Friday rumor roundup

A lack of salary cap space could prove a significant hindrance to New York Rangers GM Glen Sather’s efforts to bolster his roster at the March 3 trade deadline.

The New York Post suggested the fact the Rangers are on the list of preferred destinations for Edmonton Oilers defenseman Sheldon Souray might tempt Sather to try and land the hard-shooting blueliner – but only if he can move either Michal Rozsival’s $5-million per season cap hit or Wade Redden’s $6.5-million per.

Sather has shown an ability to dump a seemingly immovable contract before, shipping Scott Gomez’s $7.36-million per season contract to the Montreal Canadiens last summer.

The difference, however, was that Gomez – despite his hefty contract – still had some value in the trade market. Plus, it’s easier to move expensive contracts in the off-season when teams have more cap space than it is late in the season when they have less to work with.

Rozsival and Redden have almost no trade value, so moving their contracts is almost impossible unless Sather is willing to package one of them with a more tempting option (such as, perhaps, center Brandon Dubinsky), but that would do more harm than good to the Blueshirts roster.

Demoting players seems the only realistic option to free up cap space, but, as the Post indicated, Sather thus far has shown no interest in going that route. If that’s the case, he can forget about landing a big fish like Souray by the deadline.

Full story here including Raffi Torres talk, New Jersey Devils talk plus much more