The New York Rangers are at the top of the Eastern Conference but could still use some help scoring. The question for GM Glen Sather is what type of player does he want and at what cost.
In 1994, the Rangers won their only Stanley Cup in the past 72 years. To end a 54-year drought then-general manager Neil Smith and coach Mike Keenan made a flurry of late-season trades to build their team for a Stanley Cup playoff push.
They risked chemistry by acquiring veteran Oilers Glenn Anderson and Craig MacTavish, who had considerable Stanley Cup experience. They also added Brian Noonan and Stephane Matteau, players familiar to Keenan from Chicago.
Now, in 2012, with a new generation of Rangers on top of the Eastern Conference standings, current general manager Glen Sather must decide the best course of action to take in setting his team up for optimal returns both this spring and in the near future.
The most prominent player currently on the trade market is Columbus Blue Jackets forward Rick Nash. Nash would undoubtedly help the Rangers in their biggest area of need: offense.
The team does not have anyone else on its roster who is as strong along the boards and in front of the opposition’s net as the 27-year-old Columbus captain, who is listed at 6-foot-4, 216 pounds. Besides Marian Gaborik, who is most effective attacking from the perimeter, the Rangers do not have a scorer as proficient as Nash, who has averaged over 32 goals per season during an eight-year career going into 2011-12.
As much as Nash sounds like a perfect fit on Broadway, there is of course a catch. Columbus is reportedly asking for center Brandon Dubinsky, one of either young defenseman Michael Del Zotto or Ryan McDonagh, plus at least one high-end prospect and a high draft pick.
The Rangers put all their proverbial eggs in the Stanley Cup basket by constructing their team the way they did in 1994 and won the bet.
The difference is that the current team is positioned for long-term success.
Instead of being built with veteran acquisitions around an imported superstar toward the end of his prime (Mark Messier), this group’s centerpiece is a homegrown one just entering what should be the best years of his career in goaltender Henrik Lundqvist. The netminder is surrounded with players who have only played for one organization throughout their professional careers.
It took nearly a decade for the franchise to rebuild itself after the long-awaited championship, a stretch that included seven consecutive non-playoff seasons and one free-agent disappointment after another.
Sather and his management team must approach the trade deadline with the precision of a pilot approaching a runway on final descent in a rainstorm.
Nash carries a $7.8 million annual cap hit through the 2017-18 season. While New York can easily swallow that number for the remainder of this year and all of next year, that number might cause the franchise some salary cap discomfort later down the line.
The Rangers have to re-sign and give raises to key blue-line cogs such as Del Zotto, McDonagh, Dan Girardi as well as center Brian Boyle, right wing Ryan Callahan and Lundqvist all by the 2015 offseason.
So while Nash would solve some Ranger problems over the next few months, his acquisition may end up creating more down the road.
Sather should not stand pat at the deadline, given that he has a contender with a glaring weakness. He must help the team for the short term without overly sacrificing the long term. It is not necessarily an easy task, but NHL general managers are not supposed to have easy jobs.
