The New York Rangers have reportedly agreed to terms with Alexis Lafreniere, one of their top young players, on Friday and it could end up being an incredible win-win deal for both the team and player.
According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, Lafreniere’s new deal will be a seven-year contract worth a total of $52.1 million. That comes out to a salary-cap hit of $7.45 million per season. That new deal will kick in next season and run through the end of the 2031-32 season.
The Rangers selected Lafreniere with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft and made him a key part of their rebuild. After a couple of years of inconsistent play and a lack of a clear role under former head coach Gerard Gallant, Lafreniere finally started to break out during the 2023-24 season. He now looks to be on track to becoming the star player the Rangers hoped he would be when they selected him with the top pick.
After scoring a career-high 28 goals with 57 points during the regular season a year ago, Lafreniere was one of the Rangers’ best players in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and is off to a tremendous start this season with four goals and three assists in the team’s first seven games.
What makes it such a great deal for the Rangers is that a $7.45 million cap hit is not even among the top-85 salary-cap numbers in the NHL, and within a couple of years will almost certainly be even lower down the rankings as more long-term contracts get signed. Assuming Lafreniere continues on his current trajectory — and there is little reason to believe he won’t — he should be outperforming that number within a year or two. It is also a contract that buys out his prime years in the NHL when he should be scoring at his peak rates. It is not out of the question to think he could be a 35-40-goal scorer and 90-plus-point player within a couple of years.
It is also a win for Lafreniere because when the contract expires, he will still only be 30 years old. That would allow him to hit unrestricted free agency at a point in his career where he should still have a few years of top-line play ahead of him and potentially cash in with at least one more big contract in his NHL career.
With Lafreniere’s contract settled, the next order of business for the Rangers will be getting starting goalie Igor Shesterkin signed to a long-term deal. He is their best and most important player and set to become an unrestricted free agent after this season. He is likely to reset the goalie market and set a new highpoint for the position. It is just a matter of whether or not the Rangers are the team that is willing to meet that price.