Rangers Need to Find Cap Space to Re-Sign Tarasenko

Tarasenko is now available, and the Rangers can keep him if they maneuver their roster accordingly. The dilemma for Drury and the Rangers is not if they can find the money to offer Tarasenko; it’s if they make the necessary moves to present an offer and he signs somewhere else.

Unfortunately, for the Rangers, the other locations he may sign outside of the Ottawa Senators are all in the Metropolitan Division. Letting Tarasenko leave to go to the New Jersey Devils or Carolina Hurricanes, who have already gotten better this offseason, put the Rangers in a precarious situation.

How Can the Rangers Afford Tarasenko?

The Rangers won’t be able to give Tarasenko the $5 million deal that other teams may be offering. Yet, they may be able to play on the Russian forward’s desire to remain in New York. After spending his entire career with the St. Louis Blues, he was willing to come to the Rangers and wanted to remain.

With the salary cap situation working against the Blueshirts, the odds were slim that he would stay, but there was always a mutual interest from both sides in keeping Tarasenko a Ranger.

The Rangers have $6.1 million in cap space. That money will be allocated to re-signing their two RFAs, so the path to a reunion with Tarasenko gets harder. Two things must happen for Drury to work something out with his 2023 deadline acquisition. The first is Tarasenko must be willing to take a team-friendly deal. If that doesn’t happen, then no situation works for both parties.

The second is Barclay Goodrow; his total cap hit of $3.64 million must be dealt. To do this, Drury will likely have to attach a sweetener to the deal, whether in the form of a draft pick or prospect. The Rangers have a boatload of left-handed defensemen who could be included in a package with Goodrow enabling them to offload his cap hit.

Goodrow has a modified no-trade clause, meaning he could submit a list of 15 teams he is not willing to be dealt to. This complicates things for Drury, who has nearly half the trade partners he usually would have in this scenario. Goodrow carries that cap hit for another four seasons, including the 2023-24 season. That term and salary for a player who will fill a fourth or third-line role is a difficult task to move.

Moving him gives the Rangers additional cap space, and if they option an extra skater to the minors, they can have a little over $10 million in cap space to re-sign Lafreniere, Miller, and Tarasenko. In an ideal world, the Rangers can offload Goodrow’s contract and essentially replace his salary with Tarasenko’s.

Tarasenko will likely cost more money than Goodrow’s cap hit, but the Rangers have the flexibility to make it work if that contract gets moved. Based on the cap gymnastics they pulled off when acquiring Patrick Kane at the trade deadline, this scenario should be much easier for Drury to manage.

What Tarasenko Brings to the Lineup

Keeping Tarasenko deepens the lineup immensely. Right now, the Rangers’ second-line right wing position is up for grabs, which also opens up spots on the third and fourth lines. Blake Wheeler could be in that spot, and so could Lafreniere. But putting them there forces another bottom-six forward to move up the lineup and take a third-line spot.

Adding Tarasenko to the lineup gives the Rangers scoring depth and balance. Here is what a projected lineup without him looks like:

Lafreniere – Mikka Zibanejad – Kaapo Kakko

Artemi Panarin – Vincent Trocheck – Wheeler

Brennan Othmann – Filip Chytil – Jimmy Vesey

Goodrow – Nick Bonino – Tyler Pitlick

And here is what it looks like with Tarasenko:

Lafreniere – Zibanejad – Kakko

Panarin – Chytil – Tarasenko

Chris Kreider – Trocheck – Wheeler

Vesey – Bonino – Pitlick

Option number two is by far the deeper and more talented team. Tarasenko allows the Rangers to complete their roster, whereas not re-signing him still leaves them feeling incomplete as they construct their opening night line combinations.

Tarasenko is a 20-plus goal scorer and, in a full season with the Rangers, would be the perfect complementary piece for Panarin. He is flexible enough to play throughout the top nine, and his presence gives new head coach Peter Laviolette many options for line combinations in an extremely solid forward group.

Depth wins championships, and keeping Tarasenko gives the Rangers the depth needed to be in that mix. Finding a way to move Goodrow is the challenge, but if Drury can find a way to make that move and re-sign Tarasenko, he will have hit a home run this offseason.