The New York Rangers signed Braden Schneider to a short-term, two-year, $4.4 million contract extension on July 13. Schneider was a restricted free agent, along with Ryan Lindgren, two integral parts of the Rangers’ blueline. They also had Jack Roslovic left to re-sign, but he reached a deal with the Carolina Hurricanes. The Rangers now have $5.1 million left to complete Lindgren’s deal and possibly upgrade other areas. The Rangers may also get some cap space if they complete a trade of Jacob Trouba.
New York got Schneider at a bargain, which will help them compete this season. However, the Rangers may be loading up to make one more run at the Stanley Cup Final this season. They made the Eastern Conference Final in two of the last three seasons but haven’t been able to advance to the Stanley Cup Final.
The Rangers acquired Reilly Smith in a trade at the start of free agency to bolster their forward depth. Chris Drury feels the Rangers can win a Stanley Cup next season, but the question is what the future has in store after next season. Drury hopes the salary cap will rise considerably, as Igor Shesterkin, Alexis Lafreniere, and K’Andre Miller are due for contracts after this season.
All three players are likely due for substantial raises, so the Rangers as we know them could be ending after the 2024-25 season. Will getting Schneider and Lindgren on new contracts under the salary cap help the Rangers win the Stanley Cup this season? Chris Drury and the Rangers fans certainly hope so.
It looks like the former 20th overall pick took a team-friendly deal to ensure the Rangers could remain competitive next season. Schneider has been a consistent player for the Rangers, missing just one game over the last two seasons. He had a career-high 19 points last season, but his defense-first attitude makes him a valuable player for the Rangers.
Schneider performs defensively by staying out of the penalty box, which makes him an asset on the penalty kill. He had just 16 penalty minutes in each of the past two seasons. Schneider also has acceptable advanced numbers, with a 49.10 Corsi, 47.40 Goals-For %, and a -1.70 Relative Dangerous Fenwick %.
These stats are how the advanced analytics community measures how valuable a player is to their team. A quick search of PuckPedia.com showed 11 other defensemen with numbers similar to Braden Schneider last season.
Some names included Alex Pietrangelo, Adam Pelech, Erik Cernak, and Jamie Oleksiak. That list of players is making the following annual average salaries: $8.8 million, $5.75 million, $5.2 million, and $4.6 million. Three players also had fewer points than Schneider last season and played fewer than 65 games.
It shows players are making $4-6 million more than Schneider with the same defensive output, who are also less gifted offensively and less reliable. It’s commendable for Schneider to take a pay cut to ensure the Rangers fit underneath the salary cap, but he failed to cash in on his past two seasons.
The players listed above may be older and more experienced, so we’ll also look at other defensemen whose UFA year is 2028. The list includes Alex Vlasic, Bowen Byram, Jamie Drysdale, and Moritz Seider.
Vlasic recently received a $4.6 million annual extension, while Byram has a $3.85 million deal. Schneider isn’t far removed from these players but is making significantly less. Moritz Seider’s contract this offseason will likely blow Schneider’s deal away t00.
Schneider could have easily held out for a similar contract to Alex Vlasic’s. Vlasic’s advanced numbers are lower than Schneider’s in some areas, and he also contributes less at the offensive end. Vlasic may have only had his first complete season in 2023-24, but that makes the Vlasic contract look even worse.
Schneider has been proving himself over the last two seasons, maintaining the same level of defensive play and offensive production. The Chicago Blackhawks took a chance that Vlasic would keep improving, but it will be a terrible deal if it doesn’t.
On the other hand, the Rangers are confident that Schneider’s form won’t drop, and his contract will look like a steal in two seasons. If the Rangers advance to the Stanley Cup Final next season and claim the trophy, Schneider’s contract will be a storyline.
The positive for Schneider is that the Rangers may have put his contract down the road to give him a significant raise when they have more cap space. With the rising cap and some of the Rangers’ contracts coming off the books, Schneider could make a lot more when his contract expires again.
Braden Schneider Final Grade: C-
Rangers Final Grade: A+
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The Hurricanes announced Thursday night that they’ve signed winger Jackson Blake to an eight-year, $45M extension that will kick in for the 2026-27. While that would normally mean an average annual value and cap hit of $5.625M, the actual cap hit of the contract will fall in the $5.1M range due to deferred compensation, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. The contract buys out the extent of Blake’s RFA eligibility and will make him a UFA following the 2033-34 season. Blake’s stock has been on the rise since immediately after Carolina selected him in the fourth round in 2021. He was a USHL All-Star in his post-draft season with the Chicago Steel before making the jump to NCAA hockey with North Dakota, where he totaled 102 points in 79 games in two seasons — earning a Hobey Baker finalist nod in his sophomore year. He signed his entry-level contract with the Hurricanes in April 2024 and joined them for the brief remainder of the regular season. In his first full pro season, Blake hit the ground running. He made the Canes out of camp and had five points through his first nine games despite seeing less than 12 minutes of ice time per night. That offense didn’t quite hold up the rest of the way, though. While he ended up seeing significant deployment alongside Sebastian Aho at even strength, he ended up finishing the year with a 17-17–34 scoring line in 80 games, finishing ninth on the team in scoring and ninth in Calder Trophy voting as the league’s Rookie of the Year. That’s fine production, especially considering he averaged under 14 minutes per game on the year. He’ll need to build on it to justify that cap hit, though, especially with so much risk attached to a max-term deal. The good news is that Blake has another year left on his entry-level contract to continue his development before he’ll need to start justifying that cap hit. The son of former NHLer Jason Blake turns 22 next month, yet with this deal, he’s guaranteed to surpass his dad’s career earnings. The Hurricanes have historically opted to sign their young players for as long and as early as possible, a trend that continues here. Sometimes, it’s paid off — their eight-year, $59.4M commitment to Seth Jarvis last offseason looks like a steal after he put up a repeat 67-point performance in 2024-25. There’s also the glaring example of where that strategy has failed regarding center Jesperi Kotkaniemi, whose $4.82M cap hit looks more stomachable now with a rising ceiling but is still well above his market value four years into the deal. The jury is still out on newly acquired Logan Stankoven, who they inked to an eight-year, $48M extension at the beginning of the month. Blake’s deal will be one of the last of its kind. It contains two elements — deferred compensation and an eight-year term — that will be outlawed when the new CBA Memorandum of Understanding takes effect on Sep. 15, 2026. If he waited until reaching RFA status next summer to sign, a lengthy negotiation could have lost him that eighth year if the two sides didn’t come to terms until the beginning of training camp. With the salary cap’s upper limit projected to reach $104M in 2026-27, the Hurricanes have around $16M in projected space with Blake’s and Stankoven’s deals taken care of. While they’re projected to be Carolina’s 11th- and 12th-highest-paid forwards on their opening night roster this season, they’ll be their fifth- and sixth-highest-paid forwards in 2026-27.
The New York Knicks have had a busy summer thus far as they have made multiple additions to their roster to try and improve off their run to the Eastern Conference Finals last season. Of course, the Knicks also made a head coaching change to begin the summer as they fried Tom Thibodeau and replaced him with two-time Coach of the Year winner Mike Brown. During free agency, New York added Jordan Clarkson and Guerschon Yabusele to upgrade their bench at a cheap cost, which is an area that they struggled with last season. The Knicks do have one more roster spot open which they will likely use to add another veteran player to their bench. While the Knicks have focused on upgrading their depth this summer, Sports Illustrated’s Jackson Caudell recently created a mock trade that would see New York send Karl-Anthony Towns to the Dallas Mavericks for one of their star players along with depth. In the trade, the Knicks would acquire Klay Thompson, Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington from the Mavericks while Dallas would land Towns and Vit Krejci. The Atlanta Hawks are the third team involved in the trade and they would receive Caleb Martin and two second-round picks from the Mavericks. For the Knicks, it would be a tough decision to move on from Towns but they would be able to fill some glaring holes in their roster with their return in this deal. Thompson would give them a much-needed three-point sharpshooter in their starting lineup while both Washington and Gafford would be major additions to their frontcourt, especially on the defensive end. Despite this, the Mavericks may not want to move on from three of their key players to acquire Towns, who struggled in the playoffs last season, primarily on defense. While that may be the case, making this trade would be a massive upgrade to the Knicks’ lineup and depth that could make them the team to beat in the Eastern Conference next season.
The Green Bay Packers released star cornerback Jaire Alexander earlier this offseason, which frustrated the fan base because they did so without an obvious solution. Packers fans have been clamoring for the team to sign veteran and former Defensive Player of the Year Stephon Gilmore, but Green Bay does not appear all that interested in doing so. But you know who could represent a possible replacement for Alexander? Wide receiver Bo Melton. Yes, you read that right: wide receiver Bo Melton. Melton has started Packers training camp as a cornerback, which could ultimately lead to the 26-year-old assuming a major role in Green Bay’s secondary. Why the position switch? Well, Melton was struggling finding playing time in the Packers’ receiving corps as it was. Now, Green Bay added Matthew Golden and Savon Williams into the equation, so the chances of him actually getting on the field as a receiver in 2025 are slim to none. Melton logged just eight catches for 91 yards last season, and in 2024, he finished with 16 receptions for 218 yards and a touchdown. The funny thing is, he actually has shown promise in very limited action, but there is simply no room for him. The Rutgers product seems to want to stay in Green Bay, hence his decision to flip to the other side of the ball. He knows he has no chance to play as a wide out. Why not utilize his athleticism as a cornerback? Of course, this does not necessarily mean that Melton will serve as Alexander’s primary replacement. In fact, it would be pretty concerning if the Packers choose not to bring in another corner between now and the start of the regular season. But hey, maybe Melton will be so impressive in camp that Green Bay will actually give him a look.
The Milwaukee Bucks' decision to waive-and-stretch Damian Lillard sparked even more Giannis Antetokounmpo rumors on social media. There were already reports that Antetokounmpo was considering his options and potentially forcing his way out of Milwaukee, and the Lillard move did little to alleviate the situation. Nevertheless, the weeks have gone by, and Antetokounmpo is still a Buck. More importantly, the team believes that's not going to change any time soon. "We have no indication that anything is really changing as far as our relationship with the player we think is the best in the world," a Bucks front office executive told Spotrac's Keith Smith. "We rebuilt on the fly, in a really challenging situation, but we think we did it as well as it could be done." Antetokounmpo trade rumors have cooled off around the league, and while anything can happen in the NBA, that doesn't seem likely at this point. "Do I think the star guys like Giannis (Antetokounmpo) or LeBron (James) are going to go anywhere? Nope. Is it possible? Sure is," said a Western Conference executive. Giannis chose to stay in Milwaukee with one of the most lucrative contract extensions in NBA history. He was overly critical of the team's effort last season, and another early playoff exit may have driven him to the edge. Even so, he's talked about how he wants to win "the right way," as opposed to chasing rings. That said, with head coach Doc Rivers' long list of questionable postseason performances and a championship window that could be closing right before their eyes, Giannis trade rumors will flood social media again if the Bucks get off to a slow start during the 2026-26 campaign.