As expected, no Rangers buyouts in first window

As expected, there were no Rangers buyouts in their first window, which ended today. The deadline was noon to place a player on unconditional waivers for the purposes of a buyout. The only real possibility here was buying out Barclay Goodrow, which presented an intriguing opportunity to recoup the entire cap hit ($3.6 million), plus an additional $200k. That option, for now, has come and gone.

There is still the potential for a second buyout window, but the Rangers would need a pending restricted free agent to file for arbitration. With both Alexis Lafreniere and K’Andre Miller lacking arbitration rights, that onus now falls on one of Libor Hajek or Lauri Pajuniemi. Neither are likely. Perhaps one of the pure AHL RFAs like Brandon Scanlin or Cooper Zech could file, but that seems unlikely.

Assuming there are no arbitration filers, there will be no Rangers buyouts at all this offseason.