Opening Night IR & Salary Cap Gymnastics

In reading the tea leaves, it’s looking pretty clear how the Rangers will line up for opening night in Pittsburgh on Wednesday. However before we get there, the Rangers have a series of roster moves they’re going to pull off in order to take full advantage of the ever fickle salary cap. 

Everything can be found in the thread below from Vince Mercogliano but the long and short of it is as follows: 

Jimmy Vesey will be placed on LTIR, meaning he’ll miss a minimum of 10 games (or 24 days). Ryan Lindgren will be placed on IR, meaning he can be back within a week. 

Additionally, the Rangers are making a bunch of paper transactions, sending Will Cuylle, Matt Rempe, Adam Edström, and Victor Mancini down to the AHL to buy an extra day of salary cap accrual which will help when it comes to the trade deadline. 

As Vince points out, it’s likely that all but one of those players sent to Hartford (on paper) will be recalled to start the season with Brett Berard being the odd man out. Berard was filling in for Artemiy Panarin who returned to team practice this morning and ended up slotting in for Mika Zibanejad who had a maintenance day. In the event Panarin, or anyone else wasn’t good to go for opening night, Berard may have had the chance to stick around but top line minutes in the AHL makes more sense for him than fourth line minutes in the NHL. 

While it’s not official yet, it’s certainly looking like this will be how the Rangers open the season Wednesday Evening against the Penguins with Vesey and Lindgren both on IR/LTIR:

Kreider - Zibanejad - Smith

Panarin - Trocheck - Lafrenière

Cuylle - Chytil - Kakko

Edström - Carrick - Rempe

Brodzinski

Miller - Fox

Schneider - Trouba

Jones - Mancini

Ruhwedel 

Shesterkin - Quick 

Not many surprises aside from Mancini, who no one expected to sniff the NHL anytime soon let alone make the team out of camp. It’s great to see the Rangers reward the young defenseman in a bit of a unique situation where they are able to give him a trial run at the NHL-level with one of their regulars on the IR. While there was some excitement about a young forward like Brett Berard potentially getting a similar opportunity to start the season, you’d much rather have a healthy Panarin as the regular season kicks off. On the flipside, a fourth line of Edström - Carrick - Rempe is quite exciting in itself. 

The Rangers kick off the regular season with Game 1 of 82 against the Penguins in Pittsburgh Wednesday and will host the Utah HC in their home opener at Madison Square Garden Saturday Night.