from Brett Cyrgalis of the New York Post,
Now the Rangers are officially in a bind.
As expected, the club signed restricted-free-agent defenseman Jacob Trouba on Friday to a seven-year, $56 million deal that carries an annual salary cap hit of $8 million. That temporarily puts the Blueshirts into the summer allowance over the cap ceiling of $81.5 million, with just over a month to figure out how to cut some salary.
That could very well include trading Chris Kreider and the one year remaining on his deal at $4.625 million, and continuing to look for anyone willing to bite on the one year and $4 million left for Vladislav Namestnikov. Certainly this also makes things more difficult for the three remaining restricted free agents — Pavel Buchnevich (with an arbitration hearing set for July 29), Brendan Lemieux, and Tony DeAngelo.
It also makes the buying out of defensemen Kevin Shattenkirk (two more years at $6.65 million per) and Brendan Smith (two more years at $4.35 million per) a lot more real. If Smith clears waivers and heads to AHL Hartford, then the Rangers would save $1.25 million against the cap.
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