The Rangers and Brandon Dubinsky have finally ended their contract impasse, with the 23 year old center signing a two year deal late yesterday worth $3.7M. The deal was shortly announced after Phil Kessel was traded to Toronto, which suggests at least to this observer that the Rangers were still considering pursuing that route.

For the record, Dubinsky held out for eight days and missed four pre-season games. He’ll have a chance to rejoin the returning Rangers today, after they return home from notching their first win of the season in Boston last night. He also labeled the last week, the “most stressful” of his life.

The 5-2 win saw five different Rangers score goals. Sean Avery opened up the scoring, Artem Anisimov had a short handed goal and the duo of Stephen Valiquette and Chad Johnson stopped 24 of 26 shots. Check out Steve Zipay’s blog for some post game reactions from the coach.

After the game, the Rangers reassigned Corey Potter, Ilkka Heikkinen, Paul Crowder, Matt Zaba and Johnson to the AHL. That brings the official roster size to 25, with five additional players still practicing with the Pack, but on the Rangers roster.