New Look on Broadway

It's all but certain that the Rangers are going to have a pretty drastically different line-up come this Fall. Their acquisitions of Ales Kotalik, Marian Gaborik, Chris Higgins, Tyler Arnason and Donald Brashear will definitely see to that. The Rangers really had to build from the ground up this season, as they didn't have a lot of players signed heading into the summer and still really have to deal with a number of free agents coming down the stretch here.

There is a real good chance that the Rangers will also be welcoming some new blood into their roster, especially at the defense position. Matt Gilroy, Michael Del Zotto, Bobby Sanguinetti and Corey Potter should all have a shot at a regular position on the blueline, which is scary to think that they are all still fairly young. These will be some to watch out for come the Fall, especially when you're looking for sleepers on the blueline.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Chris Drury	Michal Rozsival	Henrik Lundqvist
Ales Kotalik	Wade Redden
Ryan Callahan	Dan Girardi
Marian Gaborik	Marc Staal
Chris Higgins
Sean Avery
Tyler Arnason
Aaron Voros
Donald Brashear

The free agency issue was a tight one for the Rangers, who were somewhat behind the 8-ball in very heavy cap contracts to begin with. Now that they have moved some of their bigger names in order to slip some new ones in, they are still looking at a bit of a cap crisis, which should ensure some young talent into the line-up come the Autumn. Right now, the Rangers are sitting tight with 14 players under contract at a cap cost of $47.9 million. That leaves an average of just under a million for the remaining nine players they need to fill their 23-man roster with.

Still to be dealt with at the RFA level is Nikolai Zherdev and Brandon Dubinsky. Neither player is going to come cheap and there is a good chance that one of those players will be dealt before training camp starts, as they are priced right out of the Rangers' budget. Zherdev will have his arbitration hearing next week, which will likely give other teams in the league an idea of how he could fit into their roster, if need be.