TAMPA – It’s not as if Henrik Lundqvist is ready to hang up the mask, the pads, the glove, the stick. He still has six years left on a $59.5 million contract. Only an ascetic monk, with no college loans, would walk away from that.
So Lundqvist will be around for a while, likely as a Ranger. A very marketable Cam Talbot no doubt will become the trade bait. Few teams can throw around that kind of Lundqvist money or accept an $8.5 million annual cap hit. But everyone also understands that conference playoff finals only come around so many times, and that the Swede’s career arc is far nearer the end than the start.