You’ve heard from two headliners of the prospective marquee free-agent class of 2019, and you’ve heard that Erik Karlsson and Drew Doughty intend to reap rewards commensurate with their considerable worth.
But you haven’t heard that kind of declaration from the star-spangled member of the class, which projects to also include Oliver Ekman-Larsson. And you won’t. Because that never has been Ryan McDonagh’s style.
“You know what? I feel like I’ve got a great situation here, I love it both on and off the ice, and there’s no point at all in speculating about what might be down the road,” the captain of the Rangers told The Post last week. “Who knows what the situation is going to be?
“A lot of it is going to have to do with how we play and how I play. The only thing I can control is how I play, so I’m not about to get into whatever different scenarios might come up. It’s not something that’s on my mind.”
It’s going to be interesting. If McDonagh gets to free agency at what will be age 30, will clubs pounce on him as a cheaper (everything is relative) alternative to Karlsson, Doughty and, most likely, Ekman-Larsson? Or will they first establish the market, with McDonagh then left as an option for the teams that swung and missed on The Big Three?
(Speaking of the Big Three: Under present-day conditions, how long do you think the Canadiens would have been able to keep the genuine Big Three of Larry Robinson, Serge Savard and Guy Lapointe intact following entry-level? Figuring, what, $11 million per for Robinson, $9 million per for Savard and $8 million per for Lapointe, probably not even for so much as a year. Which means that Montreal wouldn’t have traded Rod Langway at the age of 24. Isn’t the stuff of retroactive fantasy grand?)
This has not been McDonagh’s best season, that’s for sure. But the fact is he is on the top pair, playing heavy matchup minutes with a partner, Nick Holden, who was on the team’s third pair last season, was a healthy scratch for a playoff game in favor of Kevin Klein, and who essentially gained a spot in the lineup because Tony DeAngelo wasn’t able to cut it. It has been years since McDonagh had a top-flight partner on his right — probably since 2011-12 when Dan Girardi peaked as a Black-and-Blueshirt.
Still, there is no question as to McDonagh’s value. He has led the team in ice time for five straight seasons, including this one. He has been an exemplary Ranger. He played 17:33 on a broken ankle in Game 7 of the 2015 conference finals against Tampa Bay the way Willis Reed played 27:00 against the Lakers in Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals — except, of course, the Blueshirts did not win.
And there is no question whatsoever to McDonagh’s value weighed against the six-year deal under which he is operating at $4.7 million per. Across the NHL, this has been one of the most club-friendly contracts of the cap era. Had he elected to go on short-term deals in order to get to free agency as quickly as possible, No. 27 could have hit the open market last summer, where he would have hit a bonanza.
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It has always been a bit of a mystery why McDonagh signed such a long-term deal in 2013 directly following entry-level. That is, until the captain last week explained his reasoning.
“I’d just seen Marc get hit in the face where you couldn’t know if he was going to be able to keep playing,” McDonagh said, referring to the night of March 5, 2013, when Marc Staal’s career was imperiled after he was struck by Jakub Voracek’s deflection of a Kimmo Timonen slap shot. “I wanted the security that came with a longer deal.
“I’ve never looked back and thought that I should have done it differently. It was a fair deal for me. I’ve never been unhappy with it.”
You can take it to the bank that the Blueshirts — who come out of the Christmas recess with a Garden match against the Capitals on Wednesday — have never been unhappy with it, either. Still, critical decisions are on the horizon. And it may well be that McDonagh’s greatest future value to the Rangers is as a trade chip, whether at this year’s Feb. 26 deadline or at the draft. Because once it gets to the summer, the clock will begin ticking on free agency.
And the one certainty is that the Rangers cannot allow their captain to go (for) free.