Canucks face Rangers weakened at trade deadline

VANCOUVER — 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 has 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. Nothing, it seemed, could faze Lundqvist.

Then came Monday’s trade deadline.

“It’s almost like you can’t believe it,” he said on Tuesday after his team’s practice at Rogers Arena in advance of tonight’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.

The Rangers made headlines at this year’s trade deadline when they gutted a team that had enjoyed considerable success under former Canucks coach 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 that netted the Rangers two first-round draft picks, two seconds, a third, four solid prospects and NHLers Ryan Spooner, Vladislav Namestnikov and depth defenceman Rob O’Gara.

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.

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.

“You kind of expect people to get traded, but when it really happens, it’s real sad,” said winger Mats Zuccarello.