The New York Rangers have utilized the trade market to great success during their history. The Martin St. Louis trade at the 2014 deadline is one of the best.
A General Manager assembling a roster is like a chess master staring at the board. Not only do they have to consider the current move, they must think several moves ahead. In the case of the 2014 New York Rangers, then G.M. Glen Sather had his finger right on the pulse. The team’s young core was bursting at the bit ready to contend for a Stanley Cup.
However, through the first half of the season, there was something missing from the team. Although vastly improved over the 2013 lockout iteration, the team did not have a veteran presence. The team’s captain, Ryan Callahan, was 28 years old and had been groomed for the role. Yet, the then captain did not have the same gravitas as some of the other captains around the league.
Callahan was a spark plug forward for the bottom six that was shoehorned into the top six. At the deadline Sather made a gut call and mortgaged a significant part of the future for a disgruntled Martin St. Louis. The story as to how the the two time Olympian forced his way to New York is up for dispute, but the results were not.
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Now that St. Louis was voted into the 2018 Hockey Hall of Fame Class, it is time to reflect on the forward’s time in New York however brief it was.
The deadline deal
Those 2014 Rangers were ready for the big time. The 2013 lockout season version had flamed out under then coach John Tortorella. Prior to the second round flop against the Bruins in 2013, Adam Henrique and the Devils had sent the Rangers home in the conference finals in 2012. With Henrik Lundqvist at his absolute competitive peak, the team needed to mount a serious effort to win in 2014.
Following a dispute in which St. Louis had initially been left off the Team Canada roster for the 2014 Winter Olympics, the forward made it known he wanted to be traded. In addition to wanting to be traded, St. Louis made it clear that he would only accept a trade to the Rangers. This action forced Tampa Bay Lightning G.M Steve Yzerman’s hand and tripped a series of events that would reverberate through the entire league.
The Rangers sent their captain, Callahan, and two draft picks to Tampa Bay for St. Louis. This deal at face value seems like an overpay, however, the cost proved worth it. The impact that the Laval, Quebec native made in his year and a half with New York was amongst the biggest of any deadline move in team history.
There is something to be said for a player like St. Louis who brings an aura of professionalism and leadership with him.
The cultural difference
The biggest difference between the 2014 and 2015 Rangers and other recent teams was the vibe around the team. During that two year stretch, following St. Louis arrival, the group on the ice had a certain level to their game. Simply put, it seemed like the team was never truly out of the game and that they could achieve anything they put their collective minds to.
Those Ranger teams always seemed like they were going to prevail during those nail biter postseason games. Down three games to one against the Pittsburgh Penguins during the second round of the 2014 playoffs did not seem impossible. It was the leadership of players like St. Louis and Brad Richards that inspired those around them in the room. Those were the type of players that prevent a situation from getting out of control.
The past two seasons, the team had no veteran presence that enforced a feeling of accountability. Instead, it seemed as if the players on the ice were frantically looking at each other wondering how to prevent the situation that just happened from happening again instead of simply putting it in the rearview mirror. The team allowed games to get out of hand extremely quick because there was no calming voice on the ice.
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If there were more miles on his skates, he probably would have been named captain following the 2014 season. Hopefully, St. Louis continues coaching at the youth level and eventually works his way back into the game at the NHL level. St. Louis is amongst the greatest stories in the history of hockey, an un drafted college free agent that made it all the way to the Hall of Fame. The Rangers were lucky to have St. Louis during the brief time they did.