When Sean Avery returned to the Garden with Dallas on Oct. 20, Ranger backup goalie Steve Valiquette made it clear he thought the Blueshirts were better off without Avery, telling The Post, “I don’t want to single out Sean, but there were conflicts of personalities in the workplace. … Sean was great for us on the ice, I’ll leave it at that.”
Avery, meanwhile, made it crystal what he thought about Valiquette when, after helping the Stars to a 2-1 victory, he called the goaltender “a minor-leaguer” in an interview with MSG-TV’s Stan Fischler.
Yesterday, after the Rangers claimed the Notorious Mr. Avery from Dallas on re-entry waivers, Valiquette chuckled when asked if he and No. 16 would be able to co-exist as teammates.
“Sean says a lot of stuff, he always has, but to me, it’s just business,” Valiquette told The Post. “I respect Sean as a player, and if he is able to come in here and help us win, that’s what it’s all about.
“I go back with Sean to when we were kids playing in the OHL. Everybody who’s played against Sean knows how he can be. That’s his history.
“But that doesn’t enter into it, and neither does what he said about me or what I might have said about him. We’re just focused on one thing here, and that’s winning, and that applies to everyone.”
Brandon Dubinsky spoke early in the season about how this year’s team was far more close-knit than last year’s club, though he never pointed a finger at Avery. There was no finger-pointing yesterday, either, that’s for sure.
“Sean is a good person, and with him coming back in this situation, he’s not going to want to do anything to upset his teammates,” said Dubinsky. “And if there’s anyone who had animosity toward him, well, they’ve got to let go of that because Sean’s one of us again and he’s part of our family.
“He knows us and we know him. I don’t know how everybody feels about him coming back, but it doesn’t matter. We all want the same thing, and that’s to win.
“There’s no need to go over the past, no need for him to speak to the team, at least in my opinion. What happened, happened, the good and the bad. This is a fresh start. We’ve seen how he plays here. We’re excited to have him.”
Chris Drury, the captain, welcomed back Avery with open rhetorical arms, just as he vowed he would do early last month when GM Glen Sather entered into the arrangement with Dallas that culminated yesterday.
“Sean wants to be here, he loves being a New York Ranger and wearing the jersey,” Drury said. “Despite all the other stuff on the outside, like his interest in fashion, I still think that deep down he’s a typical Canadian kid who’s dying to win the Stanley Cup, and that’s a great thing to have in the locker room.
“I don’t think there are going to be any issues here. We know how hard he’s worked to get back to this point. With him knowing what was and is on the line, and with the Rangers giving him this chance, I think he’s going to be great here.”
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The Blueshirts would love to be able to pry Martin St. Louis out of Tampa by today’s 3 p.m. trade deadline, but the Lightning seem unwilling to move the sniper who was one of John Tortorella’s mainstays.
The Rangers are believed to have been offered Tampa Bay left wing Ryan Malone in exchange for Marc Staal. The answer was no, as it will be to any request for Staal that doesn’t feature Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin or Sidney Crosby coming the other way.
Aaron Voros, among the most popular players among his peers, and Erik Reitz were placed on waivers yesterday. Their deletions from the roster will give the Rangers approximately $4M of pro-rated full-season cap space with which to work in attempting to acquire a physical defenseman and a forward with size.
Figure that Staal, Dubinsky, Henrik Lundqvist and juniors Michael Del Zotto and Evgeny Grachev are the five players in the organization quarantined heading into the deadline, with both Drury and Markus Naslund holding no-move clauses.