The line of communication is frayed, there is no question about that.
In the contract negotiations between the Rangers and Ryan Callahan, things have come to a temporary halt — and one that with each passing day is looking more like the end of the road for Callahan as the Blueshirts’ captain.
The 28-year-old career Ranger is going to be an unrestricted free agent come this summer, and if he and the team can’t come to an agreement some time well before Friday’s 3 p.m. roster freeze, then general manager Glen Sather surely is going to try and trade him instead of watching him leave after the season for nothing in return.
For Callahan, discussing the issue in public is not a priority.
“I’m not going to talk about that stuff,” Callahan said after the team’s spirited practice on Saturday, as the Rangers have won three straight and are sitting pretty in second place in the Metropolitan division with the Avalanche coming to town on Tuesday. “I don’t think it’s productive for the process of negotiations, or anything.”
On Friday, Sather used a rather cunning tactic in trying to get Callahan’s camp to come down on their asking price, allowing other teams to reach out and discover just exactly what that asking price was. According to a source, only one team contacted Callahan’s agent, and there was little to be gleaned from the conversation.
That’s because even if that team were to make a theoretical offer to Callahan above and beyond what the Rangers were willing to give him, it still would be on Sather to make the decision to trade him — and that would depend on what the Blueshirts were getting in return.
It seems Sather’s point was to use his controlled selection of the market as an example of overall worth, and therefore find a way to bridge the gap. It is believed both sides are in agreement in giving Callahan a contract with an annual salary-cap hit around $6 million, yet the difference is Callahan would like the security of a seven-year deal while Sather isn’t willing to go more than five.
If that seems like a small difference, it isn’t. For Callahan, that means a substantial amount of money left on the table, and for the Rangers it means less flexibility and the probability of overpaying for the twilight years of his career.
So that has left them here, with a team that has surged enough over the past month and a half to begin thinking about big things again. If the captain is traded midseason, that certainly would send a shock through the locker room, and depending on what NHL-ready talent came back in return, could undercut their Stanley Cup aspirations.
“I give Cally a ton of credit,” said center Derek Stepan, who went through his own contentious negotiation this summer, keeping him away for the start of training camp. “I see him come to the rink and he is the same Cally that I’ve been with for four years. He understands it, he’s not taking anything personal, and he’s just going through the process. He’s doing everything he can to make sure he ends up in a New York Ranger uniform.”
Coach Alain Vigneault reiterated his praise for Callahan, and said he expects him in the lineup on Tuesday.
“At the end of the day, his job is to come here, get ready, help his teammates get ready and go out and perform,” Vigneault said. “He’s done that remarkably since day one, and that part hasn’t changed.”