Pool Outlook for New York

It's rather difficult to look at the Rangers and try to sum up their season easily. The changes that were made in the off-season were plenty and in some cases not too bad. It didn't seem to be quite enough, so the team decided to make more splashes in the middle of the season and at the trade deadline to help their cause, but even then, it was more of a news circus than a winning team. A first round exit of the playoffs to the Washington Capitals, while already being up 3-1 in the series, seemed to cap off a pretty strange year in the Big Apple.

With some of the strange things going on in New York, the Rangers could at least count on one player to come out and give a good effort each night and that's Henrik Lundqvist. Lundqvist again has led the team in pool scoring, which should make three straight seasons. He finished 2009 with 38 wins, 3 shutouts and 2 assists for 84 points, ranking him 19th in the league, 7th among goalies. Those numbers are slightly down from 2008, but they are certainly nothing to sneeze at. He should still be considered a first round pick in just about any fantasy draft, except for maybe the really, really small ones. Of course, Lundqvist's numbers continued to stifle those of his back-up's, Steve Valiquette, who only finished with 5 wins, 1 shutout and 1 assist for 13 points. Valiquette does play well with the minutes he gets, but he's another goalie that has to be prepared for a long season watching the bulk of the games.

The Rangers final season numbers saw a pair of new forwards topping the list in points for 2009. Trade deadline acquisition, Nikolai Antropov, who played the bulk of the year in Toronto, finished atop of the group with 59 points in 81 GP, which is saying very little for the quality of scoring talent the Rangers mashed together. Antropov did enjoy reasonable success after joining the Rangers, having 13 points in 18 games after the deadline. Nikolai Zherdev, an off-season acquisition, finished second with one of his best seasons among his pool years, finishing with 58 points in 82 GP. A remarkable year for Zherdev is playing a full season, as his reputation for being soft in Columbus has been seemingly shed after this past year. Unfortunately, for the rest of the Rangers group of forwards, the news wasn't quite as rosy, as Scott Gomez, Chris Drury, Markus Naslund, Brandon Dubinsky and Sean Avery all suffered down years in pool talent, some of which I would speculate to say that team chemistry was not at it's best. This will be something to consider in this Fall's draft.

The blueline did not fare too much better than the forwards either. Michal Rozsival, Wade Redden, Dan Girardi and newcomer Derek Morris all suffered down years from 2008, making their fantasy value lower across the board. Rozsival topped all five defenders with only 30 points in 76 GP, which for the Rangers and their high expectations is hardly close to their $5 million per season cap hit they are expensing. Redden and his $6.5 million cap hit was even more of a disappointment, thanks to a 26-point effort in 81 GP. With only 56 points out of $11.5 million in cap space, the Rangers have really shot themselves in the foot.

2010 Season Outlook
The outlook for next season was not at all rosy with all that cap space taken up by only a few players, but the retirement of Markus Naslund already Spring has lightened the load, but likely not as much as management could have hoped. Here is a quick look at what the Rangers already have signed on as locks for the team next season:

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Scott Gomez	Michal Rozsival	Henrik Lundqvist
Chris Drury	Wade Redden
Sean Avery	Dan Girardi
Aaron Voros	Marc Staal

There isn't much for good news here, as the Rangers have only 9 players locked in for next season's roster and it comes at a salary cap hit of approximately $38.1 million. This gives the team average cap hit of $4.233 million a piece, which a 23-man roster would cost over $97 million. Just like the good ol' days, eh? With the last salary cap as an example ($56.7 million), the remaining 14 players would have to be signed on for an average of $1.32 million a piece. That's a lot of depth players.

The RFA list for the Rangers is not a pretty one and it will be a lot of juggling to make it all work, this all being done before we see the UFA list, which is mind-bogglingly intense. Nikolai Zherdev tops the list of RFAs to be signed and could be in the marketplace for about $4 million, give or take. Keeping in mind what the Rangers have left, this is an issue. Brandon Dubinsky, also on the list, should be in line for $3.25 million this summer and he's likely deemed one of the team's top priorities. Ryan Callahan should be in the $2.75 million range as well, which doesn't bode well for the Rangers. How could they possibly afford any of these three, let alone all of them? Lauri Korpikoski and Fredrik Sjostrom are also on the list, but they could figure to be closer to their needed average of free agent cost.

I think it's safe to say that most of the UFAs on this list will not be coming back to the Big Apple next season, unless some significant changes can be made. Nikolai Antropov, Paul Mara, Derek Morris and/or Steve Valiquette. UFAs like Blair Betts and Colton Orr could very well be back, since they won't be so expensive, but the team will also likely shed Mark Bell and Patrick Rissmiller, since they didn't really fit into the plans.

When it comes to the youth system for the Rangers, it's a bit of a rough ride going forward. The tragic loss of Alexei Cherepanov was devastating to the organization, as he was coming on with reckless abandon. Artem Anisimov did make a jump to the big club at the end of the regular season and once (or twice) in the playoffs as well, but with little to no fan fare or achievements. The team is rather high on their back-end, where Michael Del Zotto and Bobby Sanguinetti could be anchoring the Rangers blueline offensively soon. Unfortunately, there really isn't a young player jumping out at me saying that they'll be ready to go, just wait.

Other than Henrik Lundqvist, there really isn't a player that I would be in a rush to pick up, if I was doing a fantasy draft right now. Gomez is down... Drury is down...Rozsival is down... Redden is down... the Rangers have nothing of increasing value at the minute. There could be some hope with a new face or two in the line-up come next Fall, but I am having a hard time believing that the 2010 season will be much different. With cap woes on the horizon, we could see a different team playing in MSG altogether, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.