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Yesterday was a relatively slow trading deadline day
around the league and particularly for the New York Rangers, but sometimes the
best moves are the ones you do not make.
The “experts” will criticize the Rangers and GM Glen Sather for not
making the big move for Brad Richards simply because it means Sather did not, at least on the surface, give his team the best chance to win this season. That side of the argument might be right
because, if healthy, Brad Richards certainly makes the New York Rangers more
dangerous this season. What that
argument fails to account for though, as all instant analysis of a trade
deadline does, is the bigger picture and in that frame what the New York
Rangers did was a pure win because it took the long term and prioritized it over a quick fix at a high cost. The
decisions made within the franchise as the deadline came and went will be
characterized as standing pat, but I look what happened as them buying in a different form; they bought into what they have and decided to continue on the course.
All season the Rangers, as an organization, have
talked about this year was about development and building a foundation not for
one season, but for consistent contender down the road. On deadline day, with the whole hockey world
glued to see whether they would cave to the demands of Stars GM Joe Nieuwendyk,
they put their money where their mouth is.
The easy move for Sather would have been to take the deal and use the
excuse of he is doing everything he can to help this team win the Stanley Cup
this season. It is exactly the move that the Rangers used to make.
Obviously the team wants to win. All teams want to win. What the Rangers have said with their
statement in avoiding the temptation of big names and now is that they believe these guys
have enough to compete today and the focus is on allowing them to grow this
organization into a contender later. According
to Andrew Gross at Rangers
Rants, Glen Sather said that there was plenty of interest from teams around the league in
obtaining the youth the Rangers are building around.
“A lot of people were interested in our young guys but we really didn’t want trade any of our kids,” Sather said.
We will never fully know what the Stars or any
other team wanted in order for Glen Sather to have made a move to help the team
for this season. What we do know is that
they decided whatever the options were to buy from outside it was not as
attractive as buying into the pieces we would have had to let go. That should excite Rangers fans for the
future. Any Rangers fan that is spending
today mourning what the team did not do is missing the beauty of this team and
this season. When I watch Derek Stepan,
Ryan McDonagh, Michael Sauer, Mats Zuccarello and all the other young players
that litter this lineup tonight, continue the push for the playoffs this year, I will not be thinking about Brad Richards
or any other player that was out there on the market. Instead, I will be thankful that
this organization believed enough in this core to see the bigger picture
regardless of what it means for this one single season. That is the best kind of buying the Rangers could
have done on Monday and we will all reap the rewards for years to come.
