Cap Decrease Could Be Disaster for Rangers
Larry Brooks at the New York Post reports that while the NHL's proposal to drop the cap to $60 million may not hurt the Rangers next year, it could be a major problem in 2014-15...
"The Rangers wouldn’t be anywhere close to being in the most difficult shape in the NHL, but Group II’s Ryan McDonagh, Derek Stepan and Carl Hagelin, all coming off Entry Level, would be boxed into one-year bridge deals awaiting arbitration, with eventual deals perhaps costing the Blueshirts more in the long run against the cap, and this with a potential 2014-15 offseason disaster looming."
...the Rangers have a ton of UFAs after next season including Gaborik, Callahan, Boyle, Rupp, Asham, Lundqvist and Girardi (see Cap Geek for entire list), so they'll have plenty of space to sign the Group II's Brooks mentions but will have to make difficult decisions on guys like Gaborik and Girardi to stay under the cap. Sather will be put to the test to find a ton of value players to fill the holes.
...would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section.
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There should be a limit to how much players can be signed for based on experience. Teams should be allowed to sign homegrown players to contracts that are a certain percentage higher than any other team, but with the same cap hit. So a guy like Stephan, coming off an entry level deal, should be able to sign for no more than, say, $3.5 mil with any team, but the Rangers should be allowed sign him for 5 or 10 or some percentage more while still getting a $3.5 mil hit tot the cap. I think the NBA uses a similar system.
I'd like to think that the core players would be willing to take some kind of cut in salary to keep the chemistry going but then again this is a business. When all is said and done I think the salary cap ends up being $65M which wouldnt have too much of an effect. I still think we will see the majority of these guys playing together for the foreseeable future
I'd like to express my thoughts on the situation but it includes too many expletives. I don't know where to start...
@BobGroder Must have been something wrong with the link. I just deleted both Twitter and Facebook posts.
