New York Rangers: Time to revisit some trades

Revisiting trades is a favorite pastime of New York Rangers fans

While hockey may be our favorite sport, second guessing a trade is a close runner-up. For every great trade made by the New York Rangers, there are deals that we regret.  Since it often takes years to rate a deal as a win or lose, we took a look back at trades made by the team from 2012 to 2017 to see which deals we’d like to take back.

Here’s our criteria for analysis.  We will only examine trades made from June 1, 2012 to June 30, 2017.  We will not only look at the players traded, but also draft picks that were swapped.   In the first part of our series, we will look at trades made in the off-season.  In part two, we’ll look at trade deadline deals.

Off-season trade: Rick Nash

One of the biggest trades of the last decade for the Blueshirts was the acquisition of Rick Nash, a player that Glen Sather had pursued for years.  Sather finally got his man on July 23, 2012.

On the surface this looks like a fair deal.  While Nash didn’t bring a Stanley Cup to the Rangers, he was a valuable player for six years.  You have to take Steve Delisle and Tim Erixon out of the picture as they never accomplished anything in the NHL.

Statistically, the production of Artem Anisimov and Brandon Dubinsky tilt the trade in favor of Columbus.  Nash played six years for the Blueshirts, scoring 145 goals and 252 points.

Combine Anisimov’s and Dubinsky’s numbers and they have scored 204 goals and 484 points since the trade.   That’s 60 more goals and twice the number of points than Nash.   Bear in mind that Anisimov scored most of his points with Chicago when he was traded to the Blackhawks for Brandon Saad.

So, was it a deal the Rangers would take back in hindsight?  No so fast.  There are two factors that make this deal a win-win for the Blueshirts.  The first round pick by the Columbus Blue Jackets was forward Kirby Rychel who never made it in the NHL and is now in the KHL.  As for the third round pick the Rangers acquired?  They selected Pavel Buchnevich 75th overall in the 2013 draft.

You also have to factor in the haul that the Rangers got from the Boston Bruins when they traded Nash at the 2018 deadline.  They got Ryan Lindgren, a draft pick they turned into K’Andre Miller, Ryan Spooner who was flipped for Ryan Strome and Matt Beleskey.  On the basis of that trade alone, the acquisition of Nash was a home run for the Blueshirts and a keeper.

Off-season deal: Carl Hagelin

On June 27, 2015 the Blueshirts traded away one of the players who was  key contributor the contending New York Rangers. While the trade was made to clear cap space, it left a hole in the lineup that was felt for years.

The less said about this deal the better.  Carl Hagelin never made it with the Ducks, but has gone on to win two Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins while playing 338 games for four teams.  While Hagelin will never win any awards for his scoring, his speed and penalty killing were assets that the Rangers could have used over the last five years.  He will be helping the Washington Capitals go for the Cup when this season resumes.

As for the Rangers, Emerson Etem was a complete bust, playing only 19 games in New York.  Luckily for the Rangers, the draft picks never amounted to anything for either team as evidenced by the names of those picked:  Julius Nattinen, Garrett Metcalf and Ryan Gropp.

If the Rangers had drafted Vince Dunn, Anthony Cirelli or Adam Gaudette, all taken after Gropp, it could have balanced out that trade a bit.

Off-season deal:  Cam Talbot

In the summer of 2015, the Rangers had a jewel of a trade asset in Cam Talbot.  With Henrik Lundqvist firmly in place as the number one goalie, Talbot had proved that he was ready to take on the role of starter.  On June 27, Glen Sather pulled the trigger on a deal, sending Talbot to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for three draft picks.

Although Talbot has fallen on hard times recently, he spent three seasons as Edmonton’s top goaltender, backstopping them to their only Stanley Cup Playoffs appearance in 13 years.  If anything, the Oilers overworked the 29 year old goalie as he appeared in 86 games in 2016-17.  He was never the same after that season.

This deal looks to be completely one-sided in Edmonton’s favor when you look at the Ranger draft picks.  They selected Robin Kovacs in the second round and Sergei Zborovskiy in the third round and both players never made it to the NHL and are playing in Europe.  The only saving grace is the seventh round pick.  The Blueshirts selected goalie Adam Huska who is still on the depth chart as a potential NHL player.

Sather should have traded Talbot to the Buffalo Sabres who were in dire need of a goaltender. The Sabres ended up trading for Robin Lehner and David Legwand  from the Ottawa Senators in exchange for a first round draft pick.  The Senators drafted Colin White while other players who went later in the draft include Brock Boeser, Travis Konecny, Jack Roslovic and Anthony Beauvillier.  Any of them would have been a much better return than the Rangers got from Edmonton.

Off-season deal: Derek Dorsett

Just two weeks after the Rangers heartbreaking loss to the Los Angeles Kings in the Stanley Cup Finals, they made a peculiar trade with the Vancouver Canucks.

Why the Rangers traded Dorsett, a valuable fourth line winger, for a third round pick has been questioned by Ranger fans for years.  Dorsett had come to the Rangers at the trade deadline in 2013 along with Derick Brassard and John Moore in exchange for Marian Gaborik.   In his one full year with the Rangers, Dorsett was a feisty winger who led the team with 128 penalty minutes.

He played 23 of the 25 games in the playoffs, on the fourth line with Dominic Moore and Brian Boyle. Although he averaged only 9:29 minutes per game, that fourth line was a high energy trio that played a major role for that Cinderella team.

So, the Rangers traded away Dorsett who went on to play 184 games for Vancouver amassing 459 penalty minutes.   Dorsett was forced to retire in 2018 due to a chronic neck injury.  With the third round pick they obtain in the deal, the Rangers selected center Keegan Iverson. He never made it to the NHL and is no longer a pro prospect.

Perhaps the worst aspect of this trade is the fact that the Rangers needed to replace Dorsett’s muscle so they went out and signed Tanner Glass to a three year contract at $1.45 million per year.  We all know how that turned out.

Other off-season deals

That’s it for trades worth a second look.  There have been other deals, but they aren’t trades the Rangers would want to take back.  They include the best deal of the Jeff Gorton era when on July 18, 2016, he traded Derick Brassard to Ottawa for Mika ZIbanejad and a second round draft pick.

Another deal that had positive results was the trade of Nick Holden to the Rangers by Colorado on June 25, 2016.  The Rangers gave up a fourth round pick that never amounted to anything for the Avalanche.  Meanwhile, Holden played two seasons for the Rangers before being traded to Boston for a third round pick in 2018.  That pick became defense prospect Joey Keane who became winger Julien Gauthier.

The other major off-season deal was conducted on June 23, 2017. That’s when the Blueshirts sent Derek Stepan and Antti Raanta to Arizona for the seventh overall pick in the 2017 first round (Lias Andersson) along with Anthony DeAngelo.

While Stepan has been a solid performer for the Coyotes, Raanta has been plagued by injuries.  The jury is still out on Andersson, but DeAngelo has become one of the top offensive blueliners in the NHL.

In the long run, there were not a lot of major deals for the Blueshirts.  There are a number of smaller transactions (Danny Kristo for Christian Thomas for example), but these are the ones worth revisiting.  In our next story, we will look at those trade deadline deals and how they have worked out for the Rangers.