2012 NHL Rumors: How The New York Rangers Can Afford Both Rick Nash And Shane Doan
The New York Rangers are apparently trying to land both Shane Doan and Rick Nash. But many Rangers fans became confused as to how both could be afforded.
We're going to take a quick look at this from a couple of different angles below, but we'll start with the current cap structure. Currently, the NHL cap is $70.2-million. The Rangers' current framework puts them at just over $55-million, giving them just over $15-million in cap space. That alone can allow the Rangers to take on both Nash and Doan's contracts without any issues.
But what we do know is that the NHL cap probably isn't going to stay at $70.2-million. So to spend up to that cap and hope everything will be fine would be foolish and hurt the team in the long run. So here's how Glen Sather landing both of these two can work.
Join me after the jump for more.
The "Giving It Back" Strategy: Remember that if the Rangers do end up landing Nash they're not just going to be getting him for nothing, they're going to have to give players back to the Columbus Blue Jackets. And even if the deal is the same one offered back in February (which it won't be) then Brandon Dubinsky's $4.2-million cap hit would be coming off the books as well. That means the rough difference of Nash's cap hit is $3.6-million. That's not a big dent in the team's space at all.
The "Giving It All Back" Strategy: This would require Sather moving enough salary that the package and Nash's hit completely cancel each other out. Considering the rumor is that Howson wants a team taking Nash to take on a bad contract as well, I would doubt this happenes. Especially because Sather isn't taking dead weight back in the deal.
The "Maybe Doan Would Take Less To Win" Strategy: Apparently Doan still has the four-year, $30-million dollar deal floated to him earlier in the offseason on the table. If Doan was only thinking about the money, I would have to assume he would have taken that deal by now, since not too many teams are willing to risk four years of a 35+ contract at over $7-million a year. So is it feasible that Doan would accept less money to come to a contending team? Would Doan maybe take $4.5 or $5-million for two years to give himself a better chance of having his name on the cup? My guess would be yes, but how much of a discount? That's the real question.
The "Wait And See" Strategy: This is both the safest and riskiest of the strategies. It's safe in the sense that the Rangers can wait (like most teams are right now) see what the cap landscape looks like and move on from there. The risk here is if Doan would wait to see what happens. He's told the media he wants to make this decision quick, and waiting for the CBA to get figured out doesn't seem likely.
Here's the thing, the Rangers have the cap space as it is, it just depends how much Sather wants to spend.
So what do you guys think will be the total cost for the pair? What do you think Sather will do in order to land both?
The floor is yours.
