Free Agency Day 3: Nasland, Kalinin In, Jagr Out

It's day 3 of Free Agency and at 4:30 the Rangers made some more announcments: they've signed 15-year NHL vet and 5-time All Star left-wing Markus Nasland, 34, as well as Dmitri Kalinin, 27, a defenseman from the Buffalo Sabres. Rangers President and General Manager Glen Sather also dropped another important bit of information: Jaromir Jagr is out. Okay, first things first: Naslund's coming to the Blueshirts on a 2-year, $8 million deal after 12 years with the Vancouver Canucks. He was once regarded as one of the best players in the league, but over the last few years has been slowing down. Nevertheless, he's a solid player with 371 career goals, a great leader and also served as the Canucks' Captain since 2000-2001. I've no doubt he's going to be valuable leadership-wise in Jagr's absence. Naslund said in the conference call that "the Rangers were on top" of his list of the teams he'd wanted to play for, though he'd received offers from other teams with longer terms. He also said "I wanted to be signing with a Cup contender. . . .the Rangers are going in the right direction and I want to be a part of that." Oh buddy, you and me both! Actually, make that you, me, and most of New York. We officially said goodbye to defenseman Fedor Tyutin yesterday, leaving a hole in the defensive corps ?but not for long. In comes Dmitri Kalinin. He's another solid defenseman and he's coming down to the big bad city from Buffalo, where he was the team's first pick in the 1998 Entry Draft. He looks pretty good on paper, a puck-moving d-man with offensive skills (in 2006-2007 led the Sabres' defense in goals) and he's always had a lot of potential, but I'm a little worried: he's often plagued by injuries, and he's not the most physical defenseman we could ask for. As with Wade Redden, though, a change of scenery to the bright lights of Broadway will probably do him some good. As for Jagr, Sather said "I talked to Jaromir today and waited for a call for the last couple of days and nothing happened, so we decided they were going to move on." The split between Jagr and the organization is said to be amicable. Sather continued, saying: "Jagr was very respectful when I told him ? We talked about his time here and he thanked me and I thanked him. It was a very cordial parting. You just can't wait forever on these things." Indeed, Glen. You can read the transcript of Sather's conference call on TheFourthPeriod.