Skjei Signs Long-Term

The New York Rangers took care of some business on Saturday, re-signing one of their last three remaining pool worthy free agents, defenseman Brady Skjei.

Skjei broke in with the Rangers back at the end of the 2016 season and really hasn't looked back since, posting two very good seasons with the club in 2017 and 2018.  His new deal is now of the 6-year variety, set to pay him $31.5 million, which works out to be $5.25 million per season.

The 24-year old has very good size and has some great offensive upside, posting 4 goals and 25 points in 82 games in his sophomore season, short of the 39 points of the season before, but I would be expecting a big breakout this coming season.

Even though the Rangers are in a rebuild/retool mode at the moment, their blueline still appears to be in very good shape, especially with the top three, which you can see above.  They should still keep themselves in a lot of games and stay competitive, despite going through this transition period.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Mika Zibanejad	5.350	Kevin Shattenkirk	6.650	Henrik Lundqvist	8.500
Chris Kreider	4.625	Marc Staal	5.700	Marek Mazanec	0.650
Mats Zuccarello	4.500	Brady Skjei	5.250
Vladislav Namestnikov	4.000	Brendan Smith	4.350
Jimmy Vesey	2.275	Tony DeAngelo	0.863
Matt Beleskey	1.900	Fredrik Claesson	0.700
Jesper Fast	1.850	Steven Kampfer	0.650
Lias Andersson	0.925
Pavel Buchnevich	0.925
Filip Chytil	0.925
Vinni Lettieri	0.925
Brett Howden	0.894
Cody McLeod	0.750
Peter Holland	0.675

But like I had mentioned at the top of the post, there are still two more pool worthy RFAs left to sign for the Rangers, forwards Ryan Spooner and Kevin Hayes, and they will have to do so with about $12 million in cap space remaining.  I'm not saying that it is a problem, it is just the statement of fact.  Neither player should be overly expensive, to the point that they'll drain the budget, but it's all something worth considering.  Both players have filed for arbitration, so the numbers shouldn't finish off too badly, one could assume.