Edit: The NY Rangers have acquired goaltender Anttii Raanta in exchange for AHL forward Ryan Haggerty. Raanta has 1 year remaining on his contract, has a 2015-16 cap hit of $750,000. Thus, the cap savings on Talbot ($1.45m) vs Raanta ($0.75m) is $700,000 for New York.
While the exodus of Blueshirt fan-favorites Cam Talbot & Carl Haglein will leave many sad to see them go... it was the correct decision. We printed earlier that the $71.4 million salary cap likely meant the demise of Talbot & one of Hagelin or Klein... the Rangers effectively made the cut, and now appear to be smoothly cap-compliant for next October.
Yes, they will be shoppers on the free agent market come July; but most likely, only for depth players.
What do the trades actually suggest? Maybe something like...
KREIDER ------------- STEPAN --------- FAST/ETEM/UFA?
ZUCCARELLO ---- BRASSARD ------ NASH
MILLER --------------- HAYES ---------- FAST/ETEM/UFA?
GLASS ---------------- MOORE ---------- FAST/ETEM/UFA?
McDONAGH ------ GIRARDI
STAAL ----------------- KLEIN
YANDLE/BOYLE/SKJEI
LUNDQVIST / RAANTA
The Rangers are confident Jesper Fast can replace Hagelin's minutes AND his tough, tough minutes as the team's premier penalty-killing winger.
The Rangers were less inclined to trade Klein, possibly because he played 6 or 7 shifts per game more than that of Hagelin.
Emerson Etem, the lone contract in return, is coming off his entry-level contract after just turning 23 years of age. The new CBA dictates his minimum qualifying offer must be 105% of his previous season's actual salary, which was $810,000 (despite his AAV cap hit being $870,000).
Thus, Etem's minimum qualifying offer will be $850,500.
In contrast to Hagelin's minimum qaulifying offer of $2.4 million... Etem does NOT have arbitration rights, unlike that of Hagelin, thus the "net savings" on Etem's contract will likely be roughly $2 million less than that of Hagelin.
Couple that exchange with Raanta, Talbot's replacement, being nearly half his predecessor's pay?
Broadway made three economically sound moves today.
In essence:
Rangers traded Hagelin & a 7th Rounder for Etem, ~$2 million in cap savings, and an upgraded 2nd rounder.
Rangers traded Talbot & Haggerty for a 2nd & 3rd Rounder, an upgraded 7th Rounder, and Antti Raanta.
Now the Rangers have more headroom to sign restricted free agent Derek Stepan to a multi-year deal north of $6 million per year.
From this point in time, a 2015-16 NYR roster looks something like this:
Or a long-term scope of today's trades could look something like this:
In terms of last season's roles, the Rangers might be counting on '16 Fast to replace '15 Hagelin, and for '16 Etem to replace '15 Fast.
Remember: the Rangers stand to have anywhere from $2.5 to $4.5 million in performance bonuses to hand out this summer, so a low-cap hit signing could be bonus-heavy and thus be someone like Brad Richards.
As for the Talbot return?
We speculated Talbot's perceived value being somewhere from the equivalency of a late 1st rounder to that of a 2nd rounder. It was obviously the latter, as Talbot+7th for 2nd+3rd+7th suggests Talbot treated as a premium 2nd round asset.
Talbot worth a 2nd rounder?
That's just what we assessed in our first Talbot offseason value article back in March.
In any event, Sather has cut the required pesos to get his team immediately in a position to be snugly under the 2015-16 salary cap. It's always sad to see homegrown Rangers, who've performed so admirably over the years, as Hagelin & Talbot have. But the NHL is a business, Sather is a businessman, and today he did what was truly best for business.
