READY OR NOT
Beloved Fast could be contract issue
And then there are going to be the offseason contract negotiations with pending unrestricted free=agent winger Jesper Fast, and good luck to general manager Jeff Gorton if or when he asks what the Swede has done for the team lately.
Because, for the fifth straight season, Fast has been named winner of the Player’s Player Award that is voted upon by his peers in the room. The announcement was accompanied by the news that Artemi Panarin had been named the Rangers’ 2019-20 MVP in a vote by the media and that Chris Kreider had been selected by the media as the John Halligan Good Guy Award winner for his cooperation with us reporter wretches.
By winning the award, Fast broke the record he’d shared with franchise royalty Jean Ratelle and Brian Leetch, each of whom had previously won the award four consecutive seasons.
Fast, who will turn 29 in December, moved up to the second line and became the defensive and checking conscience of the high-octane unit that featured Panarin on the left and Ryan Strome in the middle. The Swede recorded 29 points (12 goals, 17 assists) while posting a 14.3 shooting percentage.
This is, however, what Mika Zibanejad told The Post about Fast in October during a conversation about the then four-time Players’ Player.
“He is everything you want a teammate to be, on and off the ice,” said No. 93. “He does the little things shift in and shift out. He forechecks, is hard on the puck, blocks shots. He sacrifices every day.
“Off the ice, he is a friend to everyone. Maybe he is not rewarded with the offensive numbers, but everyone here knows how important he is to our team. You can’t ask for more.”
The issue is that Fast is going to ask for more, and probably much more than the $1.85 million per the winger has been earning — and that is the operative word — the last three years. The number on the bottom line and the number of years on the next deal are going to be dicey for the Rangers to handle under the flat cap of $81.5 million under which the league will operate for at least the next two seasons.
In a perfect world, Kaapo Kakko will nail down a top-six slot next year as a sophomore. That would bump Fast down to a bottom-six role that he plays to perfection. Again, though: at what price?
That will be a determination for Gorton and management, whose organization seems exceedingly thin up front. There is no obvious replacement in the system for a player of many virtues. But it is obvious what the Rangers will lose if Fast skedaddles.
They will lose their Players’ Player.
➤ MSG paid tribute to Post photographer Anthony Causi, who died of coronavirus April 12 at the age of 48, during its broadcast of the Rangers’ 2-1 loss to the Islanders on Wednesday.