Putting On The Thinking Cap
With the announcement today that the Rangers have signed Henrik Lundqvist to a contract extension, the Rangers now have a better sense of what they might be able to take on contract wise at the deadline and for next season over the Summer. Reports on the deal (from USA Today and FAN590 in Toronto) suggest that the cap hit for Lundqvist’s contract will be $6.875M per year (the average of the $41.25M over 6 years), when this is added to the contracts for Chris Drury and Scott Gomez, we have a good sense of where the franchise is heading.
At this stage of the season, the Rangers have about $2-3M of contract space they can play with. The challenge of course is that also have about $3M in potential bonus money to pay out to Dan Girardi and Brendan Shanahan. Under the CBA rules, any portion of that bonus money can be deferred to next season, with the associated impact on next year’s cap figure. Specifically the rules allow for 35+ year old veterans on one year contracts and players on entry level contracts such as Dan Girardi to have the cap hit for bonus money deferred to the following season.