Rangers’ president and general manager Glen Sather is expected to have surgery for prostate cancer Thursday in New York, two weeks before the trade deadline and hours before his team plays host to the Panthers in the Garden.
Assistant GM Jeff Gorton will be taking over temporary duties, as he did when he represented the franchise for the past two days at the general manager meetings in Toronto.
The team did not have any comment on the matter as of last night.
As first reported by Newsday, the 69-year-old Sather is expected to stay a few days in the hospital, and then be able to resume his regular duties. In the interim, Gorton will be in charge. The 43-year-old is a person whom many in and around the NHL consider to be Sather’s heir apparent.
Sather has been the Blueshirts’ president and GM since June 1, 2000, and is a 1997 inductee into the Hockey Hall of Fame. He helped build the Oilers’ dynasty of the 1980s, when behind Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier the team won five Stanley Cups. Sather also coached the Rangers for parts of two seasons between 2002-2004, and is ranked 16th on the league’s all-time wins list with 497.
Gorton is in his sixth season with the Rangers, his second as assistant GM. For three years before that he served as the Assistant Director of Player Personnel, and the first year with the club he was a professional scout.
Before coming to Broadway, Gorton spent 15 with the Bruins, the last seven acting as assistant GM. In that role, he brokered the trade that brought current starting goaltender Tuukka Rask to the team, as well as drafted Brad Marchand and Milan Lucic.
bcyrgalis@nypost.com