NHL

Rangers demote White in salary-cap move

A day later and Todd White likely would have avoided his fate. But by the time Erik Christensen suffered a sprained right knee in a second-period collision with Andy Greene in last night’s Rangers’ 3-1 victory over the Devils at Prudential Center, White had cleared waivers and had been assigned to the AHL Whale.

And after the Rangers front office finally recognized the folly of carrying a spare with a $2.375 million cap charge by dispatching the 35-year-old veteran after he cleared waivers for the fourth time since the end of training camp, it’s not likely he will be back — though he would all but certainly clear re-entry — to fill in for Christensen, who probably will miss a couple of weeks.

It’s far more likely that the Rangers, who finished last night’s match with 11 healthy forwards on the roster, would recall 22-year-old physical winger Dale Weise from the Whale for the trip to Florida this weekend for games against the Lightning on Saturday and the Panthers on Sunday. The Rangers would have the option of moving Chris Drury back into the middle from right wing.

General manager Glen Sather did well over the summer in shedding Donald Brashear and his automatic $1.4 million over-35 cap from the books hit by dealing him and minor-leaguer Patrick Rissmiller ($1 million) to the Thrashers for White in what essentially was a sum-zero cash exchange.

But instead of reaping the full reward of the transaction by sending White to the minors at the end of training camp, the Blueshirts kept White as the 13th forward until yesterday, thus burning $1.073 million in cap space on a player who averaged 7:40 per while recording two points (1-1) in 18 games.

By making this move yesterday, the Rangers wind up saving approximately $325,000 of full-season space on the trade.

“Whitey is a good man, but I was never able to give him a really good opportunity in an offensive position,” Tortorella said. “But honestly, he’s 35, and we’re looking to try and develop a team with our youth.”

A 12-year NHL veteran who recorded a career high 73 points with Atlanta two years ago (22 goals, 51 assists), White was sent to the minors after passing through waivers for the fourth time.

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Henrik Lundqvist
made 43 saves, tied for the fourth most in his career. He also improved to 19-4-5 lifetime against Martin Brodeur
and 21-7-5 against the Devils. . . . Brian Boyle
got his 14th goal-his previous career high was four, while Michal Rozsival
got his third and Brandon Dubinsky
scored his team-leading 16th and fourth empty-netter. . . . Rangers were credited with 41 hits, with Boyle leading with seven hits and Sean Avery
recording five in 10:29 of ice time.