So news broke Friday morning with Larry Brooks of the NY Post reporting that Chris Drury's knee injury is severe enough to prevent the Rangers from buying him out of his remaining year on his contract. It begs to argue whether Drury did the right thing coming back from injury before he was ready with just one game left in the season with the playoffs (at the time) in extreme doubt. After the Rangers were knocked out, it was discovered that Drury has a chronic knee issue that needed tending to. If this is something that could require surgery then the captain really needs do the right thing and consider retiring. I am a fan of Drury's and him skating around on one bad knee next season is not what I want to see, neither what Rangers fans want to see especially on the precipice of a break out season by the team as a whole.
Jaromir Jagr is reportedly talking to some NHL teams including the Rangers for perhaps one last go around the league. It is not known whether the Rangers have mutual interest in Jagr, but at 39 he has been playing well of late, including single handedly knocking out the Americans out of the World Championships 6 weeks ago. He's not capable of matching his 25 goal, 71 point final season in NY at the end of the 2008 campaign, but I do think he's capable as a third line guy who could hopefully pot you 40 points and be a mentor to some of the younger kids coming up through the ranks right now. I wouldn't mind at all bringing him back at the right price however I don't think it'll be here. There will be times that he should get nights off to prevent him from wear as he hasn't played anywhere close to a full 82 game schedule since leaving and considering his age and the Rangers offensive system, who knows how much he has left in his legs.
On Friday, the Rangers elected not to take any of their eligible RFA's to arbitration. This news is significant because it tells me that Sather sounds confident he'll be able to sign Dubinsky and Callahan painlessly. It does leave them open to offer sheets however its not likely that another team will do that. Compensation would come in the form of a first and third round pick if another team offer sheeted Dubinsky or Callahan at market value. See the 2011 RFA compensation value chart here .
Now in all likelihood that Drury will be sticking around for one more year it does put a bit of a damper in the Rangers hopes of acquiring Brad Richards or really any trades that Sather had up his sleeve that require the Rangers taking on salary. Like I stated in my last post, my hope is that the Rangers just stay the course and not do anything that could prevent them from making moves in the next year or two when this team is ready to take that next step that could put them over the top. I mean really, how much better is Boston compared to the Rangers? The difference is far from night and day and the Rangers did beat them 3 out of 4 times this year.
Lastly I do think the Rangers will be involved in a big trade relatively soon possibly the draft regarding one of their d-men, either to move up in the draft or acquire scoring somewhere. The Rangers have too much young talent on the blueline right now to keep in the minors.
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