NHL Network: Elliotte Friedman thinks the New York Rangers are going to have to bend with regards to an Igor Shesterkin contract extension. He has a case to be their highest-paid player, but by how much?
** NHLRumors.com transcription
EJ Hradek: “Elliott, I want to take you right around our area here, the New York Rangers. There’s been a lot of discussion about, you know, Shesterkin. He is in the last year of his contract. You know…”
Friedman: “He is? I hadn’t heard anything.”
Hradek: “Yeah, you know, we had, I had my guy, Kevin Weekes here was talking about, like, you know, he turned down a deal. I know you’ve been trying to track this down as well. I mean, it’s an interesting story for sure.
What is he going to get? Also, with (Alexis) Lafreniere, what’s the situation there? Give us a, what do you know about what’s happening with the Rangers right now, with those two players in terms of extensions?
Friedman: “I think this, I think that when it comes to Shesterkin, I think it’s just, it’s the Rangers are going to have to get comfortable with where he wants to go. I think he wants to stay in New York. I think he wants to be a Ranger. But I think there’s a way that he and his representatives view the situation. That is, he’s the best Ranger, and he should be paid as such.
And you know, EJ, I was, I mentioned our pod this week, that what one guy said to me was, what he would do is, if he was the Rangers, is he’d offer them one more dollar than (Artemi) Panarin and see if that gets it done. And I don’t know if that’s happened, but I thought it was an interesting idea.
I do think the Rangers are ultimately going to have to bend on this one. You know, the other thing too is it got out at the beginning of the week last week, and Kevin had a great scoop. It did create some hard feelings, I think. Just about the fact that that got out. I think, like, there were people who felt that Shesterkin was, that was, it was being made to look bad. They didn’t like that.
And so I think everybody here has kind of gone back down and tried to be a little bit more airtight. But I still believe at the end of the day, he’s going to be a long-time Ranger, and the Rangers will just have to bend to closer to where he wants to go.”