New York Rangers: Top five fan least favorites of the Lundqvist era

Many Rangers players have received mixed reviews over their time in New York, and here is where we break down the five least fan favorites of the Lundqvist era.

New York is a hard place to thrive for athletes. Regardless of how skilled an athlete was somewhere else, New York is certainly a different animal. An everyday superstar can go from annual all star, to a minor league player. Starting with egregious cap hits, to underwhelming performance, and just overall attitude problems. These are just some reasons for the least fan favorites.

Over the past 12 seasons, Madison Square Garden has seen much talent come and go, Jaromir Jagr, Marian Gaborik, Rick Nash, and Henrik Lundqvist.  It has also seen some players that the fans did not enjoy quite as much.

5 – Wade Redden

Wade Redden signed with the Rangers in 2008 mainly to add structure to their power play. Redden helped his former team, the Ottawa Senators by contributing often more than half his points on the power play.

Redden signed a six year, $39M contract, averaging about $6.5M a year. This would have been acceptable had Redden provided similar numbers to those he had in Ottawa. In two seasons with New York, Redden only produced nine power play points.  point Redden also experienced a decline in overall point production with the Rangers, and had spent two seasons buried in the minors

As a result, Redden was bought out of the remainder of his contract in 2013. Although this tied up some cap for the Rangers, it seemed the best route to go, as having Redden spend the rest of his contract in the minors seemed wasteful.

4 – Taylor Pyatt

Taylor Pyatt signed to New York in 2012 from free agency. Although Pyatt was signed to a 2 year deal worth approximately $3M, he only put up 12 points as a Ranger. Pyatt also was a -4 in his time in Manhattan.

Pyatt was more of a bottom six player for New York, but his contributions were not sizable at all. The expectations for Pyatt were not clear, but a 25 point season seemed plausible for the sizable left winger

Rangers fans were left underwhelmed during Pyatt’s time in New York, as he often made little long term impact on the game. Aside from his net front presence and excellent board-play, Pyatt did not contribute a ton to the 2013 Rangers teams, and fans often criticized him for it.

3 – Donald Brashear

The role of the NHL Enforcer has diminished greatly in the past few years, and perhaps Rangers fans wished it had diminished many years ago before the signing of Donald Brashear in 2009. Brashear was the target of many boos from Rangers fans, most notably during a season ticket holder event.

The 6’3″ enforcer also received plenty of boos in his first preseason game as a result of his dirty hit on Blair Betts the prior season.

Brashear played 36 games in 2009-2010 for the Rangers. He fought 9 times, and walked away drawing  or losing a fight 7 times. Brashear made nearly no offensive contributions in his 36 games. Brashear put up one point in 36 games averaging about six minutes of ice time a game. In his entire career, Brashear fought over 230 times.

2 – Eric Staal

The most decorated player on this list, Eric Staal has had quite a career in the NHL, 775 points in 909 regular season games. He is a prime example of being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the Rangers.

Staal moved to the New York Rangers in exchange for second round picks in 2016 and 2017 and prospect Aleksi Saarela. The move intended to help the Rangers offensively in the playoffs, and to be fair, that did not happen. In 25 games with New York, Eric Staal had six points and was a -6.

Furthermore, fans reacted poorly by questioning Rangers GM Jeff Gorton on why he went out and got Staal instead of a top 4 defenseman, in a clearly weak defensive group. Staal put up near career lows, scoring 39 points, the second lowest total of his career.