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Hearing dates set for the 4 Rangers players who filed for salary arbitration

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The next step for the New York Rangers battle against the salary cap was announced on Tuesday with the announcement of dates for salary arbitration hearings.

With four Blueshirts filing for arbitration, Anthony DeAngelo, Alexandar Georgiev, Ryan Strome, and Brendan Lemieux, Jeff Gorton will look to sign all of these players before the hearings are conducted.

Salary arbitration hearings will be held from Oct. 20 through Nov. 8. A player can sign a contract with his current team any time before an arbitrator’s ruling. More times than not a player and the respected team will settle on a  new deal prior to the hearings. Last year, 40 players filled for arbitration with only six going to an arbitration hearing.

The Ranger’s biggest contract concern has to be Strome’s impending deal. Strome just completed a two-year deal with the Edmonton Oilers that netted him $6.2 million.  He is looking for at least a four or five-year deal probably in the neighborhood of $5- million per year. At the conclusion of his next contract signed, Strome will be an unrestricted Free Agent, so a one year deal would not be optimal for Gorton and the club.

The Rangers are in a tight salary cap situation because of two reasons. The club has to pay out approximately $13 million in buyout money this season.  Dan Girardi ($1.1 million), Ryan Spooner ($300,000), Kevin Shattenkirk ($6.083 million), and Henrik Lundqvist ($5.5 million) will all have their buyout payments held against the salary cap.

 Signing bonuses

The second factor to understand is signing bonuses. NHL teams are allowed a 7.5 % “performance bonus cushion” that is not held against the team’s salary cap.

 

Any bonuses that exceed the cushion are held against the team’s cap. The Rangers added to that factor on Monday when they agreed to terms with Alexis Lafreniere.   The Blueshirts now have a projected cap space of $18,804,367 which includes a $2.85 million performance bonus.

As things stand after that announcement, Gorton’s club will have a $3.95 million penalty added to their cap hit. This would leave almost $19 million in projected cap space before the team has signed any of their four RFA’s.

Arbitration dates announced

The NHLPA announced its arbitration dates for each player on Tuesday evening. Gorton and John Davidson are now on the clock to get these players signed before each player’s hearing.

DeAngelo – Oct. 20
Georgiev – Oct. 31
Strome – Nov. 5
Lemieux – Nov. 6

For the most part, the Rangers and their players who have filed for arbitration have been able to avoid going to an actual hearing with both sides agreeing on deals. The most recent time any Blueshirts went through with the hearing process was Sean Avery and Nikolai Zherdev in 2007.

A player cannot walk away from an arbitrated decision, but the Rangers can can walk away from any award of more than $4.538 million should they decide not to accept the arbitration award. The player would become an unrestricted free agent immediately.

The salary cap crunch the Rangers find themselves in right now, along with many teams in the NHL, could see them going through the hearing process this year.

I cannot see the team letting a player just leave, so an unwarranted decision against the team could leverage the club to make a trade to help resolve their cap problems.

NBA’s return will rely on complex technology along with some Disney magic

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Now that the NBA has confirmed their location for when the league return’s to play in Orlando, the most important thing is the health of the players and team staff that will be part of the Disney bubble when games begin later next month.

NBA players such as Brooklyn Nets Kyrie Irving are going to need a little time to adjust to the “Big Brother” format the league will be using to keep tabs on everything players do while they are playing games during COVID-19 pandemic. They will be monitored from where they are eating, practicing, to even f they are around a particular person for too long of a period of time.

With the help of technological wizardry of Walt Disney World and a unique ring, the NBA believes it has a system that will keep all involved as safe as possible. Players will be receiving several different pieces of tech and safety equipment to utilize while in the Disney bubble, some of which have been used for years, others seem like out of a Marvel’s movie.

Beginning on July 7, players will begin to arrive at Disney in a staggering order. Players will have to sit in quarantine until they test negative for the coronavirus twice, at least 24 hours apart before thye can participate in any basketball activities. The players, staff and anyone else inside the bubble will continue to be tested daily.

It’s All About The Technology

The league will have all of its players wear a Disney Magic Band. It’s the same band everyone gets when staying at a Disney resort and enters a Disney park. The Disney Magic Band will need to be worn at all times and used to get through checkpoints and into rooms.

There will Social distancing alarms will go off if players are too close to each other for too long.

The newest and voluntary piece of equipment players can choose to utilize is the OURA ring.

The Oura smart ring is capable of predicting COVID-19 symptoms up to 3 days in advance with 90% accuracy. The ring can measure body
temperature, respiratory functions, and heart rate. Jordan Rose of Complex.com reported that Players will have full access to the data collected on them as well, which will be studied by scientists at the University of Michigan to monitor for symptoms.

The ring started out as a fitness tracker before its was fully utilized to help detect the Covid-19 virus and its symptoms.

A study was done by the West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute in conjunction with Oura Health further elaborates on the benefits of early detection of the virus.

“The holistic and integrated neuroscience platform developed by the RNI continuously monitors the human operating system, which allows for the accurate prediction of the onset of viral infection symptoms associated with COVID-19,” Ali Rezai, M.D., executive chair of the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, said. “We feel this platform will be integral to protecting our healthcare workers, first responders, and communities as we adjust to life in the COVID-19 era. This technology can potentially critical decision-making tool to help contain the spread of the virus, safely re-open communities, strengthen the economy, and facilitate public health containment strategies.”

An immediate advantage to the use of the ring will be towards Asymptomatic diagnosis. Asymptomatic people show no signs of the disease, they have no symptoms yet the can spread the virus the same way a person that has the virus and displays symptoms. The ring can give the medical staff and the player advance warning before a spread of the virus occurs.

The Oura rings are not exclusive to sports players and the wealthy. Anyone can purchase the rings for their own use.

As much as the league follows the science and the data, the X-Factor still remains.

A positive results is bound to happen during the leagues return to playing. What will the NBA do should an outbreak of the virus attacks more then a few players?

Last week the NHL announced that they were comfortable, based on medical experts, that the games would continue even if they get “some” positive results of the virus.

The NBA is in the same situation. This could be an epic failure if players began to test positive at a high infectious rate. A positive result could absolutely influence the next World Champion or cancel the Finals all together.

The NBA is putting a lot in the line to complete their season and playoffs. They hope with the advice and their medical experts along with the players willingness to adhere to the safety standards the league and played union agree to the season will be completed in a healthy way.

So now we wait for a Mickey Mouse and his famous group of characters to do what they have done for generations. Make people smile and enjoy themselves during unusual times in the professional sports world.