In Adam McQuaid’s brief time as a member of the New York Rangers, pretty much everything that could go wrong for the veteran defenseman has gone wrong.
When the New York Rangers acquired Adam McQuaid from the Boston Bruins on September 11th for Steven Kampfer, a fourth and a conditional seventh-round pick it was supposed to be a depth move. General Manager Jeff Gorton was using a draft pick to upgrade a depth position with a proven veteran talent.
The former Bruin missed 44 games last season after suffering a leg injury and Boston needed to cut-bait with an aging veteran coming off of a serious injury.
This was supposed to be a move that accomplished a few different things for the Rangers. First, it was to provide a veteran presence on one of the team’s defensive pairs. At least to start the season, head coach David Quinn tried to partner one veteran with one younger player in hopes of balancing out the pairs.
Second, it was to give the Rangers some much-needed snarl. Say what you will about the idea of an old-school enforcer and fighting in hockey, but those within the league still revere those who are willing to be punched in the face for their teammates. For a New York team that played softly under its former head coach, McQuaid was a welcome dose of sandpaper.
Instead, the veteran defenseman suffered a lower-body injury on October 25th and missed the entire month of November as well as the first two weeks of December. While injuries are part of the game and something that every team needs to be able to account for, in this particular case it’s extra burdensome.
Why it’s a problem
Since McQuaid only had a single year remaining on his contract, there was the expectation that the front office would look to flip the Prince Edward Island native and hopefully recoup at least the fourth round pick the Rangers gave up to acquire him. But, since the defenseman has only played nine games thus far into the season, it’s going to be a difficult sell.
Front offices around the league evaluate talent differently and some are not particularly good at it. The very same Bruins that the Rangers acquired McQuaid from were also willing to part with a third-round pick last year for frequent punching bag Nick Holden. The point being, all it takes is one team to want a player to put things back on track.
However, the point still remains that the injury bug likely torpedoed the Rangers’ original plan for McQuaid. New York coming into the season with eight defenseman on the roster was a fools errand to begin with. There are two many factors at play to juggle so many different player’s respective interests.
Coach Quinn has tried his best to get all of the players in at different points. For the past two losses to Pacific Division opponents, McQuaid looked like a defenseman that hadn’t played in six weeks. The NHL game operates at a blistering pace and there isn’t time for a player to get their legs under them in game.
With so many defensemen jockeying for a position in the starting lineup, having a player like McQuaid lingering around only holds back the development of young talent. In addition to players on the roster, there are several down in Hartford that could benefit from ice time at the NHL level.
Defensemen like Libor Hajek and Ryan Lindgren are the future of the organization. McQuaid was only ever supposed to be a temporary stop gap.
New York has the luxury of not needing to win this season so Quinn has the choice to experiment without feeling the fire. There will come a point when both Quinn and the team need to start producing results.