As seen by my
Top 20+ questions , much of the focus this off-season, leading up to free agency, was expected to be which restricted and unrestricted free agents would return to the Rangers. GM Glen Sather had his hands full with almost $45 million already committed to 10 players (two goalies (Lundqvist and Talbot), four defensemen (McDonagh, Girardi, Staal and Klein) and four forwards (Nash, St. Louis, Stepan and Hagelin) as well as J.T. Miller. His burden got a bit harder with the cap now $1-2 million less than originally anticipated, leaving just under $24 million to fill the roster.
The team has a substantial number of unrestricted and restricted free agents, which will result in several not being back, partially due to the cap concerns. Sather gave qualifying offers to each of the team's unrestricted free agents, noted below and taken from Cap Geek, with the only surprising one Justin Falk, who was not expected back. Of course, in most cases, the salaries, especially for Brassard, Zuccarello and Kreider, should be a lot higher than the qualifying offer, reducing the available cap space (mentioned further below).
- Derick Brassard: $3.7 million
- Chris Kreider: $850,500
- Mats Zuccarello: $1.15 million
- John Moore: $850,500
- Danny Kristo: $826,500
- Ryan Bourque: $687,500
- Jason Missiaen: $715,000
(updated: it was reported that Sather gave Qualifying Offers to all the Rangers restricted free agents, that is incorrect. The Rangers did not give a QO to Justin Falk (which I had originally reported as receiving one), Kyle Jean, Kyle Beach, Steve Stajcer and Jason Wilson)
My big issue with Sather is two-fold, which I will discuss much more below. First, his inability to re-sign the team's free agents during the season, preventing them from reaching free agency. Second, his comments that he made over the weekend may not help those negotiations. Both combined don't paint a pretty picture for continuity on a team that reached the Stanley Cup Finals and has seen a tremendous amount of upheaval annually the last several seasons.
Sather decided that it would be prudent to comment on several of these free agents Saturday when discussing the team. From the comments below, I can't say I get a warm and fuzzy feeling as to what the team's construction of this team. Plus, I am unsure why he felt the need to use such vitriol when discussing the players, even though much of us was done generically, rather than specifically. In general, I dislike negotiating publicly. In this case, since Sather once again failed to re-sign these players before they hit this stage right before free agency, his comments are even more distasteful to me. Sather has made it an all too familiar pattern of failing to resolve these situations early, allowing them to fester, costing the team players and additional salary, meaning cap space as well. As good as he is in trades or signing other free agents lately is as bad as he has been with his own team.
We saw this with Brandon Prust a few years ago. In addition, after the trade for Rick Nash, much of the Rangers' depth was lost, leading to the in-season Marian Gaborik trade. Now, with Brian Boyle, Dominic Moore, Anton Stralman and Benoit Pouliot all unrestricted free agents and Zuccarello, Brassard, Kreider and J. Moore restricted free agents, that failure to lock any of them up early on likely means major changes to a team whose chemistry, closeness and fourth line were a big part of their success last year. Trying to get some, if not all, of those players locked up at a reasonable rate was key because they only have a bit under $24 million to sign nine forwards and three defensemen.
As Pete V. wrote in the comments to my draft preview blog, lets say it takes $10.5 million to sign Zuccarello, Kreider and Brassard, based upon qualifying offers and salary expectations at a fairly worse case scenario. That would bring the Rangers down to $12.5 million to sign six more forwards and three defensemen. So, then lets put J. Moore, Fast, Miller and Carcillo on the roster for a total of $4.3 million, that brings New York down to $8.2 million to sign three more forwards and two defensemen. So, how would you allocate that money to sign basically a line of forwards and defensive pairing, assuming that Miller and Fast make the roster almost by necessity? As you see, the construction leaves a lot to be desired.
We discussed this somewhat with the Lundqvist and Girardi signings, each of which came at no home town discount, partially due to allowing the negotiations to get to that point rather than getting taken care of last season. Now, as I mentioned previously, I felt that Hank might have come at $750k-$1 million cheaper, at which point he would still have been the highest paid goalie, while Girardi could have come at a $250k savings. Let's take low end on each, and when you factor in the drop of the cap by $1-2 million, how needed would that possible savings be? This is one reason why I wish players and teams could renegotiate terms as they do in the NFL, allowing cap cost to be spread out a bit.
From my top-20 questions, the below quotes and information above impact #2 (Boyle), 3 (Stralman), 4 (Zucc), 5 (Brassard), 11 (Pouliot), 12 (D. Moore) and 13 (Falk) while 14 on Carcillo was basically determined by the Derek Dorsett trade. We will go into more detail but the generic questions are for the most part impacted by Sather's non-action. Without further adieu, here is what Sather said:
Sather on bringing everyone back:
“We’d like to retain everybody, but it’s gonna be difficult because of the way the cap is today and probably because of the expectations of us being able to pay huge dollars since we got to the Finals,” Sather said. “But we didn’t win. So I think realistically some of these guys probably have to pull their horns in a little bit.”
It's an easy excuse to blame the Cup finals run, since that is a component of the request. But I don't think that fully tells the story. Players will always want to get paid, but many made of point of also saying that they wanted to stay in NY. Yet conveniently left out by Sather is how he has failed to really negotiate with them, including Dominic Moore, who said he has had no contact, and Anton Stralman, who had an original offer and then nothing until about a week ago. Now, both look to be gone. Losing Moore takes away a solid fourth line, who was one of their best faceoff men and could have been had probably for 2/$2.5 million in-season. Stralman came on during the playoffs, and his departure takes away that right-handed, left-handed balance AV likes along with a second-pair, d-man. Maybe Sather signs Ryan Carter and Mark Fayne, but losing D. Moore and Stralman will sting.
Of Pouliot, a career journeyman coming off a terrific season on a one-year deal, Sather said:
“He found a place where he was very comfortable, the coach liked him, his line was very good together, had a good structure, they had good chemistry,” Sather said. “Now if he goes on to another place, he could be back in the same situation where he was two years ago...I think you have to decide yourself what’s the important thing, whether it’s winning or getting a few more dollars someplace else. In my book it’s always winning.”
Pouliot has indicated he wants stability. In addition, he too has said he wants to remain. Sather could have tried to sign him during the year for two years at around $1.75 million per. By waiting and seeing how bereft the market is, of course Pouliot is going to want more. Numbers such as three years and $9 million are being thrown around. Everyone thinks it will be so easy to recapture the chemistry shown by the Pouliot-Brassard-Zuccarello line, but I would order if that trio was together, not broken apart due to a failure for timely negotiation.
While Sather didn't specifically name Brian Boyle, his below comment clearly is a shot at Boyle, who wants a larger role. That larger role and increased salary is paving the way for his departure. I would love Boyle to stay and that's something I have said all year. The expectations of him after that 20 goal season were ridiculous, when that should have been viewed as the aberration rather than the norm. You know what you get from Boyle; solid forechecking, good in the faceoff circle and a critical piece on the penalty kill. This is why I have been saying all year I want him back and Sather should have tried to make that happen before his three-year deal expired.
“If you have players that aren’t willing to accept roles, then you have conflict all the time and that creates problems,” Sather said. “And I’m not interested in problems. I want people that want to play within the team structure. That’s how you win."
Sather is taking out of both sides of his mouth. He says he wants people that want to play in the team structure, which he has in D. Moore (who could be headed to Tampa per Chris Johnson) and Pouliot, yet he fails to sign them. So how can you criticize others who wants a bigger role, when even if you want to be in NY, the GM is doing a poor job of retaining them?
Sather wasn't done there, as he specifically took jabs at Zuccarello and Kreider, both of whom are arbitration-eligible — making it possible for them to sign one-year deals and then become unrestricted in 2015. If the latter happens the Rangers would be in bigger trouble than they are now, which means a long-term deal for each should be worked out, given their importance to the team
“Zuccarello had a great year,” Sather said. “He played well, he did everything we wanted him to do. He sees the ice as well as anyone in the game.” However, that comment was offset by the following, "He really only had one good year here so far,” since Zucc started last season playing in the Russian KHL.
Concerning Kreider, Sather mentioned he started this season in the minors. Of course,he fails to mention how lousy the team played when Kreider wasn't up with the team. In addition, did he forget what Kreider's return in the playoffs, which came in Game 4 against Pittsburgh, result in for the am, as he was a critical piece in getting the a Rangers to the Stanley Cup Finals.
“That’s what we’re going to talk about,” he said. “There are a lot of other things going on.”
If it wasn't clear from the above, I am less than happy with how Sather has handled or more precisely, mishandled, this process. By doing so, he has the put the team in a potentially horrific situation, given how many players need to be signed and decisions to be made with free agency officially kicking off Tuesday. I don't expect the Rangers to be very active, given the cap constraints, but would be happy to see a bunch of the above mentioned players signed relatively early on so the organization can move on to determine who else needs to be added. New York may fail to repeat as Eastern Conference Champions, but unfortunately, it may be due to what the front office failed to do rather than the effort of those playing on the ice. If that is the case, I firmly blame Glen Sather and wonder if there is a need for Jeff Gorton to take over sooner rather than later.
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