Rangers Roundup: RFA Updates 7/23/14

Anthony Scultore Updated: Jul 23, 2014

Chris Kreider is going to court! aka: Arbitration (Paul J. Bereswill)

Chris Kreider will have his day in court! Well, hockey court at least. He and the Rangers will argue their cases before an arbitrator today in Toronto. CK20 is looking for 2.8M and the Rangers want 2.05M. We expect an award of about 2.4M which makes this hearing ridiculous.

Why these two parties couldn’t come to terms makes no sense to me. You wonder which side was being unreasonable, and don’t be so sure it was Kreider’s camp. Jeff Gorton will represent the Rangers (Sather must be fishing already) and Kreider arrived in Toronto on Tuesday. Could a last minute deal take place? The hearing is at 9AM so we doubt it.

Big day tomorrow on arbitration. Chris Kreider (NYR) and Ryan O’Reilly (COL) are schedule if their is no deal in place until then.

— Renaud Lavoie (@renlavoietva) July 22, 2014

John Moore who is not eligible for arbitration, may be close to signing a 2 year bridge deal. He is looking at a small increase from his 850K salary to about 1.1 million a season. This would be a very cap friendly deal for the NY Rangers and buys them time to see if Moore can develop into a top 4 defender.

Meanwhile, Derick Brassard is continuing to talk with the Rangers about a longterm deal in the neighborhood of 5.5 million dollars. While a hefty price for a 26 year old forward who has been inconsistent, the list of available centers is very thin. Almost as thin as the Rangers up the middle.

In the good news / ok news department – Mats Zuccarello has re-uped with the Rangers for 1 year at 3.5M! While that sounds great on the surface, it opens the door to danger if the Blueshirts and Zucc can’t find common ground this season. The 1 year deal would make Mats a UFA next July.

RANGERS ON TV

Earlier today, NBC released its NHL broadcast schedule for 2014-15. Here are the 14 games involving the Rangers:

Nov. 5 Detroit at Rangers NBCSN 8 p.m.
Nov. 19 Philadelphia at Rangers NBCSN 8 p.m.
Nov. 28 Rangers at Philadelphia NBC 1 p.m.
Jan. 7 Rangers at Anaheim NBCSN 10:30 p.m.
Jan. 18 Rangers at Pittsburgh NBC 12:30 p.m.
Jan. 29 Montreal at Rangers NBCSN 7 p.m.
Feb. 4 Boston at Rangers NBCSN 8 p.m.
Feb. 28 Rangers at Philadelphia NBC 8 p.m.
March 4 Rangers at Detroit NBCSN 8 p.m.
March 8 Rangers at Chicago NBCSN 7:30 p.m.
March 11 Rangers at Washington NBCSN 8 p.m.
March 18 Chicago at Rangers NBCSN 8 p.m.
March 22 Anaheim at Rangers NBCSN 7:30 p.m.
March 24 Los Angeles at Rangers NBCSN 7 p.m.