Merry Xmas to all those celebrating. Hope Santa brought everyone what they wanted. The World Junior Tournament kicks off today with three games, the final contest will be Russia vs. the USA.
The Rangers are represented on Team USA with two players. Brett Berard, taken 134th overall in this past year's draft by New York, and Hunter Skinner, selected 112th in last year's draft and a late addition to the roster due to COVID forcing a few players, are the two Blueshirts. Berard and Skinner saw action in the exhibition game, though each was listed as an extra at their respective position. As of now, it's unclear if either or both will dress for tonight's game, which will be a matchup of elite netminders in Spencer Knight of the Panthers for the US and Yaroslav Askarov of the Panthers for Russia.
Tomorrow, Canada, the tourney favorite, despite the loss of Kirby Dach to a fractured wrist, plays their first game. Braden Schneider, taken 19th this year, and Dylan Garand, the 130th overall pick as well this season, represent the Blueshirts. Schneider looks to be fairly set as a second pair blueliner opposite Thomas Harley while Garand appears to be the second goalie behind Devon Levi for Team Canada.
Karl Henriksson was to suit up as Sweden's first line center, but COVID knocked him out of this tournament. World Juniors will keep us engaged and occupied until camps open January 3, highlighted by the Finals on January 5. I would love to see a Canada-US final, but regardless of who makes it, the play is usually top notch and we get to the stars of the future playing now. For those of us jonesing for hockey, we get our fix now and then have games every day from January 13 to May 8 when the NHL season kicks off.
Very little new Rangers' news. Alexandar Georgiev is in the US, after receiving his visa and flying in from Finland. The one piece of clarity we did receive is on performance bonuses. While we hoped that the proration would result in additional cap room, that is not to be the case, the max will remain the same, meaning that the overcharge also remains static, so New York needs to maintain enough cap space to cover the potential charges.
To clarify the performance bonus news...
— Vince Z. Mercogliano (@vzmercogliano) December 23, 2020
On the left are the max bonuses #NYR could have to pay each player for the 56-game season. On the right is how much they’ll be charged for cap purposes.
With PF max remaining at $6.1125M, they’re still looking at a $3.95M overage charge. pic.twitter.com/ASNxVKKUY5