The New York Rangers have reportedly agreed to phrases with Alexis Lafreniere, one among their prime younger gamers, on Friday and it might find yourself being an unimaginable win-win deal for each the workforce and participant.
In keeping with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, Lafreniere’s new deal shall be a seven-year contract price a complete of $52.1 million. That comes out to a salary-cap hit of $7.45 million per season. That new deal will kick in subsequent season and run via the top of the 2031-32 season.
The Rangers chosen Lafreniere with the No. 1 total choose within the 2020 NHL Draft and made him a key a part of their rebuild. After a few years of inconsistent play and a scarcity of a transparent function underneath former head coach Gerard Gallant, Lafreniere lastly began to interrupt out through the 2023-24 season. He now appears to be on monitor to changing into the star participant the Rangers hoped he could be after they chosen him with the highest choose.
After scoring a career-high 28 targets with 57 factors through the common season a yr in the past, Lafreniere was one of many Rangers’ finest gamers within the Stanley Cup Playoffs and is off to an incredible begin this season with 4 targets and three assists within the workforce’s first seven video games.
What makes it such an amazing deal for the Rangers is {that a} $7.45 million cap hit is just not even among the many top-85 salary-cap numbers within the NHL, and inside a few years will nearly definitely be even decrease down the rankings as extra long-term contracts get signed. Assuming Lafreniere continues on his present trajectory — and there’s little purpose to consider he will not — he needs to be outperforming that quantity inside a yr or two. It’s also a contract that buys out his prime years within the NHL when he needs to be scoring at his peak charges. It isn’t out of the query to suppose he could possibly be a 35-40-goal scorer and 90-plus-point participant inside a few years.
It’s also a win for Lafreniere as a result of when the contract expires, he’ll nonetheless solely be 30 years previous. That will permit him to hit unrestricted free company at some extent in his profession the place he ought to nonetheless have just a few years of top-line play forward of him and probably money in with no less than another huge contract in his NHL profession.
With Lafreniere’s contract settled, the following order of enterprise for the Rangers shall be getting beginning goalie Igor Shesterkin signed to a long-term deal. He’s their finest and most vital participant and set to grow to be an unrestricted free agent after this season. He’s more likely to reset the goalie market and set a brand new highpoint for the place. It’s only a matter of whether or not or not the Rangers are the workforce that’s keen to fulfill that worth.
