Rangers eye Henrik pact

BY JOHN DELLAPINA
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

Tuesday, July 3rd 2007

Glen Sather flipped a puck and it landed with the Rangers' logo face up. Which figured, since just about everything over the last couple of weeks has been looking up for the Rangers.

It also figured that the puck-flip for the cameras at the Rangers' practice facility in Greenburgh yesterday determined that Chris Drury had "won" the right to continue to wear No.23 while Scott Gomez would have to pick another sweater number. Drury, you might have heard, does little else but win.

But on the day the Rangers presented their two newest stars to the media, it remained clear that summer jobs at least as important as the dual Sunday signings of Gomez and Drury remained on Sather's list. Fortunately for the Rangers' GM, franchise goaltender Henrik Lundqvist and heart-and-soul winger Brendan Shanahan were heartened by the big-money acquisitions that make their re-signings a bit more tricky.

"Certainly, I've had enough people talking to me over the last 24 hours trying to pry me away or ask me if I'm done there," Shanahan said. "But my feeling is: 'No, this is just what I wanted.'

"I'm so optimistic that I'm a part of this plan. Nothing that has happened has caught me by surprise. This is all very exciting for all the guys on our team. And I still call it, 'our team.'"

Reached in Sweden, Lundqvist was singing a similar tune, and his Toronto-based agent Don Meehan was conducting telephone negotiations with Sather to hammer out a long-term deal.

"I never thought they could sign both those guys," Lundqvist said. "It's pretty impressive. A great move for the Rangers.

"As for my situation, my agent is talking to the Rangers and I know they've been talking for a while. I don't know when they're going to finish the deal. But yeah, I think it's going the right way."

Sather revealed during a conference call with reporters Sunday night that he had extended a long-term contract offer to Lundqvist last week. Meehan said yesterday that a counter-offer was made and that he and Sather would continue talking daily.

Meehan also said that Lundqvist would not file for salary arbitration by Thursday's deadline. The Rangers have until Friday to take Lundqvist to arbitration themselves. By then, the 25-year-old goaltender could well be inked to a new deal - his entry-level NHL contract having expired June 30, making him a restricted free agent.

Shanahan became an unrestricted free agent Sunday. So, unlike Lundqvist, the Rangers would have no matching rights should Shanahan agree to an offer from a rival team.

But the 38-year-old winger remains interested only in playing for the Rangers, even after the signings of Drury and Gomez wiped out more than $14 million of the team's cap room for this season, leaving less than $13 million to divvy up between Shanahan, Lundqvist, Sean Avery, Petr Prucha and Marcel Hossa.

Shanahan is the most likely to feel the pinch and have to settle for the kind of unique deal that enables clubs to sign over-35 players to bonus-filled deals for which only the base salary counts against the $50.3 million team cap.

"Any idea that would potentially make us a better team, I'm absolutely ready to cooperate with," Shanahan said.

hehe! i was saying the same thing when i thought the flyers were going after him

Rangers re-sign forward Prucha

TSN.ca Staff

7/5/2007 11:43:40 AM

The New York Rangers announced Saturday that the club has agreed to terms with restricted free agent forward Petr Prucha.

Prucha, 24, appeared in 79 games with the Rangers this past season, registering 22 goals and 18 assists for 40 points, along with 30 penalty minutes.

The 6-0, 175-pound forward has skated in 147 career games with the Rangers, recording 87 points (52 goals and 35 assists) and 62 penalty minutes.

from the NY Daily News Rangers Blog:

Prucha Gets 2-Year Deal

One more down. Four more to go.

The Rangers have re-signed forward Petr Prucha to a two-year deal worth $1.6 million per.

That leaves Henrik Lundqvist, Brendan Shanahan, Sean Avery and Marcel Hossa to re-up and the Rangers with $10-11 million worth of cap space to do it.

Of course, there are a couple of wrinkles.

• During the offseason, teams can go 10 pecent above the team cap (from $50.3 million to $55.33 million) as long as they get back under the $50.3 million figure by the last day of training camp. But Darius Kasparaitis' $3 million counts in that accounting until he's sent back to the minors at camp.

• Players over 35 can sign one-year deals with lower base salaries and easily-attainable bonuses that allow teams to defer cap compliance. By the end of the season, all the bonuses paid will count and any team over the cap will have that much less cap room the next season. In the meantime, though, players can be sent to the minors and traded in order to clear room. Which means that Brendan Shanahan can sign a lower-base, heavy-on-bonuses deal that can get him back to around $4 million for next season without the Rangers having to count all of it until year's end.

As for the unsigned four, Shanahan is on the verge. Lundqvist is hammering out a new deal. Avery is likely to take the Rangers to salary arbitration. Hossa is unlikely to get much more than his qualifying offer.

20 Years of NY Rangers 1st Round Picks

1987
#10 D - Jayson More (Traded to Minnesota for powerhouse RW, Dave Archibald)

1988
#22 LW - Troy Mallette (RW, Tony Amonte was taken in the 3rd Round)

1989
#20 RW - Steven Rice (Part of the trade package to Edmonton that landed Messier)
Note: D, Aaron Miller was taken the 5th round, but traded to Quebec for D, Joe Cirella

1990
#13 D - Michael Stewart (No NHL games)
C, Doug Weight taken in 2nd Round; D, Sergei Zubov taken in the 5th Round, and C, Sergei Nemchinov taken in the 12th Round

1991
#15 RW - Alexei Kovalev (never quite lived up to his potential – traded for C, Petr Nedved)

1992
#24 RW - Peter Ferraro (major bust)
D, Mattias Norstrom taken in Round 2

1993
#8 RW - Niklas Sundstrom (Underachiever)
C, Todd Marchant taken in the 7th Round, traded for C, Craig MacTavish

1994
#26 G - Dan Cloutier (Never really got the time with the Rangers)
D, Kim Johnsson taken in the 11th Round and part of the trade package to Philadelphia for C, Eric Lindros

1995
#39 RW - Christian Dube (Now starring the Swiss A League)
C, Marc Savard taken in the 3rd round (1 full year with NY) and traded to Calgary

1996
#22 D - Jeff Brown (Not the good one – No NHL games)

1997
#19 RW - Stefan Cherneski (Bad, Bad, Bad)
C, Mike York taken in the 6th Round and eventually traded to Edmonton for Tom Poti and Rem Murray

1998
#7 C - Manny Malhotra (Currently banished to Columbus)
G, Jason Labarbera selected in the 3rd Round and currently the LA Kings hope

1999
#4 LW - Pavel Brendl (Sent to Philadelphia as part of Lindros Deal)
#9 C - Jamie Lundmark (Never panned out)

2000
#64 D - Filip Novak

2001
#10 G - Dan Blackburn (Injuries shortened career)
D, Fedor Tyutin taken in the 2nd round
D, Marek Zidlicky taken in the 6th round and traded to Nashville for G, Mike Dunham

2002
#33 C - Lee Falardeau (In the ECHL)
RW, Petr Prucha taken in the 8th Round

2003
#12 R - Hugh Jessiman (Looks to be a bust)
LW, Nigel Dawes taken in the 5th round

2004
#6 G - Al Montoya
RW - Ryan Callahan taken in the 4th Round

2005
#12 D - Marc Staal

2006
#21 D - Bob Sanguinetti

2007
#17 RW - Alexei Cherepanov

Arbitration Ensures Lundqvist Will Stay a Ranger

Spooked by the $50-million, seven-year offer sheet to which the Edmonton Oilers signed restricted Buffalo free agent Tomas Vanek, the Rangers elected this afternoon to take Henrik Lundqvist to salary arbitration.

While Glen Sather continues to try to hammer out a long-term deal for Lundqvist with agent Don Meehan, this move ensures that Lundqvist at least will be a Ranger for next season. And it precludes any rival from making an offer sheet that would crush the Rangers cap-wise.