Because you can't survive going into the season with $14K in cap space.

have to love the ~$6MM in buyouts until 2021

Do they have space for Smiths buyout hit next season though?
It's $3.1 million next season.

You have a 22 man roster and not enough space to even call
Up a league min guy if an injury happens

And that’s assuming deangelo signs that low

.... because they are in trouble.

Add another 50% to your RFAs, call up your 23rd player to roster. Then where are you?

And you are still carrying $6 million in buy out charges as well as $12 million for Shattenkirk/Staal into next season.

Because Beleksey is only a 825k cap hit anyway when he's buried. Nobody is interested in giving up assets for Namestnikov or Strome at the moment, and they are over the cap. This is a tough situation and it may require a buyout and a trade.

FYI - You don't need a 23 man roster.

Girardi's buyout goes down the amount Smith's goes up next year so that's a wash. Rangers will trade Kreider at the deadline if they aren't in a good position to make a playoff run-- everyone agrees they have the talent, they are pretty young though so it may take some time-- only time will tell


The roster has 22 people on it, you only need 20. So in reality its 1.4m in cap space-- the 2 extra slots were for emergency fill ins in case someone gets hurt in warmups


Here is the list of FA to sign before that number goes down 4m: Kreider, Georgiev, Strome and Fast.. give stromes salary to Kreider, Fasts' to Georgiev and bring up two ELCs or minimum contracts.
By the time anyone notable needs to be resigned, Staal, Shattenkirk and Lundqvist are off the books


Keep in mind, if lemieux and deangelo sign their qualifying offers, they'll have over a million in extra cap space

Big deal, you way out your options and you make a trade! It's not like we're a team full of cap hits, we have a mixed bag pos/neg tradables. If we have to buy someone out, Big Deal! Hopefully that prevents us from dishing out on next years UFA crop, like a deadly Hall term 7x11ish yuk. Buying out Shat would not be that bad, Rykov or Lindberg take his spot. It's better than paying Shat full rate x2 and having to watch the butterball always one step behind, and two steps behind mentally... I guess it's a smart price to pay for bringing in Kakko, Panarin, Trouba, Fox.....

Nothing better than Rangerland logic on cap issues:
Buying out Shattenkirk is a good idea because it would keep us from overspending next summer

It’s like....
“I DONT HAVE A PRINKING DROBLEM! I better drink this whiskey now, so I won’t in the morning”

Nobody wants to sacrifice assets for the players NYR have on the trading block, other than Kreider. I think unfortunately he is on his way out. As for a Shattenkirk buyout, I am sure you are aware that he will have over a 6 million dollar cap hit next season (use the buyout calculator if you'd like). The person to buy out is Staal, based on financial reasons, and pretty much overall performance. Sure, Shattenkirk was poor offensively this past season, but based on other metrics he was better than Staal in some regard. I think because of the terrible situation a Shattenkirk buyout would create, Staal is the answer. Smith should be buried as well.

https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/1362835 I believe I cover it here.

Chill out champ. Just sayin if buying out Shat is the worst case scenario for bringing in players that chose NYR, Pan, Trouba, Fox..., oh well! Back to the worst case scenario, pay less for Shat not to play (replacement Lindgren, Rykov) than having him try to play. Poor us lol...

But, buying out Shattenkirk isn't the worst case scenario. That is the best care scenario.