When the Rangers take the ice tomorrow night against the Devils, Rick Nash either will or will not be wearing a Blueshirt and Madison Square Garden fans who last week chanted “We Don’t Want You!” when he scored a late game-tying goal for the Blue Jackets either will or will not have the opportunity to change their tune.
The trade deadline is 3 p.m. tomorrow, but Rangers general manager Glen Sather will attempt to resolve the issue today with Columbus counterpart Scott Howson, who has continued to demand an unreasonable bounty from the Eastern Conference leaders in exchange for the 27-year-old power winger who carries a salary cap hit of $7.8 million through 2017-18.
“Management has to do what management has to do, but we have a great group of guys in here,” captain Ryan Callahan said last night after scoring off a nifty and shifty one-on-one move at 2:59 of overtime to lift the Rangers a 3-2 victory over the Sabres, his 100th career goal. “We’ve won a lot of games with this group, though, so we’ve been doing something right.”
Indeed, the Bluehsirts hold a seven-point conference lead over the Bruins and a nine-point division lead over the Penguins following a match that served as a bit of a revival meeting for the Rangers, who got back to basics with a dedicated forecheck and down-low game and determined physical work from the outset.
Nevertheless, Sather continues to have serious interest in Nash, who also is being pursued by the desperate Maple Leafs, who have not made the playoffs since the lockout and once again are on the outside looking in.
One informed source told The Post that Sather has held firm in his refusal to send 2009 first-rounder Chris Kreider, the Boston College winger who is regarded as a can’t-miss prospect, to the Blue Jackets for Nash. Neither will the general manager agree to move young blue-line chips Ryan McDonagh or Michael Del Zotto.
A second source told The Post that Sather has agreed to include 21-year-old defenseman Tim Erixon in the package that would go to Columbus in exchange for Nash, who has indicated a willingness to waive his no-move clause for a deal to a select number of big-market teams.
It is unclear whether Sather is willing include 2012 first-rounder J.T. Miller in the package for Nash that would include Brandon Dubinsky, a future first-rounder, and likely at least another well-regarded prospect.
Sather, who believes the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Nash’s offensive prowess trumps the ramifications of adding his monster contract under a cap that could conceivably shrink under a new CBA that will be negotiated after the season, also is seeking a defenseman before the deadline.
The market, however, is slim for such a commodity. Indeed, if Erixon, who is playing for the AHL Whale in his first North American pro season (and who sustained an upper-body injury in an AHL game last night), is not traded, he could well rejoin the Rangers by the end of the season.
Last night’s game should provide reinforcement beyond an injection of personnel for the Rangers, who had slipped in losing three of the previous four (1-2-1) with uncharacteristic inattention to detail but who dominated last night’s opening period, out-attempting the Sabres 28-10 and sticking with the program the remainder of the match.
“This should give us more of a sense of confidence,” Brad Richards said. “We’d been a little bit all over the map the last two weeks. We wanted this one bad.”
Now we will discover how badly Sather wants Nash.