All Aboard!
Back on January 31st I made the proclamation that the Rangers season was over and they should now become sellers at the trade deadline. The team had just lost 2-1 to the Toronto Maple Leafs and had fallen to 10th place in the East. It wasn’t so much that they were out of the race (they were only 2 points behind 8th), but that they had failed to capitalize on an opportunity against a team that was also battling for the playoffs.
The Rangers would continue to falter and fumble way through the next month, going 4-5-2 over the next eleven games and entering the trade deadline in 12th place and a full seven points out of a playoff position. Along the way they’d lost their leading goal-scorer Brendan Shanahan to a serious concussion that had some wondering whether he’d return at all, their second top scorer Martin Straka to a shoulder injury that would require off-season surgery, and backup netminder Kevin Weekes. Things looked grim for the Rangers, and many (including yours truly) figured the season to be at an end.
The trade deadline came and went, with the Rangers making a couple of moves. The recently acquired Pascal Dupuis, was packaged with a third round pick to Atlanta for prospect Alex Bourret, and disgruntled defenseman Aaron Ward was sent off to Boston in exchange for the struggling Paul Mara. Jason Krog (who had been a healthy scratch for several games) was also claimed off waivers by his former club, the Thrashers. The general consensus at the end of the day was that the Rangers had “won” the day by not doing anything stupid, but there were those such as myself who wondered if they couldn’t have done more to make the most of what was obviously a seller’s market.