IN this brave new NHL world that pretty much spun off its axis with yesterday’s opening bell of the free-agent market, this much is now clear: Not only is Broadway no longer the center of the league’s universe, it’s barely on the map.
All of Cablevision’s money was all but worthless yesterday. The Rangers, the team that invented the concept of excess three decades ago under Emile Francis, were unable to get a shot at either Joe Sakic, Rob Blake or Patrick Roy; unable to get a shot at Dominik Hasek; unable to make a trade for Doug Weight; unwilling to hang in on the bidding for Mathieu Schneider; unwilling to pony up table-game money for Martin Lapointe or silly money for people like Jon Klemm and Sean O’Donnell.
Sean O’Donnell? Did the Bruins even bother to watch the playoffs?
The Rangers, in other words, are barely more complete today than they were yesterday, barely more respectable on an NHL level now than they were last season, even with the signings of defensemen Igor Ulanov and David Karpa.
How many times during the course of a year do you hear the expression, “If the season were to end today . . . ?” Well, if the season were to begin today, the Rangers more likely than not would finish around 28th; let’s not kid ourselves about this.
The Rangers couldn’t pay anyone of note yesterday, which is poetic enough justice considering that they are still paying for all the years Neil Smith allowed the organization’s infrastructure to rot. Except for Schneider, whom the Rangers did want to bring back, but only at moderate cost, there was barely a player out there who wanted to come to New York. What for, when teams with a chance to win were willing to spend as if immune to an inevitable reckoning?
Given the alternative, Glen Sather did all right by folding instead of tossing good money after bad into the pot. He got the mean-edged Ulanov for $6M over three years and the equally mean-edged Karpa for $3.3M over two years, money generally well spent, except each is ideally a No. 6 defenseman. Sather would have been better off paying more for Schneider, but at least the GM did refuse to jump head-first into the shallow end of the pool. Would that the franchise had been managed with such prudence two years ago.
So who’s still out there? You know very well who’s out there, and so does Sather. Jaromir Jagr is out there; Jagr, who wants to come to New York but who very well may wind up in Dallas. Ownership gave the Stars the mandate to add two big-ticket items, lost out on Sakic, Blake, John LeClair and Lapointe, and wound up giving Pierre Turgeon $32.5M over five years. Turgeon behind Mike Modano? Someone off that roster in addition to Darryl Sydor and Brendan Morrow just became available for delivery to Pittsburgh, no?
Sather has to be careful here; very careful. There is, with an MSG Network devoid of the Yankees and with a sliding Knick team, an urgency for the Rangers to be good programming and to add a name to the marquee. But while getting Jagr at reasonable cost is most certainly the right play, stripping the team of its youth – and we’re concerned about NHL youth such as Radek Dvorak and Tomas Kloucek – is not.
And then there’s the other guy, the one who used to wear No. 88 when he played in the league. We have it on the best authority that, empowered by his weekend spree, Bob Clarke told a chap that he would now never trade Eric Lindros to a team with a chance to win the Stanley Cup.
In other words, calling Mr. Sather.
And what is the proper attire for a shotgun wedding, these days, anyway?