Camp Set in the Big Apple

Fresh with the inclusion of Marc Staal on their Summer roster, the remaining parts of their training camp roster has been announced and it is chalk-full of training camp invitees to help push and motivate players for spots on the regular season opener roster.

By my count today, the Rangers have their 23-man roster up as the Summer, but it is a little ways from being complete because of salary cap issues.  Again, a lot of the speculation that surrounds this team, like most others, depends on how players do in camp.  Wade Redden, the number one target for excessive cap hits, should get a chance to show why he is getting paid so much and he'll have to come up trumps, if he wants to stick around when the puck drops on the season.

Otherwise, if we were going to pick some bubble players, I would guess that Erik Christensen isn't safe, nor is Brian Boyle or Steve Eminger.  There is plenty of talent trying out for the Rangers and lots in their youth system that could easily jump in and take a job, so these guys will likely have to step up their game if they want to be around as well.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Marian Gaborik	Michael Del Zotto	Henrik Lundqvist
Vaclav Prospal	Marc Staal	Martin Biron
Alexander Frolov	Dan Girardi
Brandon Dubinsky	Michal Rozsival
Ryan Callahan	Steve Eminger
Chris Drury	Matt Gilroy
Sean Avery	Wade Redden
Artem Anisimov
Tim Kennedy
Erik Christensen
Todd White
Brandon Prust
Brian Boyle
Derek Boogaard
Ryan Bourque	Lee Baldwin	Chad Johnson
Dane Byers	Garnet Exelby	Jordan Parise
Brodie Dupont	Sam Klassen	Scott Stajcer
Ruslan Fedotenko	Tomas Kundratek	Cam Talbot
Ryan Garlock	Dan Maggio
Evgeny Grachev	Brandon Manning
Roman Horak	Dylan McIlrath
Chris McKelvie	Ryan McDonagh
Randy McNaught	Jyri Niemi
Kris Newbury	Blake Parlett
Justin Soryal	Mike Sauer
Derek Stepan	Alexei Semenov
Kelsey Tessler	Pavel Valentenko
Christian Thomas	Nigel Williams
Dale Weise
Ethan Werek
Jeremy Williams
Jason Wilson
Andrew Yogan
Mats Zuccarello

As I explored in the Staal signing yesterday, the Rangers are in a boatload of cap troubles with their current Summer roster.  I have them listed at a projected cap hit of $63.9 million, but their cap troubles could be wiped away with the swift demotion of Redden, who is counting $6.5 million against the cap for the entire season.  Sure, he will still get paid all that money in the minors, but at least the Rangers management wouldn't have to dismantle the core to get under the cap ceiling.

There are a few guys like that I like on this roster and will probably target when we get to the draft.  I've always been a fan of Gaborik and since he had a good year in New York, I wouldn't mind having him back on my team for 2011.  Ryan Callahan, Michael Del Zotto and Marc Staal are all on my list, possibly ranked a little higher than some projections, while Henrik Lundqvist would be an adequate 1st round pick and Tim Kennedy could be a decent late round forward.  I think I'll save the remaining bit of judgement for closer to the draft date.