Is Tanguay a Fit for the Rangers?

By Glen Miller

As Justin mentioned in his blog, the hockey world is slowing down as most of the marquee free agents are off of the board, the draft is over and we just kill time until the season stars. Of course I anticipate there to still be some action as a few appealing free agents remain on the open market and some teams, the Bruins (and Rangers potentially) for example, are in the position of having to clear salary cap space either to re-sign key RFA’s or because they are already over the salary cap limit.

Perhaps the most appealing UFA left on the market is former Avalanche, Canadien and Flame Winger Alex Tanguay. Justin mentioned in his blog that he felt Tanguay would be a good fit for a team like the Rangers. He reasons that Tanguay would be the perfect, playmaking complement to Marian Gaborik. I’ve decided to chime in on that thought with this post.

A quick look at Tanguay’s career numbers show an impressive Points Per Game (PPG) average of .88. That would prorate to just more than 72 points over a full 82 game schedule. His career mark for Goals Per Game (GPG) is .29 which calculates to just under 24 goals per 82 games. Tanguay also boasts a relatively low number of Shots Per Game (SPG) averaging just 1.5 per game over his 9 year career. More noted goal-scorers like Marian Gaborik and Alex Ovechkin have career SPG marks of 3.4 and 5.5 respectively. Judging just by these numbers it appears that Tanguay is more of a playmaker than goal-scorer.

Tanguay’s production over the last four seasons has been a little better than his career numbers. He has recorded .92 PPG over those last 4 seasons while spending time with 3 different teams; Canadiens, Flames and Avalanche. That represents 3 more points per full, 82 game schedule than his career average.

Injuries were a factor in last season’s slight drop-off in performance as he averaged .82 PPG while missing 28 games with a separated shoulder. That should be of no concern for this upcoming season as he should be completely healthy and at 29, Tanguay would appear to have plenty left in the tank. Additionally, Tanguay has averaged more than 73 games per season over the course of his 9 year career.

All things considered, Tanguay would appear to be a great fit for this Rangers team. Despite the Rangers obvious need for a Center, Tanguay’s ability to play on either side of Center would enable him to play with Gaborik. His playmaking ability would seem to complement Gaborik’s goal-scoring very well. He has been fairly durable throughout his career and with a career mark of +157 he would seem to be a capable player in all 3 zones.

Certainly the question of whether Tanguay would fit in on the ice has been satisfactorily answered but the harder question is how to fit Tanguay’s salary under the salary cap. The Rangers currently have only about $3.5 million available under the salary cap (not counting Tyler Arnason and Brian Boyle) according to NHLSCAP.com (note: Since Korpikoski and his $700,000 salary were dealt to Phoenix for Lisin, I deducted that from the numbers on the site). Currently we have 11 Forwards (Gilroy is a Defenseman, not a Forward), 7 Defensemen and 1 Goalie under contract. Steve Valiquette is thought to have signed a contract but it has yet to be announced. If we assume that he signed for $750,000, then we are left with just around $2.75 million to play with. Brandon Dubinsky is a RFA as is Nik Zherdev who is awaiting an arbitrator to award his salary figure.

If you believe that Dubinsky will ultimately sign for something similar to Ryan Callahan, $2.3 million average annual salary, then that would eat up almost all of the cap space. In that scenario, it appears even more likely that Sather would walk away from the arbitration award in Zherdev’s case. The Rangers have a couple of players that would be candidates for demotion to Hartford, Aaron Voros and Pat Rismiller, but since each only carries a cap hit of $1 million the club wouldn’t save that much by doing so.

The other option to clear payroll room would be to trade a player like Michael Rozsival. There were rumblings at one point that Columbus was looking to add an offensive-minded defenseman; preferably one with a right-handed shot. It might make some sense to explore a trade with Columbus; perhaps a Rozsival for Raffi Torres deal makes sense given Columbus’ plethora of wingers? A move like that would save the club $2.75 million against the cap. If Rismiller and Voros were sent to Hartford then we’d have about $5 million available under the cap. Would Tanguay be willing to sign a deal that paid him $3.5 - $4 million with the Rangers to skate with Gaborik. It might be worth it to ask. Here’s what our lines might look like if these moves came to fruition:

LW Tanguay, C Dubinsky, RW Gaborik

LW Higgins, C Drury, RW Callahan

LW Avery, C Anisimov, RW Kotalik

LW Brashear, C Boyle, RW Torres

Lisin could skate on a line in place of Brashear or Boyle with Higgins moving to Center for Boyle. Perhaps this isn’t exactly a lineup to rival that of the 1980’s Oilers or today’s Penguins but with 7 or 8 guys capable of scoring 20+ goals the Rangers shouldn’t be near the bottom of the league in scoring this season.

Our defense would be thin with Redden, Staal and Girardi the only returning defensemen that accrued more than a handful of games at the NHL level. The hope here is that Gilroy is NHL-ready and can contribute offensively while two of our youngsters like Corey Potter, Michael Sauer, Michael Del Zotto and Bobby Sanguineti demonstrate that they can handle a regular shift at this level.

Even though it is a possibility, I don’t see Sather making all of these moves. He and Torts seem set on adding a center if they do anything and are counting heavily on Rozsival to bounce back and be an effective player this year. Tanguay would certainly bring playmaking ability to the forward ranks that is lacking but his addition would require a great deal of maneuvering to stay under the cap ceiling. What are your thoughts my fellow Rangers’ fans?