Rangers Settle With Dubinsky

The New York Rangers and restricted free agent forward Brandon Dubinsky were on the verge of going to arbitration to work out a 1-year deal, but another hearing was avoided when a deal was struck in the 11th hour. The Rangers and Dubinsky agreed upon a 4-year deal, said to be worth $16.8 million, which works out to be a $4.2 million cap hit per season.

Dubinsky finished the 2011 season 96th in pool scoring, 70th among all forwards, with 54 points (24 goals and 30 assists) in 77 games with the club.  His season was somewhat inconsistent, to say it mildly, as he found spells of being both hot and cold during the year, which possibly made him fall short of some lofty expectations.

Nevertheless, with Brad Richards added to the fold for the 2012 season, it appears that a lot of the scoring pressure may have been taken off Dubinsky, which may ease the expectations on him as a 2nd line centre, instead of trying to work his "magic" with Marian Gaborik.  I think most would agree, Dubinsky is likely a much better 2nd line centre then he will ever be a 1st line centre.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Brad Richards	Dan Girardi	Henrik Lundqvist
Brandon Dubinsky	Marc Staal	Martin Biron
Marian Gaborik	Michael Sauer
Derek Stepan	Michael Del Zotto
Artem Anisimov	Ryan McDonagh
Brian Boyle
Wojtek Wolski
Brandon Prust
Erik Christensen
Ruslan Fedotenko
Sean Avery
Mats Zuccarello
Mike Rupp

With Dubinsky on the books, the Rangers now have 20 players (13 forwards, five defensemen and two goalies) on their team table above, with a buyout and a cap overage from the 2011 season, now sit at a projected cap number of $57.7 million.

The Rangers have only one more major restricted free agent to take care of in the off-season, forward Ryan Callahan, but the cap space should not be an issue, especially when they still need to add another defenseman or two to their table as well.