Okay, so today I wanted to mess around with figuring out the New York Rangers’ cap space situation. I’m not an expert, just a fan who likes to tinker with numbers. Let’s dive in!
First thing I did was hit up CapFriendly. Seriously, that site is a lifesaver. I needed to grab all the current roster info, salaries, and contract details. Basically, everything related to their payroll.
Next, I fired up my trusty spreadsheet program, yep, good ol’ Excel. I copied all the relevant data from CapFriendly into the spreadsheet. This took a bit of time because I wanted to make sure I had everything accurate. No point in doing any calculations if the base numbers are off!
I started calculating the total current cap hit. It was pretty straightforward. I just summed up all the individual player cap hits. This gave me a baseline to work with. You know, where they’re currently sitting.
Then came the fun part, figuring out potential changes. Players with expiring contracts, potential free agent signings, performance bonuses… It’s a puzzle! I looked at which players were RFAs (Restricted Free Agents) and UFAs (Unrestricted Free Agents). This is where I had to make some assumptions, like who they might re-sign and for how much. It’s all guesswork, really, but educated guesswork based on their performance and market value.
I started playing around with different scenarios. What if they let go of a certain player? What if they signed a big-name free agent? I added columns in the spreadsheet to account for these changes. It quickly got messy, but hey, that’s part of the process!
I also had to factor in the salary cap itself. It can change year to year, so I had to find the latest projection. Luckily, that info is usually pretty easy to find online. I plugged that number into my spreadsheet as a hard limit.
After a few hours of tweaking and adjusting, I had a few different potential cap situations. Some looked good, others, not so much. It really highlighted how tight things can be with the cap.
Finally, I tried to identify areas where they might be able to create cap space. Maybe by trading a player with a high salary, or by using a compliance buyout. These are tough decisions for the team to make, but it’s interesting to see how they could impact the cap.
So, there you have it. That’s how I spent part of my day, diving deep into the Rangers’ cap space. Am I a real GM? Nah. But it’s fun to play pretend and see what kind of roster moves are actually possible!