PHILADELPHIA – You can’t analyze a trade, much less a trade-deadline day, without knowing what the alternatives might have been. Well, you can, but given the lack of available information, any evaluation is incomplete, at best.
So did the Rangers make a decent deal in sending a second-round draft pick and conditional fourth to Toronto for the right to rent the vaguely disappointing 29-year-old right winger Nik Antropov?
Well, in a vacuum, it probably was worth it, given the combination of the Rangers’ lack of size up front, overall scoring issues and spotty record at the draft table. Plus, the Blueshirts have since been awarded the 17th pick of the second round in this year’s Entry Draft as compensation for the loss of Alexei Cherepanov.
So even though the Maple Leafs didn’t want Antropov, even though GM Brian Burke never once considered making a contract offer to keep the impending unrestricted free agent from reaching the market, and even though nine years in the shadows seems a tad excessive, yes, GM Glen Sather probably made the right move.
But that trade, and the decision to make that trade, did not occur in a vacuum. Indeed, Slap Shots has learned from well-placed sources that the Rangers were offered Billy Guerin by the Islanders and could have rented the 38-year-old right winger under the same terms as later were found acceptable to the Penguins – a fifth-round draft choice that would become a third with advancement to the East final.
But Sather wanted something else back with Guerin for the fifth rounder, according to one individual familiar with the scenario. Islanders’ GM Garth Snow, who offered Guerin to the Rangers at the captain’s request, rejected that offer. Sather, we’re told, never made a counter-proposal. As the deadline approached, the Islanders turned to the Penguins.
Guerin not only would have been the shooter on the right side to complement Scott Gomez, he would have brought necessary emotion, presence and veteran leadership with him.
But Sather, and perhaps John Tortorella, too, though the head coach likes to claim he knows nothing about anyone playing in the NHL, preferred the mystery man Antropov.
Well, fair enough. But the trade, as it happens, wasn’t simply a second and a conditional fourth for Antropov. It was Guerin, a second and a conditional fourth for Antropov and a fifth. That’s the trade that Sather made.
That’s the one we wouldn’t even have considered.
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It is impossible to say whether Martin Brodeur is the greatest goaltender of all-time, but isn’t it historic honor enough just being in the same sentence as Glenn Hall, Jacques Plante, Terry Sawchuk and Patrick Roy?
It is possible that for one ultimate Game 7, you might choose Hall, Plante, Sawchuk or Roy; or maybe Ken Dryden or Dominik Hasek; or maybe even Billy Smith.
It is not possible, however, to choose any goaltender other than Brodeur, New Jersey’s true Rock, to build a franchise around.
He could have gone to Montreal as a free agent. He could have come to Broadway. He could have gone anywhere he wanted and could have exploited his celebrity by going to Canada, where he is loved.
He chose New Jersey. He chose the Devils every time. He chose to leave significant amounts of money on the table so that GM Lou Lamoriello would have room in the budget to sign other players and build a better team.
He chose to play for a team that goes into every single season – and has since his rookie year of 1993-94 – with a reasonable chance to win the Stanley Cup.
Because of Brodeur himself, as much as anyone, even Lamoriello.
If Martin Brodeur is not the greatest of all time, he is close enough. There’s never been one greater around these parts, though, that’s for sure.
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The Players Association’s permission that was required to grant the Rangers the compensatory pick for the loss of Cherepanov was “one-time” and “non-precedent setting,” because the union hasn’t yet been presented language by the NHL for its approval to amend the necessary article of the CBA.
Colin Campbell‘s decision to recuse himself from all supplementary discipline matters relating to Eastern Conference playoff contenders in order to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest with his son Gregory a member of the Panthers, as reported by nypost.com on Thursday, was appropriately honorable.
But Campbell, whose disciplinary duties will be handled by VP Mike Murphy with counsel from deputy commissioner Bill Daly, and the league are going to face a difficult decision this summer. For if the Panthers continue to rise on the NHL food chain, then all decisions from the start of the season will be under a microscope.
If two points in October are as important as two points in March, then so too equal are two-game suspensions.