2011-12 Contracts

OK, so I'm not good at predicting playoff series. Whatever.

Sitting in a hotel room, on a business trip (the insane American game show "Minute to Win It" is on), I decided it's time to make good on that damn contract situation post. This'll be a good reference point. This entry will focus on the contracts that already exist between the Rangers and other players; a future entry will focus on our free agents.

Before we begin, a few notes. As you may have heard, Coach John Tortorella's contract was renewed for the next three seasons. There's no salary regulation on coaches, so I don't care how much it was for. That's good news. Second, about the cap itself: this season, it was $59.4 million. Expert projections (we call these "guesses") tell us that next season's will look something like $62.4 million. Although this is bullshit, it gives us a number to work with, and it's probably reasonably close to accurate.

Let's talk a little about the difference between one-way and two-way contracts. Simply put, a one-way contract is a contract between a player and the Rangers, while a two-way contract is a dual contract between the player and both the Rangers and the Connecticut Whale. Generally, a player on a two-way contract will make a very different salary based on which team he is playing for. On the other hand, if a player on a one-way contract is sent down to the minors (which is fairly rare), he will continue to make his full NHL salary. In either case, of course, a player on an AHL affiliate does not count against the cap.

Here's where it gets interesting for our Rangers. During the season, the cap is actually pro-rated by the day. The salary cap is split up by the day, as are individual player hits, and no team may exceed the daily cap. Fortunately, that math is the same as adding up the annual cap hits of the players on that day's roster and comparing the total to the annual cap. Easy. Over the summer, there's no daily hit, but there is a salary cap in effect. Until the pre-season starts, since there's no formal idea of a roster, the cap includes: all players on one-way contracts; and all players on two-way contracts, pro-rated based on what percentage of the season they played in the NHL the previous season.

So, for example, I'm on a two-way contract that pays me $500,000 for my NHL team and $50,000 for my AHL team. Last season, I was on my NHL team's roster for 94 of the season's 188 days. So, over this summer, I will count for $250,000 against the cap.

Now, there's a reason we don't usually give a shit about this summer cap stuff: the NHL allows a 10% increase on the salary cap over the summer, for maneuverability. What's that you say? This seems needlessly complicated? If you wanna allow for summer maneuverability, why not just not have a summer cap at all? This whole thing is stupid? Yes. This is all true. And yet, here we are.

But despite that 10% increase, which will put the summer cap (given our previous assumption of a $62.4 million cap) at $68.64 million, Ranger fans care this season. Because of the $6.5 million/year, one-way contract of Wade Redden. Obviously, Redden will be back in the AHL once the season begins, but until then, his $6.5 million will count against the summer cap. So, even if we have room to fit our desired team within next season's cap, we may have trouble getting there over the summer.

So, with all that in mind, let's get into it. First, the list of all the players with one-way contracts with the Rangers. For each player, I will list the cap hit and the number of seasons remaining on the contract (including 2011-2012).

Marian Gaborik - $7.5m, 3 yr
Chris Drury - $7.05m, 1 yr
Henrik Lundqvist - $6.875m, 3 yr
Wade Redden - $6.5m, 3 yr
Marc Staal - $3.975m, 4 yr
Wojtek Wolski - $3.8m, 1yr
Dan Girardi - $3.325m, 3 yr
Sean Avery - $1.9375m, 1 yr
Derek Boogaard - $1.625m, 3 yr
Erik Christensen - $0.925m, 1 yr
Martin Biron - $0.875m, 1 yr
Brandon Prust - $0.8m, 1 yr

On that list, Drury has a No-Movement Clause (cannot be traded or sent to the minors without his approval), Gaborik has a No-Trade Clause (cannot be traded without his approval), Redden has a Limited No-Trade Clause (can list 8 teams he refuses to be traded to), and Avery has a full No-Trade Clause over the summer (July 1-August 14) and a Limited No-Trade Clause for the rest of the year (can list 10 teams he refuses to be traded to).

So, that's $45.1875 million definitely locked up over the summer. Then, there are the two-way contracts. Those get a little more complicated, and not just because of the pro-rating mentioned earlier. Many of these contracts include performance-based bonuses, which are only paid out if some conditions are met (one-way contracts may include these also, it's just that none of ours do). Because they may or may not be paid out, the NHL allows these bonuses to go over the cap by some amount (7.5% of the cap, or something like $4.68 million). If a team takes advantage of this bonus cushion, and the bonuses do get paid out, they will come out of the following season's cap. So, the practical upshot for the summer cap is that we don't have to worry about those bonuses.

With all that in mind, here are the seven players currently on two-way contracts with the Rangers and the Whale, that ever saw the roster this season. Any players who never saw the Ranger roster this season, due to the pro-rating, will not count at all against this summer's cap.

Derek Stepan - $875,000, 2 yr. Played the entire season, putting his summer cap hit at $875,000.
Michael Del Zotto - $875,000 salary plus $212,500 in bonuses, 1 yr. Looks like he played something like 63% of the season, putting his summer cap hit around $555,107.
Mats Zuccarello - $900,000 salary plus $850,000 in bonuses, 1 yr. Looks like he played something like 54% of the season, putting his summer cap hit around $483,871.
Ryan McDonagh - $875,000 salary plus $425,000 in bonuses, 2 yr. Looks like he played something like 53% of the season, putting his summer cap hit around $461,021.
Kris Newbury - $512,500, 1 yr. Looks like he played something like 18% of the season, putting his summer cap hit around $93,683.
Evgeny Grachev - $654,166 salary plus $162,500 in bonuses, 2 yr. On the roster for like 9% of the season, for a summer cap hit of $56,272.
Cam Talbot - $690,000 salary plus $210,000 in bonuses, 1 yr. Was on the roster for something like half a percent of the season, giving him a summer cap hit of like $3710

So, if I understand things correctly, that ties up an additional $2,528,664, for a total of $47,716,164 already tied up under the summer cap. Assuming a figure of $62.4 million, and therefore a summer cap of $68.64 million, that leaves us $20,923,836 to work with. Not a ton, given all the names you'll note absent from the above lists, and therefore necessarily on the free agency lists (more on those later). Especially if we wanna, like, sign someone like Brad Richards?

What recourse do we have? Well, for the summer cap, it's pretty much retirement, buyouts, and trades. None of the above-mentioned contracts are special 35+ contracts, so we won't still be on the hook for any players who retire or play in the AHL, but as we know, demotion to the AHL doesn't help with the summer cap. Trades, obviously, would completely remove anyone's cap hit, as would that player's retirement. Other than that, if we're really desperate for cap space, we could always buy out someone's contract. But a buyout imposes an (admittedly lessened) cap penalty in next and future seasons, stretching out for twice the length of the remaining contract (according to a formula you don't care about right now). So, buyouts are almost always a bad idea.

So, there we are, with our current contracts. Up next: free agents.