Please do not take this as an unqualified endorsement of the party that believes the Rangers should simply pay Igor Shesterkin whatever he wants.
But at the same time, I am bemused hearing talk about whether Minnesota’s resplendent Kirill Kaprizov, currently under contract for two more years at an AAV of $9 million, will break the $14M mark when he comes up for unrestricted free agency ahead of 2026-27, and yet there seems to be no outrage over paying a left wing who plays about a third of the game such a significant a percentage of the cap.
If Shesterkin plays 60 games this season, that would amount to a total of 3,600 minutes, give or take. Kaprizov, 51st in the league in average ice time and fourth among forwards, would play a sum of around 1,800 minutes at this pace.
In other words, and I’m not trying to make this more difficult for Rangers GM Chris Drury — I promise — but Kaprizov projects to be on the ice about half as much as Shesterkin this season.
Seriously, who has more value here, and why in the world is not the goaltender the runaway leader in the polls for the Hart Trophy — though we all know that polls ahead of an election are useless?
There is a limit to what the Blueshirts are going to offer Shesterkin in the next round of talks, but it has nothing to do with the position he plays, which is only the most important one in the sport. It has to do with the hard cap and nothing but the hard cap.
At some point there is going to be a number, and despite an Internet troll’s post the other day, it is not going to be $11.5M per. It’s going to be more, I think at least another half a million a year. When Shesterkin signs, there will be intense debate about whether his team has devoted too large a percentage of the cap to a goaltender.
Imagine if NFL teams paid quarterbacks like cornerbacks simply because the Giants once won the Super Bowl with Jeff Hostetler and the Baltimore Ravens won one with Trent Dilfer.
But by all means, we can pay a left wing $14M per — Edmonton winger Leon Draisaitl already hit that milestone on his extension that starts next season — and not bat an eye at it.
Seems strange, that’s all.
The NHLPA, as announced last week by executive director Marty Walsh, will form a CTE committee comprised of players and medical advisers who will be named at the conclusion of the union’s fall tour.
The committee, in its embryonic stages, will meet with experts in the field, so it can further educate the membership on concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
That’s welcome and that’s important. Players need to take care of themselves.
But it would also be welcome and even more important if the union did not reflexively appeal harsh suspensions for hits to the head and instead supported lengthy sentences for repeat offenders. Seems to me that the fiduciary responsibility is to the victims whose careers can be put in jeopardy, and whose earning power might be compromised, because of brain injuries.
Indeed, reforming the supplementary discipline system must be an NHLPA priority when negotiating the next CBA.
Folks are worrying about how the Rangers are going to be able to bring everybody back next year, but I have to tell you, I’d pay a little more attention as to how the team is going to be able to retain Artemi Panarin after his seven-year deal expires at the end of next year.
This was midseason of 1980-81 and the Islanders were futzing around with their first Stanley Cup defense. They’d started the season 32-8-10 but won only two of their next 10 games (2-6-2) into late February.
And so GM Bill Torrey called up Billy Carroll. He called up Hector Marini. Soon after, he reached down into the WHL — you could do that at the time — and brought up an 18-year-old named Brent Sutter. That was the kicker.
The core of the team was not especially pleased. Indeed, they were embarrassed and angry that Torrey — and perhaps head coach Al Arbour — believed the champs needed a wake-up call delivered by a teenager.
Oh, I remember it so well. Covering that team, you not only got to see greatness on the ice, but almost as important, there was greatness in their confident, outspoken quotability. Legends on the rink, legends in the room.
Sutter made his debut on Feb. 25, 1981. He stayed for three games, getting the winner on a deflection in the final one before returning to Lethbridge. And the Islanders might have been embarrassed, but they went 14-2-4 after Torrey’s intervention before steamrolling through the playoffs for their second of four straight Cups.
And now Sutter — “Pup” when he came up to older brother and four-time Cup winner Duane’s “Dog” — will be inducted into the Islanders Hall of Fame on Jan. 18 following a decorated 18-year NHL career, the first 12 of which he wore No. 21 for the Blue, White and Orange.
He was skilled, he was tough, he could do everything. On a team replete with legends, he became as integral a part of the Dynasty as any of them. Clark Gillies on the left with the Sutter Boys, you weren’t going to win many puck battles against that line.
Gillies-Bryan Trotter-Bossy. That’s the Hockey Hall of Fame line which is most identified with the franchise that won 19 straight playoff rounds. But that line was ephemeral. Gillies moved around.
No. 9 played with Sutter and with Butch Goring — who, by the way, would have been a far better choice for induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday rather than Jer-e-ME Roenick — and Bob Bourne moved up to play a lot with Trottier and Bossy.
And this may be blasphemy, but it is entirely possible that the best season a line had in Islanders history was the 1984-85 Tonelli-Brent Sutter-Bossy unit in which all three players hit the century mark in points.
There was Bossy with 58 goals and 59 assists and 117 points. There was Tonelli with 42 goals, 58 assists and 100 points. And there was the Pup, all of 22 years old, with 42 goals, 60 assists and 102 points.
Legendary.
