HARTFORD, Conn. – Wade Redden is Glen Sather’s Folly. That has become painfully obvious fewer than 60 games into a six-year, $39 million contract that stands as the worst in the history of the NHL, if not in the history of hard-cap pro sports.
With skills declining so precipitously over the last three seasons that if he played baseball, one would deduce that he had built his previously admirable career resume on PED’s, the 31-year-old defenseman is the GM’s Greatest Mistake, far more substantial than Stephane Quintal or Theo Fleury or Bobby Holik, or any of those pre-lockout signings that all came with erasers.
Or even Bryan Trottier.
It’s bad enough that the only way out for Sather is if he can muster the courage to ‘fess up to Jim Dolan and explain that, sorry, but the Garden is going to have to pay Redden $31M to play minor-league hockey in Hartford the next five years in order to remove him from the cap – think Sather will still have a job for life following that hypothetical conversation? – but it’s worse that this albatross has become Tom Renney’s Folly, as well.
There may not have been more of a downer this season than seeing the head coach send Redden out to the point to start the power play in Florida Friday night with the score tied 1-1 and 4:05 to go in regulation. Redden had no business being on the ice in that situation. He lacks decisiveness and vision. His shot is weak. It bangs off teammates’ bodies 35 feet away from the net more often than it gets through.
And yet, despite having gone nearly three months (Nov. 19) without as much as a single point on the five-on-four power plays, there was Redden on the point. When the power play ended in predictably miserable fashion, the Rangers were 1-for-26 over eight matches and Redden had endured his 34th straight game without a five-on-four point despite once again leading Rangers’ point-men in ice time.
Enough! Enough already!
It’s enough, in fact, to create the suspicion that Renney’s decisions are being guided by the numbers on Redden’s pay stub rather than the ones he has failed to produce on the ice, where he has been a liability in every situation, not only on the power play.
It’s as if Renney is afraid to embarrass Sather and the organization by sitting the free-agent acquisition, when the hard truth is that it is Redden’s performance that is the embarrassment.
If Frankie Rodriguez blows 12 of his first 15 save chances with the Mets, does anyone believe Jerry Manuel would keep sending the closer out to the mound for the ninth inning, three-year, $37M contract or not? Further, does anyone believe Manuel would keep his job if he did? Does anyone believe Redden would be in the lineup, let alone on the point, let alone averaging 22:08 of ice time, if he were making $1.5M instead of $6.5M?
Then again, these are the Rangers, who burned nearly $350,000 of cap space – which equates to $1.6M in face value at the trade deadline, by the way – by keeping Patrick Rissmiller on the roster for 62 days after he first cleared waivers.
And then again, this is Renney, who wouldn’t use Petr Sykora on the power point point though he helped run the unit for the 2000 Cup champion Devils and the 2003 Finalist Ducks, and wouldn’t use Matt Cullen on the point either, even though that’s where he played for the 2006 Cup-champion Hurricanes.
This is Renney, whose power play rotation on Friday inexplicably allotted 0:51 of ice to Nikolai Zherdev, the team’s most talented offensive performer, while Scott Gomez, who has been nearly as inefficient as Redden, was on for 3:12.
This is Renney’s Folly.
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The NHLPA and the NHL, Slap Shots has learned, are in ongoing discussions about reinstating the 7.5-percent bonus cushion for this season in the aftermath of the Players Association declaring its intent not to opt out of the labor agreement at the end of the year. Adopting the cushion might allow some maneuverability for cap-stressed clubs at the deadline.
Scott Niedermayer, we’re told, has an understanding with Anaheim ownership that he will not be traded unless he requests to be moved, which, at this point, is most unlikely. . . . The Penguins have not approached Tampa Bay about getting Martin St. Louis to waive his no-trade in order to join Sidney Crosby; at least not yet.
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Keith Tkachuk, great leader of hockey players as you no doubt will hear as the March 4 trade deadline approaches and the argument is made that he is worth a top prospect and high draft choice as a rental, has played in three winning playoff series in his 18-year career.
Tkachuk, who did next to nothing for the Thrashers in their four-game sweep by the Rangers two years ago after they leased him from the Blues, won two rounds in 2001 and one in 2002.
In other words, buyer beware.