind up trading away good young core types and try to replace those players by overpaying for other teams 3rd line castoffs.
Also...if we spend like mad this July 1st, dont we risk not being able to pay MDZ, Staal, Duby, and Cally in the next few years.
i posted this because i wanted to see what people would rather have if given that option. but if i was given the option id sign joki to a 1 year deal 5 mill (5 mill just bc its one year) and id also sign volchenkov 4 year 15 mill
We have too many holes and bad contracts to invest a ton of money in Kovalchuk. Even if we get rid of Redden and Rozsival, we're still stuck with Drury's contract AND we're light on defense. The $8.5+ spent on Kovalchuk would be better distributed elsewhere.
