Monzo Minor: Wolski Is A Win-Win For Rangers
By Brian Monzo
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The Rangers were able to move Michal Rozsival and his $5 million cap hit the next two seasons to the Phoenix Coyotes in exchange for 24-year-old forward Wojtek Wolski. So what does this mean?
The Rangers get a big, young and fast forward who has scored 85 career goals and is making $3.8 million a year the next two seasons. Wolski comes to the Rangers, days after losing underachieving forward Alex Frolov for the season with a knee injury. Wolski was a 1st round pick of the Avalanche in 2004. In his first full season (06-07), he scored 22 goals. Last season he had his best season, scoring 23 goals and adding 42 assists.
That is all the good. The bad is that he has a tendency to play lazy. He has struggled this year only scoring 16 points in 36 games. That is obviously something that will not fly with coach Tortorella.
Wolski will be a top six forward on the Rangers, immediately adding more scoring punch to team that has scored 126 goals this season. Glen Sather said he was looking at Wolski last month, but was not able to get a deal done. With Ryan Callahan, Vinny Prospal, Derek Boogaard and now Frolov down, the need to add a player was made urgent.
Sent to Phoenix was Roszival, the savvy, yet overpaid defenseman, who had been a target of Rangers fans boos since signing a 4 year deal with $20 million in the summer of 2008. Rozsival played over 400 games with the Rangers, and has been with the team since the end of the 2004-05 lockout. The fact is the Rangers defense has been getting younger, and this deal gives the Rangers another $1.2 million of cap space to work with.
I am not going to sit here and tell you that this deal is going to put the Rangers over the top. It isn't. But it was a smart move that makes the Rangers better.
Best case scenario is Wolski comes in here, scores 15 goals the rest of the way and helps the Rangers get into the playoffs and beyond. The worst case scenario is the Rangers get nothing but $1.2 million of open cap space.
I think we'd all agree that that is a win-win scenario.
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- Rangers Trade Rozsival To Coyotes For Wolski (newyork.cbslocal.com)
