You can’t necessarily put a price on education.
Yet that’s just what the Rangers are going to have to do sometime between now and June 30 in order to prevent a competitor from establishing the price on Brandon Dubinsky, who stands to become next summer’s prime Group II offer-sheet target should he reach the market.
Dubinsky is experiencing growing pains one month into his sophomore season. He’s had three sub-par games in succession, climaxing Monday at the Coliseum, when he was briefly benched after taking two penalties within his first 42 seconds on the ice.
“I just wanted to make sure that Dubi understands there’s a way we have to play, and that at the end of the day, the guy behind the bench is the boss,” said coach Tom Renney, who has shuttled three left wings and four right wings onto and off of Dubinsky’s line the last three games.
“He knows that. He’s a good kid. He’ll learn.”
He has.
“I know – it’s not acceptable by me to play the way I have been,” Dubinsky said. “I have to be more ready. I have to do better than this, and I will do better than this.”
Dubinsky is tied with Scott Gomez for the team lead in scoring with 11 points (4-7). When on his game, he plays with a chip on his shoulder the size of his native Alaska. He is a team guy and a leadership guy.
He also is on the final year of his Entry Level contract, and is the class of the prospective Group II Class of ’09, all due respect to Paul Stastny and Jordan Staal.
With an anticipated 10 percent increase in average, a team making a Group II offer sheet of $5.7M would only owe compensation of a first-, a second- and a third-round draft pick for Dubinsky if the Rangers refused to match.
There probably are a dozen teams that would make that trade for Dubinsky right now, and there is one team on Broadway that wouldn’t think of it. Still, the Rangers are going to have a problem if it gets that far.
Boy, would that be a problem for the Rangers, who have $39.159 million committed to one goaltender, four defensemen, two centers and one winger – Henrik Lundqvist; Wade Redden, Michal Rozsival, Dan Girardi, Marc Staal; Scott Gomez, Chris Drury; Markus Naslund – for next season, when the cap is more likely to decline somewhat rather than increase from the current $56.7M.
So that means giving Dubinsky $5M on pre-emptive deal, let alone matching a more expensive offer, would bring the Rangers to nearly $44.2M for 10 players. Complicating matters is the corresponding pending Group II free agencies of Nikolai Zherdev and Ryan Callahan.
As Dubinsky learns more about the game, the Rangers are going to learn more about being in Cap Jail.