Opening with a question to which I am certain the Rangers have no answer: What if Wade Redden is one of the team’s two or three best defensemen in training camp?
There’s no doubt the plan calls for Redden to be waived at some point during camp so his $6.5 million albatross of a cap hit can be removed from the ledger when the season commences, no doubt whatsoever.
The construction of the roster, including the recent signing of Alexander Frolov and trade for Todd White, indicates GM Glen Sather expects to have Redden’s space available, and so does pretty much everything the organization is communicating this summer to anyone in the industry who will listen.
But what if Marc Staal remains unsigned through camp, certainly a possibility given the utter lack of progress in the talks with the unsigned Group II free agent who may not be as antsy to get in as Brandon Dubinsky was last year?
What if Steve Eminger, too expensive at $1.125 million to be a seventh, is no stiffer than he was for Anaheim last season when he was a healthy scratch 18 times for a team that didn’t make the playoffs?
What if John Tortorella is no more impressed by Matt Gilroy’s work in his own end than he was last year, when the coach sat the rookie the final eight games of the year in favor of Anders Eriksson?
And what if Redden, who knows his NHL career is on the line here, who knows that if he is waived through the league in September he will never get back, what if Redden plays assertive, sharp hockey beginning with the first scrimmage and maintains his level? What if Redden outplays just about every defenseman in camp?
Then the Rangers will be in a state of severe stress. Then, incorporating that $6.5 million onto the season cap would mean that Sather would have to slash the roster in order to leave enough space to match on Staal, who at that point would become a very inviting target for an offer sheet.
Rest assured there isn’t a single Rangers’ ghost roster that includes Redden, who has been a ghost his two seasons in New York. But what if this 33-year-old, 13-year NHL veteran, who was told at his exit meetings that he would have to earn his spot on Broadway or face exile to the minors, has dedicated this summer to training for a last stand?
What if Staal isn’t there? What if Eminger is no better than he was last year (and why would he be)? What if Tortorella doesn’t believe in Gilroy?
What if — don’t laugh — Redden plays well?
What then?
Esa Tikkanen, all but done at 33, had enough left to excel on a 1998 training camp invite and thus earn one final NHL contract and a spot on the Rangers, before going 0-3 with a minus-5 in 32 games.
Which is to say you should expect the 35-year-old White, yet another middling veteran coming off a bad season who somehow winds up on the Rangers when the team is allegedly getting younger, to play well enough in training camp to make the team and preserve his NHL career, at least for a few months.
The trickle-down effect of both the Frolov signing and White acquisition is this: if Tortorella doesn’t have Vinny Prospal in the middle, if Tortorella has Prospal on left wing, then the coach is going into camp consciously cutting Sean Avery out of the picture.
Yes, it’s true, Avery needs to earn his time. But it’s equally true that Avery needs to be given the opportunity to earn his time and a meaningful role. If he can’t do it, if he’s not up to it, if he can’t be the consistent force he was the first time around and that he was the two weeks before he went down with a knee last season, then it’s on Avery.
But if Frolov, Prospal and Dubinsky are slotted as the team’s top three left wings going into camp; if Erik Christensen, Artem Anisimov and White are slotted as the top three pivots; if Marian Gaborik, Ryan Callahan and Chris Drury are slotted as the top three right wings; and if Avery is sharing fourth-line time with Derek Boogaard, the fix will be in.
And then it will be on Tortorella.
So this Mats Zuccarello-Aasen, do you think he’ll be as happy making the jump from Europe to be blocked out of New York and into Hartford where he can count on his $67,500 minor-league salary, as say, Ilkka Heikkinen?
Rangers had been interested in Shaone Morrisonn before the stay-at-home, mean-edged defenseman signed with Buffalo for a two-year deal worth $2.075 million per, but didn’t have the space to pull it off.
There would have been no opportunity for Aaron Voros to force his way onto the roster, so the Rangers did the winger a favor by dealing him to Anaheim. But if taking back Eminger effectively closed off the opportunity to sign Morrisonn, then the trade did no favors for the Rangers.