MONTREAL — With much of the hockey world looking toward the Rangers and what they are going to do in the lead-up to Monday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline, they were not going to let an injury in a relatively meaningless game throw a wrench in the mix.
So as a precaution, they decided to sit both Rick Nash and Michael Grabner for Thursday night’s game against the Canadiens. The trade talks for both forwards were inching closer to completion, although nothing seemed imminent just before game time, according to a source.
It had been a strange two weeks for the Blueshirts since management publicly declared its intention to trade away players with an eye to the future via a press conference and a letter to the fans on Feb. 8. Nash and Grabner are both set to be unrestricted free agents this summer, so both were at the top of the list of trade pieces who might help a contender down the stretch.
Nash, 33, might have been the most coveted, and he had been honest about how “weird” the past few weeks have been. With 18 goals and 28 points in 60 games, Nash isn’t quite the same offensive threat that he was in his first couple years after the Blue Jackets took him with the No. 1-overall pick in 2002. But he does have 145 goals in 375 regular-season games for the Blueshirts since coming over in the blockbuster trade in the summer of 2012.
“Rick has played, and he’s played well for us,” coach Alain Vigneault said Thursday morning. “That’s what you want from your players at this time with these distractions going on.”
Grabner, 30, had exceeded expectations on his two-year, $3.3 million deal. The speedy Austrian was leading the Rangers with 25 goals — including seven empty-netters — building off last year’s 27 goals. His presence immediately makes any team faster, and his penalty-killing ability is a coveted asset for tight games down the stretch and into the postseason.
Coming into the Rangers lineup as replacements were Vinni Lettieri, who had been called up from AHL Hartford earlier in the day, as well as Paul Carey, who had been scratched for four of the past five games. The team as a whole came in having lost four in a row and eight of its past 10, while dropping out of striking distance in the playoff race.
“Obviously everyone is a little anxious and nervous the last week,” veteran defenseman Marc Staal said Thursday morning. “So just try to focus on the game as much as we can until we get to Monday.”
Back at home in New York, captain Ryan McDonagh also was getting healthy as his name is being batted around in trade talks. McDonagh has been out since Feb. 8, when it was announced he had an unspecified upper-body injury. It wouldn’t have done anyone any good if McDonagh continued to play through it rather than stay out of sight while general manager Jeff Gorton considers what he could fetch in return.
McDonagh, who has one more year left on his contract at a salary-cap hit of $4.7 million, had been skating the past few days, and Vigneault thought he was relatively close to being able to return — for what team still undetermined.
“He’s has been coming along real well,” Vigneault said, in what was half a sales pitch and half an injury update. “A couple more days here and he should be close.”
Really, the next couple days could see a huge part of the Rangers roster turn over. With defenseman Nick Holden already being shipped out to the Bruins in exchange for a younger blueliner in Rob O’Gara and a third-round pick, things have already started to happen.
Mats Zuccarello could be on the move, with one more year on his deal at $4.5 million, as well as rental David Desharnais. What Gorton made clear when announcing this organizational shift was that they were going to makes moves to better their future, not save this season.
And it seemed as if those moves were finally starting to come to fruition.