Rangers Make Hayes As Well

The New York Rangers weren't quite done on Friday after signing Chris Kreider to his new deal, rather they went ahead and settled on a deal with forward Kevin Hayes, avoiding arbitration with him as well, later on in the afternoon.  The Rangers and the 24-year old came to terms on a new 2-year deal, reportedly worth $2.6 million.

Hayes, a free agent signing out of college, completed his second full season with the Rangers in 2016, scoring 14 goals and 36 points in 79 games, down from his rookie season, but still showing some great promise.  His new deal will be another one of those bridge deals out of his entry-level contract, which will help determine his long-term contract status with the Rangers or any other team, for that matter.

Despite being down in scoring, the sophomore was still pool worthy, compared to his peers, finishing 165th in scoring among all forwards, 232nd overall.  Obviously, the small drop in scoring led to a small bridge deal, but that's the nature of the game.  He should be able to bounce back and his rookie totals are about where I would put him, so back to the 45-point range.

With Hayes now under contract, the Rangers are free and clear of their major restricted free agents, those who were either pool worthy and/or due for arbitration and now they can turn their attention to one of their newest regulars to the lineup, forward Jesper Fast, who is also an RFA, but obviously wasn't quite the priority.  By my count, the Rangers still have $5.8 million to work with, after all the coloured roster spots taken into consideration.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Rick Nash	7.800	Dan Girardi	5.500	Henrik Lundqvist	8.500
Derek Stepan	6.500	Ryan McDonagh	4.700	Antti Raanta	1.000
Chris Kreider	4.625	Kevin Klein	2.000
Mats Zuccarello	4.500	Nick Holden	1.650
J.T. Miller	2.750
Mika Zibanejad	2.625
Kevin Hayes	1.300
Oscar Lindberg	0.650
Michael Grabner	1.600	Marc Staal	5.700
Tanner Glass	1.450
Nathan Gerbe	0.600
Pavel Buchnevich	0.925	Dylan McIlrath	0.800
Ryan Gropp	0.808	Adam Clendening	0.600
Josh Jooris	0.600
Robin Kovacs	0.803	Brady Skjei	0.925	Brandon Halverson	0.773
Adam Tambellini	0.803	Calle Andersson	0.662	Mackenzie Skapski	0.663
Adam Chapie	0.800	Ryan Graves	0.633	Magnus Hellberg	0.625
Cristoval Nieves	0.755	Tommy Hughes	0.633
Steven Fogarty	0.750	Michael Paliotta	0.600
Malte Stromall	0.743	Chris Summers	0.600
Nicklas Jensen	0.600	Mat Bodie	0.600
Chris Brown	0.575

Pool worthy, non-pool roster players, assumed roster fill-ins,  injured/retired cap hits, in the system