The New York Rangers have signed restricted free agent forward Mika Zibanejad to a five-year, $26.75 million contract extension, the team announced Tuesday. The deal runs through the 2021-22 season and includes an annual cap hit of $5.35 million.
Rangers sign Mika Zibanejad to 5-year, $26.75 million contract extension
The two sides avoid arbitration with a deal worth $5.35 million per year.
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Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
Signing Zibanejad was the last major priority for the Rangers after a busy offseason. The team traded away Derek Stepan and Antti Raanta for the No. 7 overall pick and signed top free agent Kevin Shattenkirk during the summer to try to reload on the fly for next season.
With a $5.35 million cap hit on his extension, Zibanejad gets exactly what he was asking from the Rangers in arbitration. The two sides were set to have a hearing in Toronto on Tuesday, with New York requesting a cap hit of $4.1 million in a brief filed Sunday.
Instead of going to arbitration, which can be a stressful time for both players and team officials, the Rangers and Zibanejad took his arbitration ask and built a long-term extension around it. New York had about $8.4 million in cap space prior to the deal, per Cap Friendly, so it can comfortably add $5.35 million to the books for the upcoming season.
The Rangers acquired Zibanejad last year in a trade that sent center Derick Brassard to the Senators. In his first season with the Blueshirts, the 24-year-old recorded 14 goals and 23 assists while playing in just 56 games due to injury. The year before, he set career highs in Ottawa with 21 goals and 51 points in 81 games.
The Senators selected Zibanejad with the No. 6 overall pick in the 2011 NHL Draft. He was the fifth forward off the board after Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Gabriel Landeskog, Jonathan Huberdeau, and Ryan Strome.
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