NHL Rumors: New York Rangers, and the Vancouver Canucks
The New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks won't have a lot of salary cap space to work with this offseason.
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The Rangers don’t have a lot of cap space heading into the offseason

Vince Mercogliano of Lohud: A flat salary cap of $81.5 million complicates the New York Rangers structure for next season. They have pending restricted free agents in Ryan Strome and Tony DeAngelo. Jesper Fast is set to become an unrestricted free agent.

They currently have nine forwards, five defense and two goalies under contract for next season. There are paying $7.5 million in buyouts. Contracts and buyouts leave them with about $13.5 million and seven roster spots to fill if they carry a 23-man roster.

Re-signing Strome and DeAngelo should be priorities and could cost the Rangers $5 million per season each. Both could be headed to salary arbitration. Maybe they could convince them that take closer to $4 million on a longer-termed deal.

If the Rangers could get Strome and DeAngelo in around $8 million, they might be able to fit in Fast. If it’s higher they may not be able to it without moving someone else out.

Brendan Lemieux could cost them between $1 and $1.5 million.

Replacing Fast with Phil Di Giuseppi is one option to save some money. Sending defenseman Brendan Smith to the AHL would save them just over a $1 million.

Trading one of Strome or DeAngelo could be another option to save some money.

Believe that the Rangers won’t buy out the final year of goaltender Henrik Lundqvist and have him back up Igor Shesterkin. They could see what trade value Alexandar Georgiev has. The flat cap has increased the odds of buying out Lundqvist though. A buyout would save them $3 million in cap space next season.

Tryamkin deal expected in the near future … Canucks won’t have a lot of cap space to work with

TSN Radio Vancouver: Nikita Tryamkin‘s agent Todd Diamond said that things are still quiet on a contract with the Vancouver Canucks, but that a deal in the near future is expected.

TSN Radio Vancouver: Diamond said that a trade from the Canucks was never discussed. The Canucks like the physical gifts that Tryamkin brings and expects a contract to get done.

Patrick Johnston of the Vancouver Sun: Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes $1.7 million in bonuses will be applied the Canucks salary cap next season. The flat salary cap will make it trickier for GM Jim Benning to re-sign some of their restricted and unrestricted free agents.

The Canucks will have just over $15 million in cap space heading into the offseason with 16 players under contract.

Sending Sven Baertschi and potentially Loui Eriksson to the AHL would free up some space.

Maybe they can get Jacob Markstrom signed around $5 million, but that still wouldn’t leave a lot of room to re-sign both Tyler Toffoli and Chris Tanev.

They also have to re-sign RFAs Jake Virtanen, Tyler Motte, Troy Stecher, Adam Gaudette and Zack MacEwen.