Not so fast
Gorton looking to deal captain only if price is right
FOR headline purposes, the term “fire sale” works just fine as applied to Madison Square Garden ownership’s commitment to transform the Rangers roster just as it transformed the Garden over the summers of 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Literally, however, with all dictionary definitions of the term as both a noun and adjective featuring the descriptive words, “heavily discounted prices,” this is not at all what general manager Jeff Gorton and his staff have in mind.
Which, as the process began with Tuesday’s winning trade of pending free agent Nick Holden to the Bruins for a third-round draft choice and 24-year-old defenseman Rob O’Gara, is why Ryan McDonagh might remain the Rangers captain beyond the Feb. 26 deadline even as a swirl of suitors circle the wagons.
Because Gorton has no intention of trading any of his available bluechip properties — let alone McDonagh, among a stable including pending free agents Rick Nash and Michael Grabner — for less than 125 cents on the dollar.
This is all about business. Nash, a profile of professionalism, has made that clear since it became apparent that he would be traded as a rental even after professing his strong desire to remain in New York.
But for McDonagh, a Blueblood in his eighth season on Broadway, whose pronounced club-friendly contract runs through 2018-19 and who stands as the second most-important long-term Ranger behind Henrik Lundqvist since the franchise’s rejuvenation in 2005-06, this must seem very personal.
It must have been jarring for the 28-year-old, who has always carried himself with the utmost respect for the organization and whose persona has been beyond reproach since the moment he got here from the U. of Wisconsin as part of the Montreal Heist for Scott Gomez, to learn that the Rangers have decided their best future involves going forward without him.
McDonagh has been sidelined with an unidentified upper-body injury since the Feb. 7, 6-1 debacle of a defeat to the Bruins that he called, “Probably one of the worst games of my career and one of the worst games I’ve ever been part of in my Rangers career.” He has been spotted at the training center following an off-ice workout, but he has neither practiced with the squad nor has been available for comment since the Feb. 8 decree that securing the future, rather than a playoff spot, would be the organization’s policy.
Of course, in this environment, it is clear why the Rangers would make McDonagh available, and es- pecially so if management has already reached the conclusion that it won’t give the defenseman the extension in the seven-year, $50 million range he would be able to command as a free agent in 2019. He is the player who should bring the most in return.
Still, even as Gorton weighs the immediate offers from known interested parties Tampa Bay, (still) Boston and perhaps Columbus and Winnipeg among unidentified suitors, it is jarring to know that McDonagh is now just another commodity on the market like Evander Kane or Max Pacioretty.
But then, even coming up on four years in the rearview, the deadline trade of quintessential Black-and-Blueshirt Ryan Callahan in the wake of a negotiating impasse seems jarring in retrospect, too. Because if there was ever a guy you were sure was going to be a career Ranger, it was Callahan. Then it was McDonagh. Well, not anymore.
McDonagh was an emerging nation through 2013-14, an apparent perennial Norris contender when he finished eighth in the balloting in just his third full NHL season. But that is where No. 27’s career crested before plateauing.
Maybe the burden of the captaincy to which he was appointed over the summer of 2014 was part of it. Maybe a succession of injuries that began late in 2013-14 with that dastardly hit from Alexandre Burrows was part of it. Maybe the burden of carrying less than optimum partners on the first pair — Dan Girardi for 808 of 1,084 even-strength min- utes last season and Holden for 713 of 806 even-strength minutes this season — has taken too much of a toll. Whatever, McDonagh has been diminished here, and is in need of a fresh start.
That is why he is viewed as a rock solid top-four by clubs who have come calling on Gorton, and as a missing link to the Cup by New York management. If the Lightning and Bruins continue to wall off their grade-A prospects, they won’t get McDonagh, at least not within the week. The Rangers will pull back until the draft, where the pool of interested parties will expand.
For Gorton’s obligation is to make the best deal possible, not to make the best deal possible by Monday. That’s business.