New York Rangers <\/strong><\/p>\n Current Cap Hit:<\/strong> $94,722,024<\/a> (below the $95.5MM Upper Limit)<\/p>\n Entry-Level Contracts<\/strong><\/p>\n D Scott Morrow<\/a><\/strong> (one year, $916.7K)<\/p>\n Potential Bonuses<\/strong> Morrow was part of the return for K\u2019Andre Miller<\/strong><\/a> earlier this summer and he will look to establish himself as a full-time NHL player with his new team after playing sparingly with the Hurricanes.\u00a0 Unless he can become a regular inside the top four, it\u2019s unlikely his bonuses will be reached.\u00a0 A bridge deal is likely down the road with a good showing this season potentially pushing that price past the $2MM mark.<\/p>\n Signed Through 2025-26, Non-Entry-Level<\/strong><\/p>\n F Jonny Brodzinski<\/a><\/strong> ($787.5K, UFA) Potential Bonuses<\/strong> Brodzinski has done well the last couple of years, establishing himself as a back-of-the-roster player with a bit of offensive skill as he\u2019s coming off a double-digit goal season.\u00a0 Capable of playing center and the wing, he\u2019s the type of lower-cost role player that could get a bit more interest next summer, giving him a chance to push past the $1MM mark for the first time in his career.<\/p>\n Soucy was acquired near the trade deadline in a move GM Chris Drury might already be regretting as he played limited minutes down the stretch.\u00a0 He\u2019s pricey for a sixth defender, especially with the team being tight to the Upper Limit.\u00a0 That said, Soucy might still land close to this amount on the open market next summer.\u00a0 Schneider had a solid first season of his bridge contract while locking down a top-four role for the first time.\u00a0 He\u2019s someone they\u2019d probably like to sign to a longer-term deal next time out but that might run them closer to $6MM.\u00a0 If they can\u2019t afford that, then a one-year pact closer to $4MM might be the short-term fix.<\/p>\n Quick is back for his third season with the Rangers on his third one-year deal, an agreement that keeps going up in price each year.\u00a0 His base salary isn\u2019t likely to go too much higher, at least with New York as they look to keep the second-string spot affordable.\u00a0 His bonuses are games played and performance-based but none of them are freebies; he\u2019ll have to play with some regularity and perform well to get some of them.<\/p>\n Signed Through 2026-27<\/strong><\/p>\n F Sam Carrick<\/a><\/strong> ($1MM, UFA) With the Rangers concerned about a possible offer sheet for Cuylle, they were able to get this done quickly enough to avoid the chance of that happening.\u00a0 It\u2019s on the higher end for a player who only has 66 career points under his belt but power forwards get paid early and often and this deal should hold up fine.\u00a0 A long-term pact with arbitration rights next time out could come close to doubling this cost.\u00a0 Raddysh came over in free agency from Washington where he managed a respectable 27 points in largely a limited role.\u00a0 He\u2019s not that far removed from a 20-goal campaign back with Chicago either but he\u2019s likely to fill a regular spot in the bottom six.\u00a0 Unless he can get back to that offensive form he briefly showed with the Blackhawks, Raddysh is likely to remain in this price range.<\/p>\n Parssinen\u2019s stock has dropped after a season that saw him slide down the depth chart in Nashville and Colorado before being moved to the Rangers at the trade deadline where he still didn\u2019t reach 10 minutes a night of playing time.\u00a0 On the other hand, he\u2019s still just 24 and has some room to stabilize.\u00a0 He\u2019ll be owed a $1.3MM qualifying offer with arbitration rights so he\u2019ll need to show he can lock down a full-time role over the next two years or become a potential non-tender candidate as New York will want to keep its back-of-roster spots cheap.\u00a0 Carrick was a low-cost add in free agency last summer and fared pretty well in a depth role, picking up 20 points and winning over 54% of his faceoffs.\u00a0 If he can do that for two more years, he could set himself up for a jump closer to the $1.75MM mark.<\/p>\n Edstrom and Rempe both had brief stints with Hartford last season in between seeing largely fourth-line minutes with the Rangers, making bridge deals the obvious way to go.\u00a0 They received identical contracts that buy the team more time to assess how much upside there still is.\u00a0 If they progress, something in the $1.5MM after arbitration rights could be doable.\u00a0 Dowling comes over from New Jersey after playing in a career-high 52 NHL games last season.\u00a0 He\u2019s someone whose roster spot could be a little tenuous while history has shown that he\u2019s likely to stay at the minimum salary moving forward.<\/p>\n Vaakanainen came over from Anaheim as part of the Jacob Trouba<\/a><\/strong> trade and got an opportunity to play largely a regular role upon returning from an injury.\u00a0 The 2017 first-round pick has been more of a depth player throughout his career but had arbitration rights which was enough to land him a small raise to avoid the risk of going to a hearing.\u00a0 He\u2019ll need to show he can be more than a depth option if he wants to get more than this moving forward.<\/p>\n Signed Through 2027-28<\/strong><\/p>\n None<\/p>\n Signed Through 2028-29 <\/strong><\/p>\n D Adam Fox<\/a><\/strong> ($9.5MM, UFA) Trocheck has turned into a nice bargain for a second center.\u00a0 While he wasn\u2019t able to match his career-best point output from 2023-24 last season, he was still fourth on the team in scoring while bringing a solid defensive game and high-end faceoff skills to the table.\u00a0 If he would have been unrestricted this summer, he likely would landed at least a couple million more per season.<\/p>\n Fox wasn\u2019t able to surpass the 70-point mark for the fourth straight year last season but he still finished in the top ten league-wide for points by a defenseman.\u00a0 He\u2019s third overall for points by a blueliner in the last half-decade and considering he\u2019ll only be 31 when this deal expires, he\u2019s in a good spot to earn a max-term contract with a price tag that should land closer to the $12MM mark if he\u2019s still in top form by then.<\/p>\n Signed Through 2029-30 Or Longer<\/strong><\/p>\n D William Borgen<\/a><\/strong> ($4.1MM through 2029-30) Zibanejad\u2019s contract was always going to carry some risk in the back half but it has held up relatively well in the first three seasons of it as he\u2019s amassed 225 points.\u00a0 As long as he can play at a top-six level, they\u2019ll at least get reasonable value but those final few seasons remain likely to be an issue.\u00a0 Miller was brought in for a second stint with the Rangers in a midseason trade with Vancouver.\u00a0 A lot of what was just written about Zibanejad also applies here although Miller has been over a point per game in three of the last four years with the one miss coming last season when he almost got there.\u00a0 All else being equal, his deal might provide a better return for a little longer than Zibanejad\u2019s.<\/p>\n Gavrikov was their big addition this summer, giving them a legitimate top-half defender (who effectively replaces the Miller moved in the trade with Carolina).\u00a0 Considering the dearth of quality options available, it\u2019s fair to suggest he left money on the table to join New York.\u00a0 He won\u2019t produce enough to make the contract a bargain but this one should hold up just fine.\u00a0 Borgen\u2019s, on the other hand, looks like an above-market deal before he has even played a game on it.\u00a0 For a player who is best off as a fifth option, the term and dollars are both high.\u00a0 Granted, he very well could have come close to this in free agency with the state of the defensive market but that doesn\u2019t make it a good deal for New York.<\/p>\n Shesterkin wanted to set the new benchmark for goalies and while it took trading Trouba to create enough space in the league\u2019s Projected Off-Season Cap Accounting formula to do it, they eventually got it across the finish line.\u00a0 Given the record-breaking nature of the contract, it\u2019s never going to be a true bargain and if he\u2019s not elite in any given year, it\u2019ll be a drag on their books.\u00a0 But he\u2019s considered one of the best in the game for a reason and New York has him locked up for the long haul; it\u2019s a bet they were certainly comfortable with making.<\/p>\n Still To Sign<\/strong><\/p>\n G Talyn Boyko<\/strong><\/a> Neither netminder has played at the NHL level yet though Garand sits third on the depth chart.\u00a0 Both players will likely be heading for low-cost two-way deals.<\/p>\n Buyouts<\/strong><\/p>\n None<\/p>\n Retained Salary Transactions<\/strong><\/p>\n None<\/p>\n Carryover Bonus Overage Penalty<\/strong><\/p>\n None<\/p>\n Best Value:<\/strong> (non-entry-level) Trocheck Looking Ahead<\/strong><\/p>\n Drury has been rather aggressive with shaking up his roster, dealing away several core players in the last eight months to open up enough flexibility to make some other moves.\u00a0 The end result is a different group and time will show if it\u2019s a better one.\u00a0 Looking at things strictly from a cap perspective, not a whole lot has changed.\u00a0 They\u2019re still very tight to the Upper Limit and only Morrow is waiver-exempt so papering him down (the new rule for that doesn\u2019t start this season) won\u2019t open up a lot of extra flexibility.\u00a0 As soon as an injury hits, they\u2019ll be a money-in, money-out team in 2025-26.<\/p>\n Drury should have more options next summer when his cap space jumps up to nearly $30MM.\u00a0 Of course, there\u2019s a big-ticket contract in Panarin\u2019s to contend with while Schneider will be eyeing a big raise as well.\u00a0 Those two will take up more than half of that space but after that, there will be more wiggle room to work with.\u00a0 They won\u2019t necessarily get as much of a jump the following summer with Cuylle needing a pricey new contract and a lot of other roster spots to fill but the Rangers should still be in a more favorable cap situation then compared to now.<\/p>\n Photos courtesy of Wendell Cruz and Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Navigating the salary cap is one of the most important tasks for a front office. \u00a0Teams that 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Morrow: $350K<\/p>\n
F Artemi Panarin<\/a><\/strong> ($11.643MM, UFA)
G Jonathan Quick<\/a><\/strong> ($1.55MM, UFA)
D Braden Schneider<\/a><\/strong> ($2.2MM, RFA)
D Carson Soucy<\/a><\/strong> ($3.25MM, UFA)<\/p>\n
Quick: $300K<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/artemi-panarin-rangers-200x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Panarin\u2019s pending free agency is shaping up to be one of the more intriguing ones.\u00a0 Signed to a record-setting deal the last time he hit the open market back in 2019, that won\u2019t be the case next summer but he should still have strong value.\u00a0 Panarin has produced more than a point per game in each of his six seasons with the Rangers, while he\u2019s fourth among all NHL players in points over that stretch, behind Connor McDavid<\/a><\/strong>, Leon Draisaitl<\/a><\/strong>, and Nathan MacKinnon<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 Pretty good company to be in.\u00a0 However, he\u2019ll also be 34 and nearly 35 when his next contract starts so his best days will soon be behind him.\u00a0 A more medium-term agreement (three or four years) makes sense here and it\u2019s possible such an agreement could land around the $10MM mark per season.<\/p>\n
F William Cuylle<\/a><\/strong> ($3.9MM, RFA)
F Justin Dowling<\/a><\/strong> ($775K, UFA)
F Adam Edstrom<\/a><\/strong> ($975K, RFA)
F Juuso Parssinen<\/a><\/strong> ($1.25MM, RFA)
F Taylor Raddysh<\/a><\/strong> ($1.5MM, UFA)
F Matt Rempe<\/a><\/strong> ($975K, RFA)
D Urho Vaakanainen<\/a><\/strong> ($1.55MM, UFA)<\/p>\n
F Vincent Trocheck<\/a><\/strong> ($5.625MM, UFA)<\/p>\n
D Vladislav Gavrikov<\/a><\/strong> ($7MM through 2031-32)
F Alexis Lafreniere<\/a><\/strong> ($7.45MM through 2031-32)
F J.T. Miller<\/a><\/strong> ($8MM through 2029-30)
G Igor Shesterkin<\/a><\/strong> ($11.5MM through 2032-33)
F Mika Zibanejad<\/a><\/strong> ($8.5MM through 2029-30)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/USATSI_20214038-229x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Early last season, Lafreniere got off to a solid start, averaging a point per game over the first few weeks, suggesting he had turned the corner in his development.\u00a0 That was enough to get this early extension worked out.\u00a0 However, he managed just 38 points in 75 games after the contract, a 41-point pace over a full season.\u00a0 That type of production for $7.45MM isn\u2019t what they\u2019re expecting or paying him for.\u00a0 It will be interesting to see how he fares under new head coach Mike Sullivan.\u00a0 If Sullivan can help him take that next step, this contract should hold up just fine or even become a bargain if the offense really takes off.\u00a0 But if he stays in that 40-50-point range, it could become a problem fairly quickly.<\/p>\n
G Dylan Garand<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
Worst Value:<\/strong> Borgen<\/p>\n