He has to sign before the season ends--that's today.
The other thing is if he does sign Philly eats a year of his ELC. That comes with future cap ramifications. So the question is would they feel comfortable putting him into their lineup in the NHL playoffs over the other guys they have and what kind of impact that will have on their team on the ice and in the locker room.
When the Rangers signed Kreider--the idea wasn't that he'd play in the playoffs. It happened because the Rangers weren't deep at forward--Boyle got injured and Hagelin got suspended (for a hit on Alfredsson) and the choices came down to 1) Kreider 2) John Scott--to beat up Matt Carkner (who'd mugged Boyle) , Chris Neil (who concussed Boyle) and Zenon Konopka or 3) a Hartford call up like Newbury. Rangers chose door No. 1.
Kreider's first few games by the way he was chasing the puck around so much that he'd come back to the bench every shift completely gassed. He eventually settled down and had quite a bit of impact on the Rangers playoffs that year but the thing was signing him and playing him in the playoffs wasn't by design. It became a necessity.
