Big Apple During Trade Days

The New York Rangers are a team who will need some creative work done to their salary structure if they are going to move and shake their way through the trade deadline again this year. The team has benefitted from some pleasant surprises in Nigel Dawes (non-pool) and Brandon Dubinsky (non-pool) up front this year. Both players have been somewhat of a constant in the line-up for the Blueshirts this year. Back on the blueline, Marc Staal (Box 23) has been a mainstay and a rock, whcih makes him an absolute bargain at his entry level contract.

But despite these young mainstays in the line-up, the Rangers have a lot of top heavy contracts, most of which are due to end at the end of the season. Jaromir Jagr (Wes) is the biggest thorn in the side of management, between whether he wants to play or not at his pay scale. Jagr has an option that would kick in if he and the Rangers hit certain performance standards. Unfortunately for Jagr, the point plateaus seem a tad far off, which should leave him to be an unrestricted free agent come July 1st. Saying that, the Rangers have been rumoured to be shopping the big Czech around to see if they can off-load him for something, but no one really wants his big salary at the moment or the prospect of a big salary in future with no certain guarantees.

Brendan Shanahan	Scott Gomez	Jaromir Jagr
Sean Avery	Chris Drury	Peter Prucha
Nigel Dawes	Martin Straka	Brandon Dubinsky
Ryan Hollweg	Blair Betts	Colton Orr
Marcel Hossa

Michal Rozsival	Dan Girardi
Paul Mara	Fedor Tyutin
Marc Staal	Jason Strudwick
Marek Malik

Henrik Lundqvist

Steve Valiquette

The current roster viewed here is worth approximately $50.4 million for the whole year, but there was some relief as Martin Straka (Don) missed a string of games that was greater than 10, so there was some relief there. If the Rangers are able to move Marek Malik (Box 22), that would free up the remaining games worth of a $2.5 million contract, which is also very helpful.

The Rangers have been attached to some names like Peter Forsberg (Wes), Rob Blake (Box 5) and Marian Hossa (Dale C.).

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