Kalinin, Naslund become Rangers, Jagr’s tenure over

July 3, 2008   ·   Lenny   ·   Jump to comments

I don’t have a lot of time for a post today, but the Rangers had a bunch of newsworthy items today.

-Martin Straka moved on to the Czech League today. He was a solid part of the Rangers, but didn’t fit into the current formula that Glen Sather is apparently trying.

- Markus Naslund and Dmitri Kalinin became the newest Rangers today. No word yet on the contract for Kalinin, but Naslund is said to be for one or two years at $4.5 million per.

- With the signing of Naslund, the Jaromir Jagr era is officially over in New York. Sather confirmed himself that the captain won’t be back. Who wears the “C” next year? My money is on Chris Drury.

- The Rangers also confirmed that they have a preliminary offer on the table for Paul Mara and that the team is open to signing Brendan Shanahan for another year.

That’s it for me today. With the trade of Fedor Tyutin and Christian Backman for Nikolai Zherdev and Dan Fritsche, and the signing of Wade Redden, Patrick Rissmiller and Aaron Voros the Rangers will be a completely different team next year. It’ll be interesting if it takes a half year to create new chemistry, or if the team can click earlier in the season. I wouldn’t expect too much more from the Rangers via free agency, even though the need for a big, physical defenseman was never addressed. We have some scorers, some checkers, some role players and a potential power play quarterback. Let’s see if any other holes get plugged.