We are already in the dog days of summer. To help get us through, I am running the top off-season questions series of blogs. As a reminder, open to adding additional topics that you would like covered/answered. In this blog, to change things up, I cover two "news" stories, one in the Athletic and the other from Larry Brooks' Slapshots column.
The Athletic covers what they view as each team's biggest unaddressed need a week into free agency. Each team's beat writer contributed their opinion. Arthur Staple, the Rangers' writer, has the view that the team is in relatively good shape, save for maybe more skill on the right side.
Kakko Kaapo and Blake Wheeler are the projected top-two right wingers now. At this moment, Barclay Goodrow is penciled in on the third line. If Alexis Lafreniere could make the swap to the right side, he likely would fill a top-six role with Wheeler on the third line. But all that will be decided in camp, barring an additional move.
My view is the biggest need, besides right wing, is having cost certainty on the upcoming contracts for Lafreniere and K'Andre Miller. I think we have projected in the $6-6.5 mil range for the duo. Once those figures are determined, we then will have a truer sense of how much cap space is available and what other possible around the edge move, besides a PTO, could be made.
New York Rangers
Nothing, really: Maybe this team needs a touch more skill on the right side. But the Rangers can’t afford Vladimir Tarasenko without some roster surgery, and that would be yet another over-30 forward in the mix — they have only three under-30 forwards ticketed for the roster this season. It’s more now about getting what they can out of the current group with a new coaching staff. — Arthur Staple
Larry Brooks' Slap Shots column this week focuses on the Wheeler signing and Vladimir Tarasenko free agent follies, my word, not his. Brooks views Wheeler as an exceedingly cost-effective signing, a situation that usually does not happen with the Rangers. Most times, they overpay or at least are at market value. Rarely, it's an undermarket signing, which he notes is the case here.
Tarasenko had several good offers on the table, including the one from Carolina he turned down. As a result, he fired his agent and now starts the process anew. Not sure, given the cap space available, if he will get more of an AAV than what was already proffered. As Brooks notes, the Rangers never made an offer, likely due to their own cap issues. If he is waiting for them to free up money, the only possibility is a Goodrow trade. In that case, the team and GM Chris Drury would need to know that Tarasenko would come in around the $3.6 mil of Goodrow's cap or in that relative range unless Laf is traded as well. I put the possibility of both being dealt as remote, making a return appearance of Tarasenko on Broadway as similarly titled.
Wheeler:
Every year, it appears, important free agents sign up to take less to play in Tampa Bay, who take less to play in Toronto. All but never, it seems, are players willing to do that in order to join the Rangers, no matter how deeply they genuflect upon slipping into the Original Six jersey …
Lo and behold, enter Blake Wheeler, a free agent for the first time in his 15-year career following Winnipeg’s buyout of the final season of a five-year contract worth $8.25 million per. The winger — who posted 55 points (16-39) — had multiple offers for multi-year deals.
Instead, Wheeler, who will turn 37 on Aug. 21, took less to come to New York on a one-year, over-35 deal for an $800,000 cap hit plus a potential bonus package of up to $300,000. He came to New York for less because …
“Blake wants to win the Cup, and he believes this is the right spot for that,” agent Matt Keator, who also represents fellow Blueshirts Chris Kreider and Adam Fox, told Slap Shots. “Chris [Drury] took care of his trade deadline work this week. There’s not going to be a better rental.”
That attitude is just what you want, and it is just what the Rangers need.
Incoming head coach Peter Laviolette will have multiple options for the Minnesota native, who could fit in on the right with any of the Blueshirts’ top three centers in Mika Zibanejad, Filip Chytil and Vincent Trocheck. It will be fascinating to watch this coach put his spin on things with a veteran group that added a heaping of experience in Wheeler, who was Jacob Trouba’s captain for three years in Winnipeg during a six-year run wearing the “C.” Wheeler’s influence should extend beyond the ice.
Now, listen. The Rangers did not sign the 30-year-old Jaromir Jagr. They did not even sign the 27-year-old Blake Wheeler. We all know that. But there is significant value in this addition that may very well become the most cost-effective signing of this cycle.
When is the last time anyone said that about the Rangers and free agency?
Tarasenko:
I can’t quite understand where Vlad Tarasenko is going with this.
Slap Shots was told that the 31-year-old winger had a multi-year deal in the $5.5 million per neighborhood set to go with Carolina among four solid offers from clubs in varying stages of contention for up to $6 million per, and not only rejected them all as insufficient but then dismissed agent Paul Theofanous.
Yes, the Rangers deadline acquisition — who was almost criminally under-utilized against the Devils by then-head coach Gerard Gallant — badly wanted to remain in New York, but that was never a realistic possibility. He presumably understood that when not a single offer was extended to him before hitting the open market.
It is not as if Tarasenko indicated that he would play Broadway for an extreme discount on a one-year deal, and why would he? There was — or should not have been — any confusion about the Rangers’ direction.
This was the worst year ever to be on the open market, yet No. 91 seems to be aiming for a grand slam home run even when he’d have been in with a three-RBI, stand-up double with the contending ’Canes.
Offers will still be there for Tarasenko, now represented by CAA’s Pat Brisson and J.P. Barry. Once Ottawa moves Alex DeBrincat, the Senators will likely become a major player. If DeBrincat does not go to the Islanders, expect Lamoriello to jump in if he can shed a cap obligation or two. Carolina won’t drop out.
Tarasenko is a good player and a good teammate. Maybe he will still come out ahead, but this is probably the strangest free-agent scenario since Michael Nylander’s agent, Mike Gillis, agreed to a deal with the Oilers in 2007 only to have the center renege (apparently because no one else in the family wanted to accompany him in Edmonton) and sign a lesser deal with Washington
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