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Chris Drury and Scott Gomez to Rangers
by Alanah McGinley on 07/01/07 at 06:50 PM ET
Comments (24)
According to Sportsnet,
Sportsnet.ca has learned that the New York Rangers have signed free agent rival Scott Gomez to a seven-year deal worth over $50 million, as well as free agent Chris Drury
Gomez had 13 goals and 47 assists last season in 72 games with the New Jersey Devils, and won two Stanley Cups with the franchise.
Drury scored 37 goals for the Sabres last season in 77 games.
*Earlier KK coverage of Gomez signing here.
added 7:55pm, TSN now reporting the same. Plus a bit about the money:
The New York Rangers have made a major impact in the free agent market, signing forwards Scott Gomez and Chris Drury.
Gomez signed a seven year, $51.5 million contract, while details of Drury’s contract are still unknown.
Update 8:51pm ET
Sportnet.ca notes that Chris Drury is due to make $35 million over 5 years.
Filed in: New York Rangers | KK Hockey | Permalink
Comments
How in god’s name do the Rangers have that much cap space?
Posted by panthersfan from Miami on 07/01/07 at 06:56 PM ET
panthersfan: Jagr is only a $4M cap hit due to the caps taking half of the salary, and they have a lot of young talent… also they haven’t signed nylander or shanahan… most likely nylander is gone unless he takes a major discount
Posted by bcrt on 07/01/07 at 06:59 PM ET
So what does this mean for Shanahan? He hasn’t signed yet, has he?
Posted by Wings_In_2008 from Michigan on 07/01/07 at 07:00 PM ET
The Rangers don’t have that much salary committed. Thought they would be closer to the cap.
Paul…New Jersey is not the same state as New York…
Posted by PRStoetzer on 07/01/07 at 07:01 PM ET
Drury got 5 years and $35 million, so sez Sportsnet’s update on the story…
That’s $14 million for two seventy-point scorers, both locked up till they’re 35.
Posted by George Malik from South Lyon, MI on 07/01/07 at 07:02 PM ET
Shanahan hasn’t signed yet, but he was interested in coming back. I think last year he made $4 million.
Nylander I think felt he was being low-balled—he fired his agent and hired a new one just a short while ago, so he must have been REALLY unhappy with the offer.
I wonder how much Datsyuk would have gotten offered if he was UFA right now?
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 07/01/07 at 07:05 PM ET
Rangers have Prucha, Avery, Hossa, Rachunek and Lunquivist to resign. Rangers totally screwed themselves for years to come in salary cap.
Flyers did the smart thing with biere,timmoen and hartnell contracts is to front load the their contracts in the first two years and starting in the third year they all start to make less money.
Posted by FlyersFan on 07/01/07 at 07:08 PM ET
FlyersFan, the Rangers let Rachunek go when they didn’t give him a qualifying offer. Hossa and Prucha probably will make under $1 mil/yr each (maybe slightly more than that for Prucha, though he has publicly stated he doesn’t care about the money, just playing in NY). And since the terms of the deals haven’t been disclosed yet, how do you know they’re not front-loaded like the Flyers’ deals?
Posted by K24 from NYC on 07/01/07 at 07:25 PM ET
FF: Cap is expected to reach $52M eventually so they still will have a little bit more room afterwards… Shanny, Jagr, Malik, Roszival and Straka will all likely be gone in 2-3 years, so that takes a lot of money off the books and the Rangers have a lot of young talent up and coming. Remember, the Rangers might still dump a defenseman to make room for their younger guys.
Posted by bcrt on 07/01/07 at 07:26 PM ET
K24: Being front loaded or back loaded makes no difference to the cap hit, which is a constant amount. For example, if someone is paid $4M one year, and $2M the second year, the total contract is $6M over 2 years, so divide $6M by 2 and you get an average of $3M per year, which is the cap hit over the course of the contract.
Posted by bcrt on 07/01/07 at 07:28 PM ET
Front loading contracts doesn’t really matter, seeing as how the averages are what count for cap hits. The large front loading by a team like the Flyers is an advantage however over smaller market teams, who may not be able to spend that kind of cash in one year.
Posted by Guy Legend on 07/01/07 at 07:29 PM ET
The Rags at it again… trying to buy another Cup. Their no different from the Yankees. Pretty soon we’ll see tee-shirts that say “Anyone but the Rags.”
Posted by Sig from Washington on 07/01/07 at 07:37 PM ET
The Rags at it again… trying to buy another Cup. Their no different from the Yankees. Pretty soon we’ll see tee-shirts that say “Anyone but the Rags.”
No, not really, Sig. In basbeball the Yankees can spend as much money as Steinbrenner will approve, where hockey’s salary cap puts all the teams on basically an even (give or take $15 million) playing field.
Which is a world of difference from baseball’s $150 million salary swings.
The Rangers can spend the money on Gomez and Drury if they choose, but they could be in a pinch re-signing key RFAs in years to come.
Also, teams that make huge UFA splashes are not guaranteed even a playoff berth (see Boston from last year)
Posted by Jimmy on 07/01/07 at 07:42 PM ET
Meh… there will be 12 teams within a few million of the cap this year according to TSN. Just because the Rangers waited a few years to stick with value talent and then go for the big guns doesn’t mean they are buying the cup or even spending more than their rivals. Look at the Devils, they had to circumvent the cap to stay under it last season.
Posted by bcrt on 07/01/07 at 07:45 PM ET
this will blow up in their faces.
Posted by FlyersFan on 07/01/07 at 07:48 PM ET
Front-loading contracts can be a help when players are traded (because even with a higher cap hit than the salary, they can still fit under a team’s budget) or if they have to be bought out, because the buyout amount depends on the amount of salary remaining.
I suspect that is why a lot of the long contracts are front-loaded, so if the performance drops dramatically it won’t be as much of a cap hit to buy the player out.
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 07/01/07 at 07:53 PM ET
THe front loading of contracts just proves that the lockout was a joke and waste of time
Posted by FlyersFan on 07/01/07 at 08:01 PM ET
They should sign Holik and Lindros and bring back Gretzky and Messier. I thought the Rangers learned their lesson. Jagr is slowly seeing his czech friends go, and I don’t think you’ll see the same performance out of him.
Posted by Jdunc from Flint, MI on 07/01/07 at 09:44 PM ET
The Rangers just became a powerhouse team in the East, there should be no doubt about that. Of the players they have left to sign, Lundqvist is the only I would say is essential and cannot be replaced.
Shanahan would be nice to keep as well, he is still a scoring a machine. They will have to sign him for substantially less than $4mil though.
Posted by John the Red Wings Fan from East Lansing, MI on 07/02/07 at 01:56 AM ET
Lundqvist is a must to sign. As much as I would love to see Shannahan come back we’ll have to see. Avery is a key guy they need to lock up too. I’m slightly concerned about them starting to sign big name players again and disrupting team chemistry. How many captains do you need? We already had plenty of that over our long playoff drought. I am hopefull that this works. They have a good pool of young, less expensive, talent to keep them under the cap. In 11 months we’ll know how these moves worked out.
Posted by Rob from Stamford, CT on 07/02/07 at 08:39 AM ET
Both Gomez and Drury wore number 23 last season. Who get’s to keep it?
Posted by Rob from Stamford, CT on 07/02/07 at 01:09 PM ET
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TSN verifies. Dear god…
Posted by SweWings on 07/01/07 at 06:56 PM ET