C'mon now...it's a solid deal for the Rangers and Laf, but slow your roll with any "best deal in the whole league" talk.
A year ago, most Ranger fans were ready to run this guy out of town. He was coming off 3 disappointing seasons to start his career and a 0 point performance in 7 playoff games. Not to mention a slow start to last season, during which he had 1 point in 4 games that culminated in a season low 12:45 of ice time.
To his credit, he seems to have completely elevated his game since then (thus the massive contract extension), but he was not getting $9M+ at this point in time.