Center Stage on Broadway: “Do you believe in magic? Well Rangers fans probably do after their team somehow managed to fit the salaries of two of the biggest free-agents under cap-constraints.

After failing all spring to come to terms with Michael Nylander, the Rangers started off free agency with a bang – a big bang. The Blueshirts went out and signed both Chris Drury and Scott Gomez to long-term deals Sunday doing what many in the sport thought was impossible.

With Drury and Gomez now on the team, the Rangers will enjoy a core of players which should make them competitive immediately and for years to come. Next season the Rangers will boast an offense which also has Jaromir Jagr, Martin Straka, Sean Avery, and presumably Brendan Shanahan, which means scoring on the power play should be the least of their concerns.

What will concern the Rangers the rest of the summer is going to be how they can fit the rest of their restricted free agents and Shanahan under the cap. The Rangers gave Chris Drury a five-year $35.25 million deal and Scott Gomez a seven-year $51.5 million deal. That puts the team payroll at $38 million already under a salary cap that cannot exceed $50.3 million next season. This leaves them with about $12 million to spend on Henrik Lundqvist, Shanahan, Petr Prucha, Sean Avery, and Marcel Hossa.

Next year, head coach Tom Renney will likely send out a first line of Jagr-Gomez-Straka. Gomez would be paired with Jagr likely because of his ability to get the puck to the captain as opposed to Drury’s propensity to score goals, which would make him a good linemate for Jagr on the power play. That would leave Drury to be paired up with Shanahan and Avery, Prucha, or Hossa on a second line which certainly should be able to light-up the Garden. Combine the offensive fire-power the Rangers now possess with Lundqvist and a blueline crew who will add the ‘06-’07 Most Outstanding OHL Defenseman Marc Staal, and you should get a team ready to go deep into the playoffs.

While it is hard to imagine them fitting all those players on the roster with such little cap space left, GM Glen Sather doesn’t anticipate any problems. Slats said in the NY Daily News, “We think we can keep everybody we have right now.”

The Rangers did see some subtraction to their roster as the Nashville Predators signed forward Jed Ortmeyer to a two-year, $1.5 million deal announced yesterday. This is of course in addition to the loss of Nylander, who was determined to give free agency a shot.

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(Via In the Dirt.)