tahoe, the Rangers are blessed to be able to go to the top end of the cap no matter how high it goes. Not all teams can say that. As for the specifics, here are a couple of reasons why they were able to sign Drury and Gomez (and still have room to spare for their RFAs: Lunqvist, Avery, Prucha) Washington is still paying part of Jagr's salary. This is huge. He counts less than $5 million against the Rangers cap, but he's making more so he isn't going to whine about making less than the other guys. Think about this: Jagr is counting less against the cap for the Rangers than Nylander is for the Caps or Smyth is for the Avalanche. It's a steal. Their goalie is young. They have a top-tier goalie and last year he was making less than $2 million. He'll get a bump this year, but he's a RFA so term length, and the security that brings for him, can be used as a carrot to keep the dollars down from what he'd get on the open market. Generally speaking though, getting great value from your net-minder is going to really help your cap number. Shanahan was willing to take a discount to play in NY and, by most accounts, he still is. Again, this is big. A lot of players want to play at MSG. Here is a good salary chart that might help. I can't vouch for the accuracy (Where is Straka?), but it does provide a good breakdown of where the Rangers stand right now (and of their troubling 2009 cap number.
Wasn't the salary cap put in place to keep things competitive? You know, so the teams with all the money, like NY, Philly, Detroit, Toronto wouldn't get to sign all the free agents? Looking good, Bettman!
Wasn't the salary cap put in place to keep things competitive? No, the salary cap was put in place to "control costs" and to "tie player salaries to revenue". Done and done. "Competitive balance" is some mystical fairy concept that fans like to spout when their teams don't spend money like other teams.
MGDADDYO, I grew up in Livingston, a bedroom community not eight miles from downtown Newark--heck, I did my graduate degree at Rutgers Newark and so made the drive four times a week--and there's no way you can compare Jersey to Jamaica. We might not be Minnesota, Michigan, Massachusetts or anywhere in Canada but plenty of North Jersey towns have youth and high school teams. However, I can't argue with you about the high priced tickets and inability/unwillingness of the Devils to keep up with Rangers on salaries.
Yeah, all that, and I guess it just takes a special kind of G.M. to be able to maneuver under the cap. The Jagr case is a great example. As I said, Lou usually pulls something out and I have faith he will this time, too. And bill, I hope Newark is a remedy for the Devs lack of interest. I know it's tough to compete with the Rangers as an original 6 team, but there's no reason a crafty front office shouldn't be able to put an ass in every seat every night (especially in the freakin playoffs) to watch Marty B chase down all the records in the book! Maybe a few miles separation will help people in the Garden State claim the Devs as their own. Y'know, maybe get over that whole little sib to New York complex.
The new arena will also be more accessible, tahoemoj, compared to the Meadowlands. The only non-car option for the current arena is bus, and the routes are pretty darn poor to say the least, plus the new location is also friendlier to cars.
plus the new location is also friendlier to cars. i just hope the parking rates will be reasonable. i live a lot closer to the Meadowlands than i do to Newark, but i am looking forward to seeing the new place. and i hope they thrive there (financially that is, i'm still rangers fan after all). one problem i've noticed however, isn't so much bringing new fans in, but convincing old fans to make the move to Newark.
Islanders do a bang up job of replacing Ryan Smyth. In regard to the Devils attendance woes: I think having a team in Manhattan since the twenties and another team in Philly since '67 is really going to hurt any chance you have a building a fan base even after having a club for 20+ years.
