The New York Rangers bought out Kevin Shattenkirk’s final two years of his four-year as defenseman for the Blueshirts.
Since then, it’s been said Shattenkirk has a chip on his shoulder for the Rangers.
He now has an opportunity to use that chip as motivation after signing a one-year deal with the Tampa Lightning for an estimated $1.75 million. That’s where the chip should; he was making north of $6 million annually with the Rangers.
“It was very reassuring to go almost 24 hours later and get a lot of phone calls, a lot of interest from teams, obviously Tampa being one of them,” Shattenkirk said. “Just working through the whole process and as a player going through that it obviously gives you a bit of a confidence boost when you get that much attention in such a short period of time.”
Shattenkirk said he pleased t be joining the Bolts as they try to erase last season’s dreadful end to the campaign as they were penned in as the Stanley Cup winners before the regular season ended.
“He’s played in over 600 NHL games and played in big playoff games at the NHL level,” Bolts general manager Julien BriseBois said. “He’s played in the Olympics, the World Championships, The Frozen Four back in college, the World Juniors … He’s a young veteran that’s played in a lot of games, a lot of meaningful games. He’s seen pretty much every situation that can come across as a defenseman over the course of a season.”
For the Rangers, there is hope this is the last of the really bad player deals on the balance sheet. Shattenkirk was coveted for years and he wanted to play on Broadway. An injury in the first year of the deal ended the season after 46 games. This past campaign was noteworthy for a tepid rebound but six goals over two seasons was not worth the AAV.
And the Rangers have plenty of young talent that would have played ahead of a number seven d-man who was earning $6 million a season.
Shattenkirk went 24 hours without job, but Mitchell Marner is still working on old deal.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have yet to find the money to pay Marner what he is worth.
“It’s just really the status quo at this point,” Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas was quoted saying to TSN. “And I think the reality is, it’s the status quo with all these types of players throughout the League. There doesn’t seem to be anything really transpiring, and as it gets into August, it’s kind of into a bit of a slog where there doesn’t seem to be any real progress, you don’t even hear of any progress in any of the other situations.”
The question is whether will Marner will ice for training camp without a new deal as restricted free agent.
“Hopefully as the calendar begins to turn, we can begin to get it towards a spot where he’s ready to go for training camp,” Dubas said. “I mean, we were sure hopeful to have it done in the spring, unfortunately we weren’t able to do that, and so we’ll just keep working at it, working with (agent) Darren Ferris and working with Mitch. …
“I’m confident. I’m optimistic, so I’ll stay that way until the end.
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