NHL Entry Draft … It’s Go Time!

Barring a shocking trade up, ya boys won’t be participating in the draft until tomorrow, when they have four picks plus the third rounder they picked up from Vancouver today … ICYMI … in exchange for Derek Dorsett. That trade also shed Dorsett’s $1.633M cap hit on a day when the NHL announced the cap for 2014-15 will be $69M, or $2M less than expected.

Rangers GM Glen Sather is going to have a tough time retaining any of his unrestricted free agents, never mind most, and never mind adding free agents on or after July 1. This cap will decimate a lot of the big-market clubs—i.e. Boston, Philly, Pittsburgh, Chicago, in the very near future—and some are dead in the water already.

With only 11 players signed, including Jesper Fast, and $23M in cap space, the Rangers are probably going to lose Anton Stralman, Brian Boyle and Benoit Pouliot, and perhaps Dominic Moore too. There are reports that the Rangers haven’t spoken to Moore yet. They may have to re-sign Daniel Carcillo and greatly rebuild a fourth line that was so crucial to their success under Alain Vigneault this past season.

Free agency opens on Tuesday.

Maybe we can have another lockout in 2020 to fix it (sarcasm).

Also, ICYMI, the Canucks traded Ryan Kesler to Anaheim and now have two first-round picks tonight, and could move up. The first overall pick belonging to Florida is very much available.

In other news today, Arizona announced it will buy out Mike Ribeiro, who according to GM Don Maloney, is dealing with some behavioral issues.

Photos by Getty Images.