McCabe to the Big Apple

			2011 Season				2011	Remaining
To New York	Position	Age	MIN	W	SO	P	Cap Hit	Years	Cap Hit
Bryan McCabe	Defense	35	48	5	17	22	$5.75 million	0	UFA
--------------------------
To Florida	Position	Age	MIN	W	SO	P	Cap Hit	Years	Cap Hit
Tim Kennedy	Forward	24	0	0	0	0	$550,000	0	RFA
2011 3rd Round Draft Pick

A trade rumour that had been circulating over the past few weeks was that of Bryan McCabe waiving his no-movement clause to head to the Big Apple. Saturday morning, there was a pretty good rumble in the Twittersphere about the deal going down today and in the afternoon, the deal was done.  The Rangers indeed acquired McCabe for Tim Kennedy, a failed signing in the off-season and a 3rd round pick this Summer.

McCabe has the workings of being a solid rental player for the Rangers.  The blueshirts are now expecting to be without Marc Staal for at least Sunday's game and some uncertainty down the road, so the addition of McCabe will at the very least address their short-term concerns and then will give the team a bit of a boost with the return of Staal to their blueline.

McCabe's offensive numbers have suffered this season, much like the team around him, so that shouldn't sway the acquisition of the veteran blueliner negatively, rather should give him a bit more incentive to score a bit more with a new set of surroundings.

The Panthers, in this deal, get a younger forward in Kennedy, who didn't work very well in the structure of the Rangers system, a real miss when the team swooped him up off the free agent market for next to nothing.  Kennedy had something to prove with the Sabres walking away from his arbitrated decision, but the Rangers were not going to give him that chance after training camp.  In Florida, he might get a better chance to shine, especially with the injury bug biting the team on Friday night.

The pick, likely would have been of the 2nd round variety, but the Rangers were able to knock it down a round with the addition of a healthy body.

The Rangers math gets exceptionally difficult, now that we add in the big prorated lump sum that McCabe has, since the rumbles are also suggesting that the blueshirts are also in on Brad Richards from the Stars, before this trade deadline is all said and done.  How the Rangers manage to pull all this off is going to be worth a lot of time with the pencil, eraser and paper, something I'm not really prepared to do at this point.

As for the Panthers, a massive dump again, they could be at a point where they can rent a team's problems for some help and increase their stable of young potential.

Not much for impact in the pools here, as Derek W., the 19th place team in the pool, has McCabe in the draft and neither McCabe or Kennedy were very popular in the selection sheet pool. The impact may be noticed in the playoff pool, assuming that the Rangers make it in. McCabe could be a reasonable pick-up, if you think the Rangers are going to make it out of the 1st round.