Glen Sather is trying not to let the issue of Henrik Lundqvist’s contract situation linger any longer. The Rangers general manager will meet sometime next week with the franchise goaltender’s agent, Don Meehan, in hopes of wrapping up an extension.
“He’s a great goaltender,” Sather said Friday at Radio City Music Hall, where the team introduced Alain Vigneault as its new head coach. “He’s 31 years old, we want him to finish his career in New York and continue to be a great goaltender for the next six or seven or eight years, depending on how long he wants to play.”
Lundqvist can become an unrestricted free agent after next season, and he was measured in his enthusiasm for re-signing with the Blueshirts on the team’s breakup day a couple weeks ago.
* Sather had no declaration on the future of Brad Richards, saying it was not the proper time to discuss personnel decisions. Richards is a prime candidate for the team’s second amnesty buyout, which would wipe out his $6.67 million annual salary-cap hit.
Vigneault had some experience with Richards when he coached juniors at Prince Edward Island, Richards’ home area, during the 2004-05 lockout.
“He was an outstanding individual,” Vigneault said. “I’m not quite sure what happened here with the Rangers. There are people here who understand the situation much better than I [do], so we’ll see what happens.”
* Sather also addressed the big three restricted free agents: forwards Carl Hagelin and Derek Stepan and defenseman Ryan McDonagh.
“The interesting thing about contracts is that you can always renew them,” Sather said. “The three guys we have coming up now, we’re going to renew them all.
“I’m not planning on purging the hockey team because we have some contracts that are up. We’re a pretty young hockey team.”
Diminutive Norwegian winger Mats Zuccarello also is a restricted free agent.
* The Rangers’ schedule next season will have more travel, with realignment bringing larger, more geographically spread-out divisions, as well as the return of inter-conference games for a full, 82-game slate. While dealing with brutal travel as coach in Vancouver, Vigneault used the advice of a “sleep doctor” who put the team’s schedule into a database and returned results on whether they should stay in a city after a game or leave.
“We made a lot of those decisions based on the recommendation of the expert,” Vigneault said, “and our record on the road has been one of the best in the NHL for the last couple years.”
* Vigneault said he plans on having two assistant coaches on the bench with him during games — one focused on each special team — and both will have previous NHL experience.