New York Rangers: What the Tampa Bay Lightning collapse means

As one of the better run organizations in hockey this decade, it’s natural that other teams would build using the bones of the New York Rangers. But, for a talented Tampa Bay Lightning team, it resulted in an epic collapse.

While the New York Rangers trade of Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller at the 2018 NHL trade deadline seemed like a trigger happy move at the time, with the benefit of hindsight, a clearer picture is forming.

There’s no disputing just how talented of a defenseman McDonagh is. Based on the year he had with Tampa Bay it wouldn’t be a major stretch of the imagination for him to finish in the top five of Norris Trophy voting. In a less demanding role, the former Ranger captain was put in a position to succeed.

When it comes to Miller, the story is more complicated and it says a lot about who he is as a player. On one of the best regular season teams in the history of the NHL, Miller limped to 47 point season including only 13 goals after playing significant chunks of the season with Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov.

This brings us to what this trade looks like for the Rangers 14 months after the fact.

Give Jeff some leeway

While many wanted to rake Gorton over the coals for the trade last season, it’s pretty clear that his decision turned out to be okay. While the Rangers won’t end up with an extra first-round pick because Tampa Bay failed to win the Stanley Cup either this year or last, it still made out with a decent return.

It’s going to take time to understand exactly what Libor Hajek and Brett Howden are at the NHL level. Both got NHL experience this year, Howden far more than Hajek. However, the defenseman’s small sample size looked much better than Howden’s.

In just five games, Hajek played a simple and composed game that he can look to build on going into the 2019-2020 season. With a good summer, the Czech blueliner could push for a spot in the opening night lineup this coming year. The left-side is logjammed, but his promise and value as a highly touted prospect will give him some leeway.

But, more importantly, Gorton turned expiring assets into a roster player to use during a rebuild (Vladislav Namestnikov) two prospects (Howden and Hajek), a first round pick as well as a second round pick.

This was a case of the Rangers unloading risk and getting a return on value. Sure, New York would’ve been better off having McDonagh in the lineup this past season, the team’s defensive core struggled for the entire year. But, Gorton deciding to rip off the bandaid was an important choice.

The Rangers did not delude themselves into trying to remain a contender when it would have not made sense. There is probably an alternate universe in which Gorton gets the band back together for the 2018-2019 season and tries to take a stab at the playoffs.

Thankfully, that didn’t come to pass and the Rangers are on track while Tampa Bay has nothing but questions to answer. What does a 62 win team do after getting swept in the first round of the postseason?

Either way, the Rangers made out well on the trade and the Lightning are in a real head scratching situation. So, instead of having an instant knee jerk reaction to every single trade, it’s important to wait and see what happens. Trades take years to properly develop, so rushing to a conclusion is a fool’s errand.