Rangers Re-Sign Kreider

It hasn't been too long since the last table update for the New York Rangers, just over a week ago, but lots has happened and the look of the team has changed quite a bit since then, including today's signing.   The Rangers and forward Chris Kreider have also avoided any arbitration anxiety, settling on a new 4-year deal, reportedly worth $18.5 million.

The 25-year old winger has been a fairly consistent scorer for the Rangers over the last three seasons, even offering up back-to-back 21-goal seasons, 2015 and 2016.  Last season, he played in 79 games and finished with 43 points, scoring at 0.54 points per game and finishing 112th among all forwards,

Although he may have been rated a little higher in his potential, this may be where we see his ceiling finally reach him, as he appears to have settled into this lineup and into this role.  For the better part of last season, he and Derek Stepan were linemates and as reasonable as those two are, they haven't really been able to blow competition out of the water.

I will give him the benefit of the doubt, still being fairly young in this league, that he could see some improvement next season, bumping up his projection to the 50-point range.

With the Brassard-for-Zibanejad trade and Dylan McIlrath signing over the past 10 days, the appearance of this team has changed and it is looking promising again.  The 23-man roster in colour below is now coming in with $6.3 million left under the ceiling to fill and their biggest concern is re-signing Kevin Hayes.  There is no way he commands that sort of money, so the Rangers should have a decent buffer to play with during the season.

The Rangers are a bit young, quite a bit faster and now it will be a matter of testing that against the teams on the ice, just to see how well this team has been put together.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Rick Nash	7.800	Dan Girardi	5.500	Henrik Lundqvist	8.500
Derek Stepan	6.500	Ryan McDonagh	4.700	Antti Raanta	1.000
Chris Kreider	4.625	Kevin Klein	2.000
Mats Zuccarello	4.500	Nick Holden	1.650
J.T. Miller	2.750
Mika Zibanejad	2.625
Oscar Lindberg	0.650
Michael Grabner	1.600	Marc Staal	5.700
Tanner Glass	1.450
Nathan Gerbe	0.600
Pavel Buchnevich	0.925	Dylan McIlrath	0.800
Ryan Gropp	0.808	Adam Clendening	0.600
Adam Tambellini	0.803
Josh Jooris	0.600
Robin Kovacs	0.803	Brady Skjei	0.925	Brandon Halverson	0.773
Adam Chapie	0.800	Calle Andersson	0.662	Mackenzie Skapski	0.663
Cristoval Nieves	0.755	Ryan Graves	0.633	Magnus Hellberg	0.625
Steven Fogarty	0.750	Tommy Hughes	0.633
Malte Stromall	0.743	Michael Paliotta	0.600
Nicklas Jensen	0.600	Chris Summers	0.600
Chris Brown	0.575	Mat Bodie	0.600

Pool worthy, non-pool roster players, assumed roster fill-ins,  injured/retired cap hits, in the system