Rangers This Week

Hockey Free Agency starts on Thursday. The Rangers are currently about 15M under the cap and have the ability to be about 5.6M more over the cap until the season starts. Last June 30th, the Rangers surprised everyone by making a very good Scott Gomez trade to create cap room. They did that because they knew they were going to need to room for Marian Gaborik. This year, they have to lock up some RFA's including Marc Staal, who should get a good deal, Jody Shelley, who deserves a raise, Dan Girardi, who'll get a raise, and Vinnie Prospal. Those guys can all be taken care of with the room the Rangers currently possess.


However; if in the next two days or so, we see a Rozsival trade, or miracle of miracles a Drury or Redden trade, I expect the Rangers will then go big game hunting on Thursday. There is a great player out there who is worthy of a good deal and his name is Ilya Kovalchuk. The Rangers need goals, and he's got them. Sather is currently saying that he will go slow in FA and see how the market develops, but, I sort of don't believe that. Kovalchuck is a player the Rangers have coveted for years, and he's free. We'll see if they can actually resist that.

Even if they don't make a deal before FA to create cap room, they could sign IK and then just send Redden to the minors to star the season. They wouldn't be able to get that cap room now, or else every team would to it, but they can go over till they need it. Should be interesting.

In other exciting Ranger news, this year's weeklong Prospect Camp opens today. All of the kids who they just drafted will be there, along with the kids from last year's draft, and the `08 draft, excluding Del Zotto who has placed out. We'll get our first look at Pashnin, the KHL dman the Rangers took a flyer on late in the `09 draft. It should be interesting and they always have some clips up on NewYorkRangers.com. It's a big week indeed for the Broadway Blueshirts.