Rangers Re-Sign Girardi

It's good to see a Rangers signing on top of the trade today, that way I can do a team update, to which they haven't had since the Pool Outlook, by the looks of things. The Rangers signed restricted free agent defenseman Dan Girardi to a new 4-year deal worth $13.3 million in total, a $3.325 million per year.  As a restricted free agent, Girardi was pretty well tied to the Rangers for another deal, I don't think he's the type of defenseman that would warrant an offer sheet, unlike his teammate, Marc Staal.

Girardi was a pretty good defenseman, in terms of his scoring in 2010, picking up 24 points (6 goals and 18 assists) in all 82 games for the Rangers, ranking him 62nd among blueliners in the NHL.  He had a bit of an off-year in 2009, but he seemed to bounce back well in 2010, which should make him a good candidate for your pool team in 2011.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Marian Gaborik	Michael Del Zotto	Henrik Lundqvist
Vaclav Prospal	Dan Girardi	Martin Biron
Brandon Dubinsky	Michal Rozsival
Ryan Callahan	Steve Eminger
Chris Drury	Matt Gilroy
Sean Avery	Wade Redden
Artem Anisimov
Erik Christensen
Brandon Prust
Brian Boyle
Derek Boogaard

The Rangers still have a bit of tinkering to do with their line-up, but they are fortunate to be without any buyouts or penalties to weigh them down, which seems kind of odd to say. I'm not sure why, but it just seems like something GM Glen Sather would have on his books. The team above now has 11 forwards, 6 defense and both goalies on the table and they are all rung in at $54 million for 2011. That leaves $5.4 million for a couple more forwards and a defenseman, most of which should be set aside for Staal.

The Rangers were awfully close to the playoffs in 2010 and I would say that they have improved only slightly in this off-season, not really jumping out there for a big free agent, rather dumping Olli Jokinen from his short stay and moving a few more bodies out.  I don't know if the Rangers have done enough to pull ahead of anyone who was in the playoffs this Summer, wouldn't exactly say that anyone in the playoffs have lowered themselves below the Rangers either, but that I can't comment specifically for anyways.