Adam McQuaid was here and then he wasn’t for the New York Rangers in 2018-19 with the rebuild rightly taking priority.
Adam McQuaid: Grade C
We’re nearing the end of our 2018-19 New York Rangers Report Cards by assessing the impacts made by the players who found themselves traded midway through the year. Today we focus on Adam McQuaid who delivered what was promised during his short stay on Broadway.
His season
There was hardly a ripple in the NHL when the Boston Bruins opted to trade Adam McQuaid to the New York Rangers for Steven Kampfer and a couple of 2019 draft picks in September, 2018.
Bruins fans were upset to see a real fans’ favorite go while the Blueshirts faithful were puzzled as to why they were adding an aging defenseman to a team undergoing a vast rebuild.
Ultimately, that became clear the longer the season went on with McQuaid eventually flipped for draft picks, but we’ll get on to that later.
What McQuaid did bring to the table initially was a bucketload of grit, tenacity, snarl and leadership to the locker room that housed one of the youngest rosters in the NHL throughout 2018-19.
The 32-year-old is the type of player that does exactly what it says on the box; he’s a no-thrills stay-at-home defenseman who will roll his sleeves up and get the job done, even if it doesn’t look that pretty on the eye.
Perhaps the lasting memory McQuaid will leave behind is his clash of the heavyweights tussle with Ryan Reaves of the Vegas Golden Knights in Jan, 2019 where both players threw a flurry of brutal haymakers in what was an absolute slugfest. You can watch the war of attrition below:
Put it simply, McQuaid is more of a SUV than a Rolls Royce, solid, dependable and very, very low maintenance. You know what you are going to get from him on a night-to-night basis and he is a coach’s dream.
In terms of his impact with the Rangers, it was largely a positive one with McQuaid a big part of the team that looked at one point to be making an unlikely push for the playoffs.
He also seemed to be a calming influence on Brady Skjei who went through his fair share of peaks and valleys in 2018-19, and oddly enough dipped again once McQuaid was traded.
McQuaid will never win any style points for the way he plays the game but he brought his all every night for the Rangers, logging up monster minutes too with a total average ice time of 17:28.
He dished out 99 hits, blocked 76 shots, had 10 takeaways and 33 penalty minutes for the Rangers prior to the trade deadline.
The hulking 6’4″, 210 lb blueliner, who wasn’t afraid to drop the gloves in order to stick up for his team mates, also tallied two goals and three assists for five points for the Blueshirts.
Why the grade
Adam McQuaid was always a short-term fix for the New York Rangers, rather than a long-term solution with the defenseman proving to be too valuable a trade chip to keep.
It seemed fair to give the veteran a C Grade because, although the sample size was very small, his body of work with the Rangers was actually pretty good.
He did what was required of him every time he went out on the ice and his total average ice time of 17:28 shows that he was trusted immensely by head coach David Quinn.
McQuaid’s leadership and willingness to throw his body in the way of everything made him a well respected and liked figure both on the ice and in the locker room, as he has been throughout his lengthy NHL career.
You can’t help but wonder if the Rangers would have been in a better position had they kept McQuaid for the year, but a package of a fourth and seventh round pick plus a young blueliner in Julius Bergman was far too good to turn down.
For McQuaid, he got to finish the year on a contender in the Columbus Blue Jackets who swept the Tampa Bay Lightning in the First Round before being dealt a Second Round exit by the Boston Bruins. McQuaid, however, was a scratch for every single one of the Blue Jackets’ postseason games.
All in all, the New York Rangers got what they needed from a true professional in McQuaid who got the job done with minimal fuss and in turn landed the franchise another selection of valuable picks.
The numbers
Games: 36
Goals: 2
Assists: 3
Points: 5
PIM: 33
ATOI: 17:28
Plus / Minus: 3
Hits: 99
Blocked Shots: 76
Takeaways: 10
Next Report Card: Ryan Spooner