As with Alexis Lafrenierethere is a growing call for Forest ranger lock up K’Andre Miller for the long haul. Locking up Lafreniere long-term is tough, as is giving Miller a long-term deal. The question is not whether the Watchers should do it, but whether or not they can afford it.
Rangers Cap Perspective
Rangers Cap Perspective for the next season is not too big. They currently have $18.4 million in cap space next season with needs in the backup goalie, three defenders and at least 7 ahead. Let’s give the salary cap a $1 million boost, giving the Blueshirts $19.4 million to build a roster. That’s $19.4 million for a whopping 11 spots on the list. Suddenly locking up Miller for the long haul isn’t as easy as once thought.
To compound this, the Rangers need to re-sign. Miller and Lafreniere are the big names, but don’t rule out Philip Quitil, who is in for a pretty big bump if he stays with the team. There’s also zack jones and Vitali Kravtsov, both likely to double their current salary hits in bridging deals if they make the roster and contribute to the tertiary score.
Sammy Blais likely to re-sign, if only because there are some similarities and stubbornness in chris druryIt’s part of just letting the key business goals walk (see: Hajek, Libor). It’s a double-edged sword, though, as Blais’ re-signing means he probably didn’t produce much for the Rangers to afford him, but that salary is overpaying. If it exceeds expectations, it may not even be affordable.
To break it down further, we can estimate the salaries of certain players/positions:
- Substitute goalkeeper: $1 million
- Jones (or Nils Lundkvist): $1.5 million
- Kravtsov (or a different 3RW): $1.5 million
- Brennan Othmann (3LW): $894K
- Blais: $1.75 million(?)
- Lafreniere: $3 million(?)
- Hunt/Carpenter/comparable replacements: $1.5 million total
- Hajek/7D: $1 million
Disregarding Chytil or Miller, and admittedly possibly disregarding Lafreniere’s upcoming deal, the Rangers are looking for ~$12.14 million spent on the 9 players listed above. The only players left, of course, are Miller and Chytil.
Chytil is the wild card here, as her production will drive her next contract. He’ll get a $2.6 million qualifying offer, but it’s unlikely he’ll sign it. the too early contract projections have chytil about 3 years and $4.5 million. There are a lot of variables that could make this number go up or down, but that seems about right for a young arbitration-eligible six-center with a higher ceiling than he’s shown.
We’ll delve into Chytil’s future with the Rangers in a separate post, stay tuned.
But for the sake of publication, let’s use $4 million as 3C’s salary. That’s $16.14 million of the $19.4 million spent before reaching the possibility of signing Miller long-term. Miller isn’t signing a long-term, $3.3 million deal. Again too early projections have Miller’s long-term extension in the range of $5 million over 6 years.
Barring a larger salary cap increase, the Rangers are at least $2 million short. And that doesn’t take into account the fact that Lafreniere’s next deal is a light one, which may be significantly more than $3 million.
Locking up Miller long-term seems like a no-brainer
Cap aside, locking up Miller for the long haul seems like it should be a no-brainer for the Rangers. If they can afford it, they should and probably will. If you look at the past history of RFA in glen sather Y Jeff Gordon, they don’t block long-term RFA resubmissions after your ELC expires. However, they seek to lock up RFA defenders under the same circumstances. adam fox, brady skjei, marc stal, Dan GirardiY Ryan Lindgren all got more than the standard 2-year bridging agreement after their ELCs expired.
Miller is in this group and if the Rangers stay true to their style, they’ll be looking to lock up Miller for the long haul. After a shaky start last season, Miller became arguably the Rangers’ best defenseman after the trade deadline and into the playoffs. He has certainly eclipsed Lindgren as the best LP on the list, even if he still doesn’t necessarily play 1 LP minutes. Rob Luker has a lot to say about it..
If the goal is to secure Miller long-term, and if the salary cap doesn’t come with a surprising raise, then the Rangers have a tough decision to make. It sounds like Chytil may be the odd man out, but removing Blais from the equation brings the Rangers down to the $5 million estimate needed for Miller.
It’s a long season and you never know what’s going to happen, and all of these estimates can change. The preference is for the Rangers to lock up both Lafreniere and Miller long-term. That seems unrealistic, and given previous history, Miller is expected to get the long-term deal first.
Or we could see both of them go the Henrik Lundqvist route and take a 1-year deal for 2023-2024 with the wink-wink, nudge-nudge agree that a longer-term contract when the cap is projected to rise further in the summer of 2024. It would certainly be more creative than the boring NHL contracts and lack of action we normally see.