Hello Cally - Goodbye Korpi

In Glen Sather's world - life as a Ranger is nomadic. There is a lot of movement and folks come and go in a hurry. So when a player stays - it's as news-worthy as when one leaves. Today we have one of each as the Rangers reduced their RFAs by two this morning with two player announcements:

Ryan Callahan, our young and coming right winger has signed with the Rangers - for two years at $2.2 million this year and $2.4 next year. [Editor - corrected Dave Puck's salary numbers] It's a nice raise from last year's 600K. Callahan, who had 40 points as a Ranger last year (22 goals and 18 assists) was a restricted free agent who filed for arbitration and had a hearing date set for later this month.

We're very happy about this one here at Blueshirt Brothers. Ryan is a class act, a talented player, someone Tortorella can work with, and still a bargain even with his big raise. Besides - arbitration can cause hard feelings as the player has to sit there and listen to the Ranger management publicly make a case for his shortcomings in order to keep his salary down. Some players take that personally.

But as the door opens for Ryan, it closes for Lauri Korpikoski. The Rangers have traded their former first round draft pick of 2004 to Phoenix. In return for the unsigned RFA we are sending out we get an unsigned RFA back: Enver Lisin. Lisin is a 23 year old Moscow native right winger with 78 games of NHL experience and 28 points.

So, goodbye, Lauri - we barely knew you and now you're gone. Such is life under Glen Sather where the locker room door is always the revolving kind. And suddenly our remaining RFAs are just Zherdev (who may be gone after arbitration) Dubinsky, (and the new guy Lisin).