PHILADELPHIA — One down and one to go for the Rangers.
Or is that, two to stay?
The Blueshirts got it done on Friday with Dan Girardi, the parties agreeing to a six-year, $33 million contract extension that will keep the invaluable first-pair right defenseman on Broadway through 2020-21 for an annual cap hit of $5.5 million.
It is a fair-market deal for perhaps even less than what Girardi might have been able to attract had the 29-year-old made it his business to get to free agency on July 1. Keep in mind that this is the same deal defenseman James Wisniewski signed with Columbus when he was a free agent in 2011.
That leaves Ryan Callahan for general manager Glen Sather as the Blueshirts attempt to nail down their captain to an extension that would keep him in a Rangers uniform beyond this season and, more immediately, off the rental market preceding Wednesday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline.
The gap remains substantial between the parties, with Callahan still asking for seven years at more than $6.5 million per and the Rangers offering five years at $6 million a year, a difference of more than $15 million. The Blueshirts, however, are believed to be willing to add a season at their number in order to close the deal.
If Callahan continues to insist on seven years (and/or appreciably more than $6 million per), the Rangers would trade the winger as a rental. Tampa Bay would be a viable destination in a swap for Martin St. Louis, the Blueshirts likely adding a sweetener to the pot if necessary to bring the reigning Art Ross Trophy winner to New York.
The preference, though, is to keep Callahan, just as all along it was to keep Girardi, who was able to get a full no-movement clause for the first three years of his deal and a limited no-trade clause for the final three years of the contract.
Girardi, who will turn 30 on April 29, is the second-senior Ranger to Henrik Lundqvist. He joined the Blueshirts during the 2006-07 All Star break and made his NHL debut on Jan. 27, 2007 at Philadelphia … which is where the Blueshirts play Saturday afternoon.
The defenseman, who was originally signed by the Rangers as a free agent on July 1, 2006 after he went undrafted out of the Ontario Hockey League, has played 548 of a possible 552 games since he arrived in the NHL, missing a total of four regular-season games with injuries, two last season and two in 2010-11.
Girardi, who also has played in all 64 Rangers playoff games since joining the squad, has the seventh-most ice time in the NHL, beginning with his first full season of 2007-08. He is a stay-at-home, first-pass defenseman who blocks shots at one end and is proficient enough at the other end that he plays the point on the second power play unit.
This was a deal that should have been completed in late November, when the Girardi camp first proposed what, a comma or two aside, essentially became the contract. But it took three months, and the last few days became dicey.
But the deal was done. Girardi is done, but not as a Ranger. Now the trade deadline spotlight will shine alone on Callahan, who is Girardi’s best friend and who first became a teammate of Girardi’s during the 2002-03 OHL season in Guelph, Ontario.
Now there is one down.
And one to go.
Or is that, two to stay?