The New York Rangers are in a spot plenty of teams would love to be in: the contract handwringing is mostly about age, not dead money. That matters. In a league where one ugly deal can handcuff a roster for years, the Rangers have avoided the kind of mistake that usually comes back to haunt a contender.
The two contracts drawing the most side-eye are J.T. Miller’s and Mika Zibanejad’s, and it’s easy to see why.
Miller carries an $8 million cap hit for the next four seasons, while Zibanejad sits at $8.5 million over the same stretch. Both are 33 as they head into this season, and the concern isn’t really about the dollars right now.
It’s about what those numbers look like when both players are 35 and beyond, especially with little to no center prospects in the farm system who project as top-six options.
That leaves the Rangers leaning on Miller and Zibanejad as their top two centers on a team trying to get back to the playoffs. Zibanejad answered last season with a strong rebound, putting up 34 goals and 78 points in 81 games.
Miller’s season was tougher. He played through several injuries, appeared in only 68 games, and finished with 17 goals and 53 points.
Still, the bigger picture is hard to ignore. With the salary cap climbing and top centers already cashing in on new deals, the issue isn’t whether the Rangers are paying too much today. It’s whether these two can still be relied on as top-line centers deep into the life of their contracts, and whether the team has another high-end center ready before decline becomes a real problem.
The same kind of skepticism followed Igor Shesterkin when he signed his eight-year extension at $11.5 million per season. At the time, it was the richest goalie contract in the NHL since Carey Price’s $10.5 million deal with the Montreal Canadiens. Some fans looked at it and saw a familiar trap, especially after the Rangers once made Henrik Lundqvist their highest-paid player and still couldn’t build a Stanley Cup winner around him.
But Shesterkin is not a typical case. Goalie is one of the most volatile positions in sports, yet he has been one of the NHL’s best, year after year.
He has been a top goalie since his debut in the 2019-20 season, and the Rangers depend on him every night. Without him, this roster would look a lot worse.
The concern that his deal would block other moves has also faded some as the cap rises. If anything, the Rangers are fortunate he didn’t ask for more.
That cap growth is a big reason the Rangers’ outlook looks so clean. According to PuckPedia, they are projected to have almost $36 million in available cap space next offseason. That gives them room to handle the next wave of extensions, including Gabe Perreault, Will Cuylle, Noah Laba, and Braden Schneider.
Perreault is the one who should be getting the earliest attention. With younger players getting paid more coming off entry-level deals, the Rangers would be wise to move quickly and avoid the possibility of an offer sheet. If they can lock him in early, that only strengthens a cap situation that is already in good shape.
And because so much of the core is already under control, the Rangers can keep looking outward for more firepower. Connor McDavid is the name that hangs over that conversation.
He is entering the first year of his two-year extension with the Edmonton Oilers, and if things do not go well, he could reach free agency in two years. If that happens, the Rangers would be all over him.
He would give them the top center they have been searching for as Miller and Zibanejad get older.
Other names could become available too, and the Rangers have set themselves up to be a player in those conversations. They’ve spent to the cap max before, and this retool has opened up flexibility by moving out contracts that took up a lot of space. That has allowed them to add players and keep their own on deals that already look sensible with the cap rising.
So while fans may still debate individual contracts, the larger answer is pretty clear: the Rangers don’t have a bad contract on the roster. For a team trying to stay in the hunt, that’s a pretty strong place to start.
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