Wade Redden caught up in Salary Cap woes
Wade Redden’s rise in the NHL was dramatic, hard earned and a long drawn out fight against challenges facing him on his journey. His fall though was a lot quicker. Only a few years ago, the two-time All-star was playing for the Ottawa Senators until the
Salary Cap first came to the NHL. At that the time, the priority for the Senators was to somehow keep Redden. However, times have changed considerably.
Eventually, Redden left the Senators and came to the New York Rangers. Two years ago, he signed a $39 million contract for 6 years with the Ranger because frankly, no one else was crazy enough to dole out that kind of cash for a defenseman well past his
prime. For some inexplicable reason, Rangers General Manager Glen Sather signed the fading star and has since them come to regret that decision. Redden was placed on a waiver this Saturday and would be going down to the AHL. Effectively, this will mark the
end of Redden’s NHL career.
When he left the Senators, Redden had a +11 rating with 6 of his own goals and 32 assists. In the next season, he had half as many goals with only 23 assists. His plus-minus rating took a serious hit as he fell down to -5. As they say, playing with a team
like the senators would give you a higher rating and give you more assists because it is a better team than the rangers. This partly explains why Redden performed so poorly. It still wouldn’t make sense for New York to continue bearing Redden’s enormous $6.5
million cap for almost nothing in return, no matter what the reason is.
"I told him at the end of last year that if he didn’t have a great camp this was going to happen,” claimed General Manager Sather. Redden has been successively performing poorly in each passing season starting from 2008 and was no longer worth the cap hit.
The best option now for the Rangers is to bury him in the AHL and keep his salary off NHL books.
That leaves Redden in a particularly difficult situation. The choice is between nearly $23 million dollars or the playing in the NHL. The Rangers still owe Redden $23 million of his $39 million contract but to collect that, he would have to stay with the
AHL for the next four years. After four years in the AHL, the 33-year-old can kiss goodbye to his chances of playing in the NHL again. If he does abandon that remainder of his salary, he could sign with another team but no team would pay Redden anything close
to his current salary.
The Rangers would gladly pay the $23 million owed to Redden. Money is less important than the Salary Cap. The Rangers were over the Cap with Redden but without him, they actually even have space for another player.
This wouldn’t be the first time an NHL teams has tried to rid itself of an expensive cap hit. Michael Nylander was sent to the Minors in 2009 while his former NHL team, the Washington Capitals continued to keep him under contract to this day. Another possible
option for Redden would be Europe. Nylander eventually was moved to Finland not unlike Chicago goalie Cristobal Huet. The Blackhawks were taking over $5 million in cap for Huet when he lost his starting position and that sum of money is way too much for a
backup. The Blackhawks recently moved him to Switzerland where he is expected to play this season.
Nylander, Huet and Redden were all mistakes that had to be corrected. Now the decision between a move and a hefty pay cut is up to him and as his long time friend Daniel Alfredsson testified, it is not an easy decision.
“He’s just not sure what’s going to happen next,” Alfredsson said. “I can just imagine it must have been extremely tough for him to get through this, when you can’t turn the corner.”
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