Rangers vets gutted by big trades
Holden, Nash, McDonagh and Miller moved out in three separate deals to make room for rebuild
In a professional career that spans 18 seasons and two continents, Henrik Lundqvist has experienced just about everything the game can throw at a player.
He’s played in Stanley Cup finals and played for gold at the Olympics. He’s been the toast of Broadway and a hero in his home country. Through it all — and it’s been over 1,000 games between the playoffs and regular season in the NHL and the Swedish Elite League — the New York Rangers’ goalie has remained a role model for all players, a thoughtful, self-assured professional who’s endured the game’s vicissitudes with an almost regal poise.
Nothing, it seemed, could faze Lundqvist. Then came Monday’s trade deadline and, suddenly, King Henrik was like so many players who’d gone before him, trying to make sense out of a situation that made so little sense to him.
“It’s almost like you can’t believe it,” he said on Tuesday after his team’s practice at Rogers Arena in advance of Wednesday’s meeting with the Canucks.
“There’s been so many years playing together and we’ve been through so many things. It’s just a different time.
“It wasn’t just yesterday. The last week has been tough to see good friends go. The last three, four weeks I’ve been dealing with the fact this is going to happen and it isn’t easy.” Nor is it likely to get any easier. If you just joined us, the Rangers made headlines at this year’s trade deadline when they gutted a team that had enjoyed considerable success under old friend Alain Vigneault in the name of a comprehensive rebuild.
Veterans Nick Holden, Rick Nash, Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller were moved out in three separate deals which netted the Rangers two firstround draft picks, two seconds, a third, four solid prospects and NHLers Ryan Spooner, Vladislav Namestnikov and depth defenceman Rob O’Gara.
Almost immediately, the moves were hailed as a master stroke by GM Jeff Gorton and the signal of a new era for a Rangers’ team which was starting to show liver spots.
That, at least, was the perception in the larger hockey world.
But there was a different reception in the smaller world of the Rangers’ dressing room. There, they didn’t celebrate the motherlode of young assets Gorton had landed. Rather, they looked at the loss of Nash, McDonagh, Miller and Holden and what it said about their immediate future.
True, they’d been prepared for the moment by an open letter penned by Gorton and team president Glen Sather on Feb. 8 which announced the fire sale was coming. But that didn’t make it any easier when it arrived and you just had to walk around the Rangers’ room on Tuesday to understand the raw emotions which were in play.
“You kind of expect people to get traded but when it really happens, it’s real sad,” said Mats Zuccarello.
“For sure, it’s real sad. That’s all I can say.”
“(McDonagh, the team captain) wasn’t with us,” said Marc Staal. “It feels like we’ll go back to New York and we’ll see him in the room. It hasn’t really sunk in yet.”
“I don’t know,” said Lundqvist. “I’ve never experienced anything like it. For me, every since I was really young, it was all about going for it to win. Obviously when we knew we weren’t going to add to get better it was a mindset I had to work around.”
Lundqvist, Staal and Zuccarello were all part of the Rangers’ team that made the Cup finals in 201314, Vigneault’s first year as coach after he was let go in Vancouver. So were Nash, McDonagh and Miller. Grabner came on board two seasons ago and was part of a team that dropped a six-game series to
Ottawa in Round 2 of last season’s playoffs.
Despite that group’s success over the last five years, team owner Jim Dolan, Sather and Gorton sat down with Vigneault midway through this season and asked if the Rangers were capable of winning the Stanley Cup as they were currently constructed.
Vigneault knew what that meant. He could also guess at its impact on his team. At the time, the Rangers were hanging around a wild-card spot in the East.
They’ve gone 2-7 since the letter was released and now sit in last place in the Metropolitan, the worst division in the NHL.
“I said I hadn’t won (the Cup) with better teams but I thought we could get in the playoffs and anything is possible when you get in,” Vigneault said. “The decision was made. You
have to respect the decision and get behind it.”
Still, as difficult as this deadline was, the off-season now promises more upheaval. Vigneault’s future is in question. Staal could be a buyout candidate. Zuccarello might be moved. Lundqvist has three years left on a deal with an annual cap hit of $8.5 million.
“I don’t look further than this season,” Lundqvist said. “Whatever happens this summer I don’t know what the plans are. Right now it’s just this season.”
“For him and me, for Marc Staal and Mats Zuccarello, the guys who’ve been here the last five years, we’re all in uncharted waters,” said Vigneault. “This is all new for us. But, at the end of the day, we have to focus on our next game.”
Even when everything is still blurry around the edges.