EVERYBODY knows that Neil Smith conspired with Mike Keenan in 1994 to breach the Cup-winning coach’s contract by missing a bonus payment to thereby allow Keenan to leave a dysfunctional Garden management marriage that was eating up the insides of both men. That the GM’s hands somehow remained clean all this time while the coach was immediately black-marked has always been a mystery.
It all is bound to surface again, at least for 15 minutes, if Keenan somehow actually does wind up back on Broadway as Glen Sather’s nominee to restore Ranger order. Is it likely that Keenan, and not Ron Low, will be introduced at a Manhattan news conference as the next coach? No, it is not. Is it likely that Sather would have had more than a single, brief conversation with Keenan up until this point if he were truly a serious contender for the job? Yes, it would certainly seem so.
But still, Sather does continue to float Keenan’s name, does continue to drop cryptic comments about his qualifications for the job. And so, we will take the GM at his word that Iron Mike remains under some consideration until there is concrete reason not to do so.
Thus, the past; the controversial departure.
Keenan’s bolt to St. Louis did not offend me. What did offend me terribly were the credible reports that he (through his agent, Rob Campbell) was negotiating with the Red Wings concerning their GM’s position during the Finals. I wrote at the time that if true, no matter his difficulties with Smith, this conduct was reprehensible; nothing less than a betrayal of the franchise and the players whose loyalty he had demanded throughout the season.
Two days ago, I asked Keenan about the Red Wings.
“Absolutely no truth at all to it; I was not in contact in any manner with Detroit,” he said by phone from Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he is attending a charity function this weekend. “I have always believed that those stories were a result of Jimmy Devellano and Neil Smith firing rockets at each other. I remember very clearly telling people at the time that I was caught in a cross-fire between two people who hated one another.”
Devellano, then the Red Wings senior VP, had originally hired Smith as an Islander scout in 1980 when he ran that department for Bill Torrey. He then brought Smith to Detroit with him when he became GM in 1982. The relationship deteriorated through the years, and then dissolved with much bitterness when Smith became Ranger GM in 1989.
“Jimmy detests Neil so much that the last thing he wanted was for him to win a Stanley Cup, no matter what,” Keenan said. “So he was trying to derail the Rangers any way he could, planting these stories, hoping to drive a wedge between me and the team.
“And Neil, I know Neil had promised people during the [conference finals] in New Jersey, right there in the corridor outside the locker room, that he was going to get rid of me, so those stories about Detroit certainly helped him portray me in a negative fashion. The truth is, Neil was upset from Day One that I was there because I wasn’t really his hire but had been forced on him by the owner.
“I don’t think it makes sense to rehash the entire episode, but I do think at this point it is common knowledge that Neil flew to Toronto to meet with me after we had won the Cup, which is when he came up with the plan to have him breach the contract by not paying the bonuses on time. I was so disgusted with the whole thing, I agreed.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it was a mistake on my part,” Keenan continued. “I should not have left the way I did. No matter what the relationship was with Neil, if I had it to do over again, I would have come back and taken my chances and forced him to fire me if that’s what he wanted to do.
“Leaving as I did was not the right thing to do. I regret it for that reason, and because if I had come back, we probably would have had a good chance to win it again.”
Keenan has made mistakes; beauties. He made a dreadful mistake in St. Louis by putting Wayne Gretzky in the middle of his own feud with Brett Hull. He made a mistake trusting Brian Burke in Vancouver. He made a mistake by leaving the Rangers the way he did.
But the statute of limitations on that one is up. Bill Clinton lied to a grand jury and kept his job. Claude Lemieux reneged on a deal with Lou Lamoriello and got to come back. If nothing else, this society is a very forgiving one.
And so, if Sather believes Keenan is the man for this job, what happened off the ice in 1994 is no reason to deny him keys to the Garden executive washroom.
No reason at all.
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CALGARY GM Craig Button has approached Slava Fetisov about the Flames’ coaching vacancy, Slap Shots has learned. … Get this: because Todd Harvey played in fewer than 180 games over the last three years (167 after being limited to 37 games with the Rangers two years ago), the Sharks were permitted to offer the Heartbeat Kid a two-way qualifying offer. And they did. San Jose thus has tendered Harvey a one-year offer of $880,000 with a minor-league salary of $75,000, though the winger would have to pass through waivers to get to the AHL. … Panthers used same regulations to offer Peter Worrell a two-way qualifier. …
Contract of the year wasn’t signed by Mike Van Ryn, by the way. That honor goes to goaltender Greg Gardner, who signed with the Columbus Blue Jackets as a free agent out of Niagara U. Slap Shots has learned that the 24-year-old, who set an NCAA record with 12 shutouts, signed a deal that includes a bonus payment of $50,000 per win … beginning with Win One. By comparison, Roberto Luongo’s initial contract calls for a bonus of $400,000 for achieving 20 or more wins in a season.
L.A. general manager Dave Taylor, we’re told by a well-placed source, promised Van Ryn that he would play the season as Rob Blake’s partner while courting the free agent. Which tends to explain why the Kings are the Kings. …
Rangers and Mike Mottau are playing a game of negotiating chicken here. While the Blueshirts are in complete charge now, should the Hobey Baker-winning defenseman out of BC go through next season unsigned, he will become an unrestricted free agent. …
There’s confusion in Phoenix, with Wayne Gretzky unable to do anything with current GM Bobby Smith’s sign-off until at least July 31. Smith, by the way, has a history with The Great One dating back to the 1978 World Junior Tournament in Montreal when the-then 16-year-old Gretzky upstaged Smith, who would be selected first-overall in that June’s Amateur Draft. Smith made no secret of the fact that he didn’t like it, Gretzky could feel it, and that, among other reasons, is why Smith will be leaving the organization once the sale of the Coyotes is officially completed.
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FINALLY, Rangers have moved their Garden faceoff time up to 7 p.m. for 2000-2001, their fan-friendliest move since scratching Kevin Hatcher from last year’s season finale.