Sooner or later, the Rangers will lose an important front office feature in Chris Drury, and that moment could be earlier than expected if the Penguins come to call.
The highly respected assistant general manager of the Blueshirts and GM of the AHL Wolf Pack is credited with a short list of candidates Mario Lemieux and his team plan to replace Jim Rutherford, who abruptly resigned as Pittsburgh GM this week.
It is our understanding that the Rangers’ hierarchy would not obstruct the Connecticut Yankee’s advance when and if the Penguins ask permission to speak to the 44-year-old executive. Our best information is that until Saturday afternoon, at least, that request had not been submitted to Blueshirts president John Davidson.
Rutherford is believed to have resigned because of an internal dispute with the property – and that essentially means Lemieux – over the direction of the club. Number 66 and PPP partner Ron Burkle are optimistic about the prospect of preparing for another Stanley Cup race with 33 year old Sidney Crosby, 34 year old Evgeni Malkin and 33 year old Kris Letang as centerpieces of the effort .
Most outside the organization believe the club needs to replenish an essentially empty closet of potential customers, rather than putting all of their chips in the middle of the table in a quixotic search for a title. In fact, the Penguins could be in 2016-17 Rangers mode, if not 2017-18, although the card saying is probably not what one should expect from Lemieux.
So, among the questions: Will the Penguins hire only someone who says what the property wants to hear, and Drury believes that the view of the property represents the best path for this franchise? There is the overriding question of how much authority GM would have if Lemieux was looking over his shoulder.
There is no doubt, however, that a mid-season exit would be detrimental to the Rangers organization. Drury oversees the operation of the secondary league as GM’s trusted confidant Jeff Gorton. He has an active voice in all decisions. The franchise would miss him. It is obvious, however, that it will only be a matter of time.
That moment may be coming quickly.
Libor Hajek is operating under the same two-way NHL contract as Tarmo Reunanen, although the first NHL salary is set at $ 832,500 and the last at $ 750,000. Each must receive the mandatory starting amount of $ 70,000 in AHL.
But because Reunanen was assigned to the Wolf Pack on January 12, he didn’t receive a nickel while training and skating with the club in preparation for the start of next week’s AHL season, while Hajek received his full AHL fee because he was assigned to the taxi squad on the same day.
This is fair?
It is even worse for these guys. PHPA and AHL are about to ratify an agreement under which AHL players would be guaranteed 48 percent of their pay, with a minimum of $ 30,000 through a truncated schedule in which teams will play between 24 and 44 games . Players would receive 40% if their team’s season was suspended. The entry-level bidirectional guys, therefore, would earn $ 33,600 a year … after most of them didn’t get paid in about nine months.
So, let’s say that in a few weeks the Rangers believe that Hajek would feel better playing for the Wolf Pack instead of skating and practicing like a taxi squad guy. He would stop working with a pay scale of $ 70,000 to one of $ 33,600.
In the same contract!
Obviously, this applies to the entire league. Hajek, Reunanen and the Rangers are simply cited as examples.
So you have what has become a common practice of transporting players from the NHL roster to the taxi squad in order to save space on the cap. When there are high draft choices with big bonus packages – like Rangers’ Kaapo Kakko or Avalanche’s 2019, the fourth Bowen Byram overall – the savings are significant.
But so are the real wage losses incurred by the player (s). Kakko and Byram are each earning $ 832,500 at the NHL level and $ 70,000 at the AHL. Counting the NHL guarantee retention, each player loses just under $ 5,137.93 per day in the taxi squad. Of course, they are also 19 years old.
It is so in the time of the pandemic. Maybe these guys, plus the dozens around the NHL who will be in the squad cab yo-yo, should just thank you for not going to AHL.
So, I was listening to our podcast “Up in the Blue Seats” hosted by Ron Duguay and his colleague Mollie Walker, in which Mike Bossy appeared as a guest. Of course, the Rangers overtook Bossy twice in the 1977 Amateur Draft, selecting Lucien DeBlois in eighth overall and Duguay in 13th before the Islanders grab No. 22 in 15th.
This was the precursor to one of Fred Shero’s great lines as GM Rangers / coach, in 1978-79, saying that he preferred Duguay as a player than Bossy as he plays.
Cloudy, in fact.
The Canadiens overtook Quebec in 10th place overall on the advice of scout Claude Ruel, who cited Bossy’s defensive deficiencies. Instead, the Habs grabbed Mark Napier, who had three very good seasons in Montreal, scoring 40 goals twice and 35 once.
But, say, the Canadiens chose Bossy. How exactly does he think it would have worked for him coming to a team that had Guy Lafleur entrenched as a first-rate right winger?
“One of the main reasons I didn’t want Montreal to recruit me is because they were sending about 98% of their youth and choices to AHL’s Nova Scotia,” Bossy told Slap Shots on Friday. “Honestly, I don’t think I would have had a fair chance to join the team, unless they put me with veterans on the training ground where I could fill the net and not give them a choice.”
Finally, and here I’ve been thinking that the Rangers are going to have to get another lottery.