The New York Rangers have already had quite a busy offseason, bringing in veteran talents such as Blake Wheeler, Jonathan Quick, and Nick Bonino among others, yet they still have some important contracts left to sign. Both defenseman K’Andre Miller and forward Alexis Lafreniere were sitting without contracts for the 2023-24 NHL season, but the Rangers now have half of that list taken care of.
The team announced via a press release that Miller has signed a two-year, $7.74MM contract, paying him an AAV of $3.872MM. This seems like a fair deal for both sides, factoring in that Colorado Avalanche defenseman, Bowen Byram, signed a similar bridge deal last week.
In his first full season in New York, Miller became quite the positive force on the team’s back end. Playing in all 82 games for the 2021-22 season, Miller scored seven goals and 13 assists, playing just over 20 minutes a night. Miller also has a physical edge to his game, supplying the team with 151 hits in that same year. To add, Miller was one of a limited number of defensemen to have more takeaways than giveaways and also produced an oiSV% of 92.4%.
This past year, Miller’s offensive capabilities became much more of a factor in his game. Receiving much more time on the power play, Miller doubled his offensive output from the previous season, scoring nine goals and 34 assists in 79 games. His underlying defensive metrics did take a small dip but were still positive nonetheless.
Although signing Miller to an affordable bridge deal is great news for the Rangers, there are some negative externalities to this deal as well. Before the contract is officially added to their ledger, New York had around $6.18MM in cap space. Now that Miller has signed with an AAV of $3.872MM, this only leaves just under $2.4MM left in space to sign Lafreniere. Thankfully for the Rangers, Lafreniere does not yet have arbitration rights, so the team will still have a little bit of control on his next deal.
Jonathan Quick is no longer a talent, He will be sent packing by Christmas because he can’t stop a beach ball, He’s been really bad for at least 2 plus seasons he’s another guy that can’t let go and why the Rangers can’t see these facts is beyond me.
He is a stop gap, doesnt step up, they will cut him and steal from hartford
Not surprising. Most hockey stuff seems beyond you.
Spitter
That’s a pretty team-friendly deal. Defensemen a lot worse than Miller are getting $5-6 MM.
As far as the “negative” side, Miller’s a hell of a lot more valuable to the team than Lafreniere is. I’d worry a lot more about having a top-pairing guy signed and happy than opening up the vaults to a proven third-line forward.
You know Laff has as many 5 on 5 goals since entering the league as MiKa. Hmmmmm
Almost as many, but so what? Zibanejad has nearly 50 more PP goals over the last three years than Lafreniere does. Strange though it might seem, power play goals count as much on the scoreboard as any other. Heck, Zibanejad has more *assists* than Lafreniere has points. Zibanejad is an elite player, and Lafreniere is anything but, and the only reason I can think of for a Rangers’ fan not to wrap his head around the distinction is that you guys are embarrassed at the team having drafted Lafreniere first overall, which is where I figure all the excuses about his play come from.
Lafreniere is not a bad player, not at all, and I expect most teams would find a place for him on their third line. And if he’d had the blessing of being a third round pick, you’d all think yourselves lucky to have him.
So you say
He needs more ice time on LW, but that’s not going to happen with Kreider and Panarin ahead of him and RW is totally different and uncomfortable for him. Sprinkle in his line mates vs others on the team and scoring half a point per game on the third line is encouraging.
I’m of the opinion that Panarin needs to be moved, but he has an NTC. Laffy up to the second line with Kakko and bring up Othmann to pair with Chytil. Chytil is more of a goal scoring center, which doesn’t bode well for either Laffy or Kakko.
It’s hard to score power play goals from the bench, which is where Laf is during 80% of the power play time.
For the record, Zibanejad was a 6th overall pick who posted seasons of 33 points and 46 points in his age 20 and 21 seasons, while getting more ice time and more power play time than Lafreniere is getting.
When he was traded to the Rangers, most Ranger fans couldn’t even pronounce his name, and wanted to know why the Rangers gave up Brassard for a “3rd line center who is a 40 point player”.
Turns out not all prospects develop in a straight line, especially when they are on a team playing behind established, veteran, star players.
(shrugs) Lafreniere got just over 15 minutes of ice time last year. Zibanejad got just under 20 minutes. So you’d figure Mika would get a third more production, right? Instead he got over TWICE as many goals and TWICE as many assists.
I’d puzzle out more of why so many Rangers fans are so thoroughly invested in proclaiming Lafreniere to be a star, above and beyond the several *actual* stars New York has, but heck, I don’t root for the Rangers. Carry on.
Interesting on the math and wow your not a ranger fan yet know so much
Glad you agree!