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Rangers and Zuccarello Agree on One-Year, $1.15 Million Deal

July 30, 2013, 1:11 PM ET [288 Comments]
Jan Levine
New York Rangers Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
With the clocking towards an arbitration hearing Wednesday between the Rangers and Mats Zuccarello, the two sides reach agreement on a one-year, $1.15 million deal. If you think about what had been rumored and what could have transpired if he had gone to arbitration, for the Rangers, the dollar amount was a no-brainer. For MZA, he had said he wanted to stay and expected to sign for less to do, which proved to be the case.

I wrote a few weeks ago as what to what I thought Zuccarello should get. What I said was: " My view, and you know I want MZA back, is to sign Zuccarello to a two year deal, offer him $1.4 this year and $1.6 next for a $1.5 cap hit, leaving $4 mil for Stepan. If you think Falk will also start the year in the minors, take part of his 975k, allocate about 150k to Zucc's cap hit this year and next and 500k to Stepan, making MZA hit $1.55 and $1.75 the next two years and Stepan's deal $4.5 mil. In addition, if no one goes to LTIR and Miller comes up, someone else may have to go with Taylor Pyatt and Brian Boyle the likely candidates."

Getting him for one-year at $1.15 million has to be viewed as a steal. The bump from the 700k he received last year, 900k he earned his first two years in New York and the qualifying offer the Rangers gave him was not that substantive, and based on what we expected him to get, anywhere from $1.6 million to $2.3 million, the Rangers did very well in this case. In essence, you signed someone who could be a top-six or top-nine forward who is making slightly more than Dominic Moore, Darroll Powe and Aaron Asham and less that Taylor Pyatt and Brian Boyle. I could see MDZA sliding on the second line wing, if Benoit Pouliot or Chris Kreider is not there, especially if Ryan Callahan or Cal Hagelin open the year on injured reserve. The only reservation that I do have is that you could argue that it might have behooved the Rangers to try and lock him up for two years as opposed to one, but Zuccarello may have only wanted to sign for the one year and take his chances again next year.

Technically per Cap Geek the Rangers have $2.215 million in cap room, but when you add up what Powe, Asham and Johnson make - $2.667 million, less the 215k cap hit that Powe and Asham will have when/if they are sent to the minors - it makes the available room now approximately $4.6 million. To that, you have to expect JT Miller and his $1.24 million cap hit or Danny Kristo and his $1.3 million cap hit to be promoted, which lowers the available room to about $3-3.35 million. That will be very light to try and sign Stepan, but with the summer 10% buffer, possibility of Pyatt or Boyle getting traded and/or Callahan/Hagelin ending up on LTIR, a deal should be reached hopefully before training camp or the start of the season.
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