The deadline came and went Monday afternoon, and neither Dan Girardi nor Marc Staal had been asked to waive his no-move clause for the sake of being exposed in the expansion draft, The Post has learned. That means both of the Rangers’ veteran defensemen will be protected when the Vegas Golden Knights do their picking June 21, as will captain Ryan McDonagh.
That leaves Nick Holden and Kevin Klein as the two exposed defensemen, with only Holden as a possibility to be taken. The Rangers still need to sign one more forward out of qualifying restricted free-agents Oscar Lindberg, Jesper Fast and Matt Puempel in order to meet the league-mandated requirements under threat of possibly losing a draft pick. No matter who is signed, all three will be eligible to be taken by Vegas.
The seven protected forwards are set to be Rick Nash, Derek Stepan, Chris Kreider, Mats Zuccarello, J.T. Miller, Kevin Hayes and Mika Zibanejad.
Forwards Lindberg, Fast and Michael Grabner are good candidates to be taken, as is goalie Antti Raanta.
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As for the future of Girardi and Staal with the Rangers, that hardly is settled. Girardi, 33, carries a $5.5 million salary-cap hit for the next three seasons, while Staal, 30, carries a $5.7 million hit per year over the next four seasons. There are a few windows over the offseason for teams to buy out players’ contracts, but that process carries steep penalties.
If either Girardi or Staal is bought out, the team would carry half the cap hit in dead space for twice the length of their contract. That means if they buy out Girardi, the Rangers would have $2.75 million of dead space for the next six seasons, and if they buy out Staal, they would have $2.85 million of dead space over the next eight years. With the salary cap projected to stagnate around $73 million next season, that dead space could prove burdensome.
— Additional reporting by Larry Brooks