DEAL WITH THE DEVILS
RANGERS R SHIP GRABNER ACROSS RIVER IN HISTORIC SWAP/
MONTREAL — One more down, a few more to go.
The Rangers were set to trade Michael Grabner to the Devils on Thursday in exchange for a second-round pick and 20-year-old defensive prospect Yegor Rykov, who was New Jersey’s 2016 fifthround pick (No. 132 overall) and is currently playing for SKA St. Petersburg in the KHL.
The trade is the first-ever swap between the Hudson River rivals, and went through soon after Grabner and Rick Nash were held out of the team’s 3-1 loss to the Canadiens at Bell Centre, their fifth straight loss in regulation. At this point, the Rangers (27-29-5) are choosing precaution over competitiveness, not wanting to jeopardize any deal in the hope of winning what have essentially become meaningless games.
Coach Alain Vigneault said if Nash isn’t traded by Friday, he will remain out of the lineup for the second leg of this back-to-back, a Garden match against the Wild. The return on these trades before Monday’s 3 p.m. deadline — among the many likely to come — is far more important than gaining points in this year’s standings, as was declared by team management when it announced its rebuilding plan earlier this month.
And it has left the Blueshirts woefully depleted and deflated, now losers in nine of their past 11, allowing a team such as the Canadiens (23-29-8) to somehow outskate them all night.
“Sure doesn’t help,” said forward Mats Zuccarello, who is on the trade block himself with one more year left on his deal at a $4.5 million cap hit. “There are a lot of key guys out. All the guys are battling hard, but this is as good a team as we are this moment.”
Grabner, 30, is set to be an unrestricted free agent coming off his two-year, $3.3 million deal that turned out to be a monumental bargain. The speedy Austrian was leading the Rangers with 25 goals — including seven empty-netters — building off last year’s 27 goals. His presence immediately makes the Devils faster, as they try to get back into better standing, currently in the first wild-card position.
Nash, 33, might still be the most coveted, and he had been honest about how “weird” the past few weeks have been. With 18 goals and 28 points in 60 games, Nash isn’t quite the same offensive threat he was in his first couple years after the Blue Jackets took him with the No. 1-overall pick in 2002. But he does have 145 goals in 375 regularseason games for the Blueshirts since coming over in the blockbuster trade in the summer of 2012.
“Rick has played and he’s played well for us,” Vigneault said Thursday morning. “That’s what you want from your players at this time with these distractions going on.”
Back at home in New York, captain Ryan McDonagh was also getting healthy as his name is being batted around in trade talks. McDonagh has been out since Feb. 8, when it was announced he had an unspecified upper-body injury. It wouldn’t have done anyone any good if McDonagh continued to play through it rather than stay out of sight while general manager Jeff Gorton considers what he could fetch in return.
McDonagh, who has one more year left on his contract at a cap hit of $4.7 million, had been skating the past few days and Vigneault said he thought he was relatively close to being able to return — for what team still undetermined.
“He’s has been coming along real well,” Vigneault said, in what was half a sales pitch and half an injury update. “A couple more days here and he should be close.”
Really, the next couple days could see a huge part of the Rangers roster turn over. Defenseman Nick Holden was already shipped out to the Bruins in exchange for a younger blueliner in Rob O’Gara and a third-round pick, and now Grabner will be playing his home hockey across the river.
“It is what it is — there’s nothing you can control right now,” Zuccarello said. “Key guys are out and it’s hard. We’re not used to being in this situation and now we are.”