Rangers Re-Sign Callahan

The New York Rangers have signed the last of their restricted free agent forwards on Wednesday, giving forward Ryan Callahan a new 3-year deal, reportedly worth $12.825 million, a $4.275 million cap hit per season. Callahan, 26, was scheduled to go to arbitration, but that hearing was avoided with this new deal, a deal that will take him inside his unrestricted free agency years.

Callahan had a pretty good year in the Big Apple during the 2011 season, ranking 130th overall in pool scoring, 95th among all forwards, with 23 goals and 25 assists in only 60 games, giving him a very good scoring rate on the year.  If he is able to put together a full 82-game season together, Callahan could find himself in the top 50 overall, which would make him quite a bargain.

The cap hit is fairly reasonable for Callahan, which gives the Rangers that little bit of extra cap space at the ceiling, acting as some breathing space.  With this new signing, I have the Rangers in with 14 forwards, six defense, two goalies, a buyout and a cap overage penalty at $62.8 million, $1.5 million short of the ceiling.  When the season starts, I would imagine that there will only be 13 forwards up and seven defensemen on the roster, but that switch can be made fairly easy.