July 1st, a day that way too many New York Rangers fans tend to lose their mind over. It is the day that free agency starts for the National Hockey League and every year way too many Rangers fans forget the mistakes the Rangers made in previous years.
Sign this guy and sign that one those fans cry; yet within three years those same fans wind up turning on that very free agent and demand that the team gets rid of that one time love affair. Only come July 1st they are right back at it demanding the Rangers sign the flavor of the year.
But the funniest part about it is that when James Dolan gives those same fans the player that they cry for, the fans blame Dolan for giving him a foolish amount of money. In all the time that free agency has been a part of the NHL, I have yet to meet a Rangers fan who would say that they wanted said player and that they were wrong.
So in 2025, the fans are back at it, this year it is Los Angeles Kings defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov especially now the other top targets defensemen Ivan Provorov and Aaron Ekblad are already off the free agent market having resigned with their old teams.
And let us be honest the media is just as guilty of wanting the Rangers to sign the biggest free agent names out (and I do not mean just Larry Brooks). Too many suffer from the same sort of insanity that the fans do and want the Rangers to spend every last dollar they can.
Now for the bad news, good top level free agent defensemen are almost nonexistent in the 2025 Unrestricted Free agent class. Once you get past Gavrikov, the pickings are very weak and in most cases over thirty (a couple of them are over 40).
Well, there is that Colorado Avalanche defenseman who is only 27 years old, believes his name is Ryan Lindgren and one has to wonder how he might look in a Rangers uniform. And if you were thinking Rangers should send out offer sheets to restricted free agents, the Rangers are limited here as well.
Because the Rangers do not own their own 2026 second-round pick, they cannot make offers to salaries that fall in the range of $7,020,114 – $11,700,192 or $2,340,038 – $4,680,076. To be really honest the Rangers are best off not spending what little salary cap space they have and saving as much as they can for the 2026 free agent class which looks to have a much better supply of defensemen.
So Long Zac Jones
Have to admit that the Rangers did not make a qualifying offer to defenseman Zac Jones caught us off guard at first but when one looks closer at it, it made sense. Jones was eligible to file for arbitration and when it comes to arbitration, one never knows how it will go.
If Jones had been a full time regular, then keeping him would have made a lot of sense but he never was whether it was his fault or the coaching staff we will never know.
But honestly qualifying K’Andre Miller at $$.64 million dollars made no sense if the Rangers already were looking at signing any free agent. Maybe a team struggling to reach the lower limit of the salary cap might want to trade for him but expecting a decent return sorry not sorry.
Someone should tell Miller to accept the Rangers qualifying offer and work his butt off to earn his next contract. Don’t even think about filing for arbitration as you are not worthy of winning award.
But Chris Drury had better be ready to get James Dolan’s checkbook as his failure to get Will Cuylle signed to his contract extension is going to cost him more money than it should have. Go back to the restricted free agent tier list and see what teams can sign Cuylle for.
Can the Rangers afford to pay Cuylle up to $4.6 million and Miller up to $5 million if they have any hope of signing a decent UFA defensemen? Not when you only have $13 million in open cap space.
The next hire Chris Drury really needs to make is a salary cap specialist/contract person because it is clear he is clueless when it comes to signing players.
