The Rangers are off to a 4-1-0 start, but their cap sheet is already squeezing them in ways that could become a real problem if Chris Drury doesn’t clean it up soon.
New York has had to juggle bodies almost immediately because of injuries to Joonas Korpisalo and Joe Veleno. To make room for 20-year-old rookie Cole Beaudoin, Matthew Robertson was waived and sent to Hartford, and Dylan Garand had to be recalled after clearing waivers.
That kind of patchwork works in the short term. It gets messy fast if another injury hits.
According to PuckPedia, the Rangers have only $376,515 in available cap space right now. With daily accrual, that projects to $1,698,910 in trade deadline space. For a club carrying a fairly standard 22-man roster in early October, that is a tight spot to be in.
The issue isn’t superstar money clogging the books. It’s the lower end of the roster, where a series of decisions have left New York with dead weight it can’t easily bury.
Adam Sýkora is one example, though the Rangers were forced into that situation because he was hurt in the preseason. He currently counts $110,208 against the cap. As PuckPedia explained, "if a player is on a 2-way contract & was on an NHL roster for less than 50 games played last year & is injured prior to opening roster, their Cap Hit while injured is pro-rated based on # of days on roster last year multiplied by the current year cap hit."
The more avoidable cases are the ones hurting the Rangers the most.
Korpisalo’s $3 million cap hit was a major commitment for a veteran backup whose underlying numbers have lagged below league average for seasons. That move looks even more questionable with Dylan Garand already in the system as a low-cost goalie with upside who had done his time in the AHL.
Urho Vaakanainen signed a two-year deal in March of 2025 with a $1.55 million cap hit, which is above the threshold that allows a player to be buried in the AHL without any cap consequence. He made $1.1 million on his previous contract, got the raise, played 34 games last season, and then was assigned to the AHL to start this year. Right now, the Rangers have $325,000 on their books tied to him, nearly as much as their total available cap space.
Taylor Raddysh is in the same bucket. Signed to a two-year deal as a bottom-six veteran, he carries a $1.5 million cap hit, and $275,000 of that is currently counting against the books while he is in Hartford.
Juuso Parssinen, acquired from Colorado at the 2024-25 trade deadline, was making $775,000 when the Rangers got him. After 11 games with New York, he received a bump to $1.25 million.
He played only 20 games last season, and $25,000 is counting against the cap while he works in Hartford. Altogether, the Rangers have $625,000 on their books for players skating with the Pack.
Raddysh is the easiest name to point to if the Rangers want to free space. He was brought in to help fill out the bottom six, but if New York can move him, that $275,000 would come off the books. Vaakanainen would be another candidate in theory, though it appears there may not be much interest in him.
The cap squeeze also affects how Mike Sullivan can handle the lineup on a nightly basis. He dressed Matt Rempe in the season opener against Boston, then scratched him for four straight games while Jaroslav Chmelař has taken the fourth-line spot. Sullivan said the decision comes down to matchups.
Sullivan said, "A lot of it is who we look at as our opponent and what we think is a better matchup, based on who the opponents are. Remps is a different type of player than Jaro.
They’re both valuable players for our team, they’re just different players. I’ve had conversations with both of those guys around that and the lineup decisions that we’ll make moving forward.
Going in against a Tampa team, we thought it was a better fit for Jaro"
Rempe’s $975,000 cap hit is not trivial for a player who might only be in and out of the lineup. The Rangers would also risk losing him on waivers, which makes the decision more delicate.
Still, banked cap space has value, and carrying that money while he sits may not be the best long-term play. If New York needs another forward as a spare, it could always recall someone cheaper and keep accumulating space.
The lack of flexibility already showed up when the Calgary Flames placed Connor Zary on waivers. His $3.775 million cap hit put him out of reach for the Rangers, whether as a claim or a trade target. Even a useful depth defenseman or a fourth-line center making a flat $1 million would be a problem if New York had to make a claim tomorrow, because it would need to clear a roster spot first.
The Rangers are winning, and Sullivan has the room pulling in the same direction. But the cap math is ugly, and front offices do not get to ignore the future. If Drury wants New York to be positioned to matter at the 2027 trade deadline, he has to find a way to move Raddysh or Vaakanainen and get some of this dead money off Broadway’s books.
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