STAR TREKS TO B’WAY
RANGERS LAND SHATTENKIRK
For years and years and years, the Rangers essentially bribed free agents to come to New York with bloated contract offers in reverse auctions in which the organization sold its soul as the highest bidder.
Saturday, the world spun 180 degrees when Kevin Shattenkirk, a New Rochelle native and resident who always dreamed of wearing the Blueshirt, gladly took less to come to Broadway.
The fact is that the 28-year-old defenseman made the Rangers an offer they ultimately could not refuse, $26.6 million over four years for a $6.65 million cap hit per. Yes, in a complete reversal of the norm, the proposal was made to the organization by the free agent even as other offers rolled into him for far more money on longer-term deals.
The contract term is manageable, but the cap hit is enormous and will have ripple effects down the line as the Rangers attempt to remake their team on the fly.
“I think [the decision] says that I trust that the New York Rangers believe in me,” Shattenkirk said on a conference call. “The comfortability factor was huge. Maybe money was left on the table, but when you have an opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream like this that might come once in my career, this was my chance. A lot of factors other than money and term came into play, and that made the decision for me.”
As a result of being unable to say no, the Blueshirts have approximately $10.75 million of space, but around $6.5 million of that will go to re-signing current restricted free agents Mika Zibanejad and Jesper Fast. With the club absent a first-line center, there is the chance that the Blueshirts might have to consider an extremely expensive buyout of Marc Staal.
But for now, the Rangers have their first-pair right-side defenseman to join Ryan McDonagh and have their power-play quarterback and shooter on the right point. There was no credible blue-line alternative on either the freeagent market or the trade market.
The Post has learned that when the Rangers inquired about Colorado’s imperfect Tyson Barrie, they were told that the cost would be Brady Skjei. In other words, a non-starter. Winnipeg’s Jacob Trouba and Carolina’s Justin Faulk were ruled off-limits by their respective teams.
As such, Rangers general manager Jeff Gorton and the management team faced the choice of going into the season with a gaping hole on McDonagh’s right side or filling it with Shattenkirk, even with a cap hit well beyond anything the group envisioned granting any single addition this summer.
“Kevin is a player we’ve coveted for a while, an offensive defenseman on the right side,” Gorton said. “We tried to stay away from the five-, six-, seven-year deals. We had an opportunity to get the player on a term we could live with and was fair for him and us.
“It’s clear we feel [he’s] a top-4 defenseman in the league. We’re obviously bringing him here to play him a lot.”
Shattenkirk, who went to Washington as a trade-deadline rental after seven seasons in St. Louis that followed a rookie half-season in Colorado, is a mobile puckmover who grades very well in advanced/peripheral analytics.
But he generally has been on the second-pair most of his career and was sheltered on the third pair last season with both the Blues and the Capitals.
“Ryan McDonagh was a big part of my decision,” Shattenkirk said. “He complements my game well. … My goal is to be a phe- nomenal defenseman in all aspects, and I think that Ryan McDonagh will help me achieve that. Major part in my decision was being able to play with one of the best.”
A member of the 2014 USA Olympic Team, Shattenkirk recorded 13 goals and a career-high 56 points last season, but did not have much of an impact in the playoffs as the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Capitals were eliminated in the second round by the eventual Cup-winning Penguins. He had posted 43, 44 or 45 points in each of his previous five nonlockout seasons.
The Rangers line up with a projected McDonagh-Shattenkirk first pair with Skjei and Brendan Smith as the second tandem. Staal, Nick Holden, Anthony DeAngelo, Neal Pionk, Alexei Bereglazov and Steven Kampfer are most prominently in the mix for the remaining spots.
Kevin Klein is expected to confirm his decision to retire any day now.