It would have been a home run for the Rangers had the June 30, 2009, trade with the Canadiens had simply stopped at being Scott Gomez, Tom Pyatt and Mike Busto to Montreal for Christopher Higgins.
For general manager Glen Sather’s primary motivation in making the deal was to shed the final five years of Gomez’s contract that carried an annual cap hit of $7.357 million, so the Rangers would have the space to sign free agent Marian Gaborik.
But for whatever reason, Montreal GM Bob Gainey felt compelled to not only add defenseman Pavel Valentenko to the equation but to also satisfy Sather’s request for the rights to Ryan McDonagh, the then-Wisconsin sophomore defenseman whom the Canadiens had selected 12th overall in the 2007 Entry Draft.
Remarkable.
For as the trade ultimately tracks, the Rangers signed Gaborik to a five-year contract worth $7.5 million the day after the deal; obtained Brandon Prust from the Flames on Feb. 2, 2010, sending Higgins the other way; and have McDonagh, emerging as a force, on their top pair in only his second NHL season.
Or as Brandon Dubinsky said in a stage whisper as he walked past McDonagh’s locker at the morning skate before last night’s Garden match with the Canadiens, “What were they thinking?”
Good question, one to which no one has the answer, and certainly not McDonagh, who has stepped up to fill Marc Staal’s spot beside Dan Girardi on the Rangers’ No. 1 defense unit.
“They’d come to a few games to scout me during that season, but I didn’t hear from them at all that summer about signing,” McDonagh said of the Canadiens. “I was actually on my way to their summer camp and figured I’d find out what their thoughts were, but that’s when I was traded, so I never got there and I never asked the question.
“It’s not like I had played there and then was traded. The way I looked at it, the Rangers wanted me.”
The Canadiens apparently expected McDonagh to become a dominant offensive player when they drafted him and, for whatever reason, were not satisfied with his development as a two-way defenseman with offensive skills that might have been dormant.
It was a horrific lapse in judgment. Only 61 games into his NHL career prior to last night’s match, the 22-year-old McDonagh has become far more confident and capable with the puck and with his play in the offensive end.
“That’s a part of the game where I know I have more to add, and that the coaches want all the defensemen to be aware of,” McDonagh said. “It’s something that I came into the season wanting to improve on.”
The thing about the trade is that it has become so lopsided in the Rangers’ favor — honestly, Higgins for Gomez would have been more than enough in return — perhaps it did transpire as Derek Stepan, McDonagh’s teammate at Wisconsin and in New York, joked yesterday morning.
“I called Montreal,” Stepan said. “I said, ‘We’ll make a deal with you.'”