With the Rangers celebrating their 100th anniversary this season, we are diving into our top-5 lists this summer. Since post lockout is my area of strength, when I started to write about the team, that’s the cutoff for these lists. It’s best I stick to my strengths instead of grasping at straws for an era where I wasn’t born and can’t truly appreciate the impact. After looking at the 5 best Rangers trades in the post lockout era, let’s dive into the 5 worst Rangers trades of the same era.
Honorable mention: Rangers trade Rick Middleton to Boston for Ken Hodge
This is easily one of the worst Rangers trades of all time, but I’d have trouble ranking it in the top-five because I simply wasn’t alive when it happened, so I don’t know the true impact of the trade. All I know is Middleton became a star for the Bruins while Hodge fizzled out after one year with the Rangers. This is an all time blunder.
Honorable Mention: Rangers trade Brad Park and Jean Ratelle to Boston for Phil Esposito
Another trade with Boston that I can’t really appreciate the true impact, the Rangers traded two fan favorites for an aging Esposito. Park played 8 seasons with Boston and Ratelle six. Espo gave the Rangers five more solid seasons before falling off a cliff. Ratelle either outscored or kept pace with Espo in those five seasons, but adding Park was salt in the wound.
To be fair Carol Vadnais, acquired with Espo, but in four productive seasons with the Rangers. This is probably a little better than the Middleton trade since the production wasn’t that far off, but Park and Ratelle probably should have retired as Rangers.
Honorable Mention: Rangers trade Sergei Zubov and Petr Nedved to Pittsburgh for Ulf Samuelsson and Luc Robitaille
The trade that Mark Messier is rumored to have forced through, the Rangers sent Zubov, an established star already who led the Rangers in scoring during their Stanley Cup year, to the Penguins for aging players Ulf Samuelsson and Luc Robitaille. To their credit, neither Samuelsson nor Robitaille were bad Rangers, but the Rangers sent a Hall of Fame defenseman and a supremely talented Nedved–who put up 99 points in his first year with the Penguins–to the Penguins.
Remember that both players were 25 at the time of the trade. Samuelsson and Robitaille were over 30. We can say the 1994 trade deadline crippled the Rangers future after winning the Cup, but this trade was really the nail in the coffin. But it’s not post lockout, so it doesn’t make this top-five worst Rangers trades list.
Other honorable mentions for worst Rangers trades (in no particular order, all post lockout)
1. Rangers trade Derek Stepan/Antti Raanta for 2017 7th overall pick and Tony DeAngelo – this was fine value, it’s just what the Rangers did with the pick and how it all eventually panned out that’s brutal. DeAngelo aside, the Rangers wanted Cale Makar or Elias Pettersson and wanted to use the 7th overall to get there, but no one bit and they would up with Lias Andersson.
2. Rangers trade Ryan Graves to Colorado for Chris Bigras – Graves had a solid stint as a 20-30 point defenseman. Bigras never played in the NHL after the trade.
3. Rangers trade Aleksi Saarela and 2 2nd round picks to Carolina for Eric Staal – The Rangers didn’t need Staal. They needed depth. This was a dumb trade when it was made and the Rangers are lucky Saarela didn’t pan out.
4. Rangers trade Neal Pionk and 2019 1st round pick to Winnipeg for Jacob Trouba – this is only a bad trade because the Rangers wildly misread what Trouba was. He was never a shutdown defenseman and never should have been deployed in that role. He always succeeded with defense-first partners. This trade came after the Adam Fox trade too.
5. Rangers trade Fedor Tyutin and Christian Backman to Columbus for Nik Zherdev and Dan Fritsche
A relatively forgotten trade cracks our top five worst Rangers trades simply because the Rangers gave up a solid young defenseman for one year of Nik Zherdev. Zherdev led the Rangers in scoring during his one season, but there were far too many off ice issues for the Rangers to ignore, to the point where they walked away from a relatively fair arbitration ruling.
Tyutin played six more solid seasons with Columbus before he started to fade. This is less about Tyutin, since the Rangers had a bunch of promising prospects ready for NHL action (Del Zotto, Staal, Gilroy) at left defense, and more about the return. For what Tyutin was and given that era of hockey, the Rangers could have gotten far more for Tyutin than a head case with potential.
4. Rangers trade Kaapo Kakko to Seattle for Will Borgen and 2 draft picks
Kaapo Kakko might go down as one of the most under appreciated Rangers in the post lockout era. He may not have put up 2nd overall pick offensive numbers in New York, but he was a solid three zone player who was a borderline elite shutdown winger. Kakko was traded for pennies on the dollar despite being an unfair whipping boy across the Rangers organization.
This is easily one of the worst Rangers trades in recent memory because it reeked of Chris Drury’s tunnel vision. He had wanted Will Borgen for years and finally found a way to land him. There were rumblings at the time of the trade where the question “that’s it?” was asked. It’s the same question we asked as well.
The issue wasn’t trading Kakko, who put up a 50 point pace with Seattle after the trade. It was the return. Borgen is, at best, a second pairing defenseman. The 3rd round pick wound up being Sean Barnhill. The 6th round pick became Samuel Jung. To not get a top-60 pick for Kakko was the crime.
3. Rangers trade Ryan McDonagh and JT Miller to Tampa for Libor Hajek, Brett Howden, and others
Many label the Ryan McDonagh deadline deal as one of the worst Rangers trades of all time, and they aren’t wrong. Perhaps you’re surprised because it’s not #1 or #2, but that’s because the Rangers did actually get some solid pieces in the trade. They just simply couldn’t make any of them work.
The meat of the trade was McDonagh to Tampa for Libor Hajek, Brett Howden, a 2018 1st round pick, and a 2019 2nd round pick. Howden was wrapping up his age-20 year in the WHL as a former 1st round pick in 2016. Hajek, a 2nd round pick in the same year, had a strong World Juniors and had some pedigree attached to him. The draft picks were also a good return. Unfortunately for the Rangers, neither prospect panned out, and they shot themselves in the foot by being stubborn and forcing them into unwinnable positions.
The 1st round pick became Nils Lundkvist, whom they traded to Dallas a few years later for a 1st round pick that the Rangers used to land Vlad Tarasenko. The 2nd round pick was Karl Henriksson, who did not pan out.
Remember that at the time, Miller was persona non grata with the Rangers and his trade value was minimal at best. Tampa traded him to Vancouver just one year after signing him to a five year deal. Miller, who was rumored to be tough to coach before landing in Vancouver, figured it out and became a top tier center in the league.
2. Rangers trade Carl Hagelin to Anaheim for Emerson Etem and 2015 2nd round pick
There are few trades that make the entire fanbase groan when it’s made. Even the McDonagh trade didn’t have the same universal groan that the Carl Hagelin trade had. A fan favorite, Hagelin was part of easily one of the worst Rangers trades in the post lockout era, as Glen Sather sent him to Anaheim for Emerson Etem and a 2nd round pick at the 2015 NHL Draft. Sather promptly “retired” as the Rangers GM after the draft.
Etem, another high ceiling first round pick that didn’t pan out, was not good with the Rangers. After just 19 games on Broadway (3 assists), he was shipped to Vancouver for Nicklas Jensen, a defensive forward.
The real “prize” was the second round pick that became Ryan Gropp. The Rangers had tunnel vision on Gropp, who benefited significantly during his draft year from playing with Mat Barzal. Players picked in the 2nd round after Gropp: Erik Cernak, Roope Hintz, Jordan Greenway, Rasmus Andersson, Vince Dunn, Jonas Siegenthaler.
This doesn’t get enough love as one of the worst Rangers trades in the post lockout era because the Rangers went into a rebuild two years later.
1. Rangers trade Pavel Buchnevich to St. Louis for Sammy Blais and a 2nd round pick
I tried to avoid making this #1 on this list of the worst Rangers trades. I really tried. But this trade had it all: Severe undervaluing of the player, horrid return, universally hated by the fanbase almost immediately, and immense impact for several seasons after. Even if Sammy Blais didn’t blow out his knee and was a decent enough third line player (as his ceiling), the return was just abysmal.
Buchnevich was quietly the play driver on the famed KZB line with Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad, peaking at 20-28-48 in 54 games in the Covid shortened 2020-2021 season. Over 82 games, that’s a 30-42-70 stat line on the Rangers top line. It was Chris Drury’s first big trade and it was such a failure that it set the organization back years. There is a strong argument that it cost the Rangers a real shot at a Stanley Cup because of how it all played out.
The trade theory was fine: Move Buchnevich to give playing time to Kakko and Alexis Lafreniere. Thing is, that never happened. Gerard Gallant fumbled that bag by never giving them a true chance. GM and coach were not on the same page. Instead, the Rangers tried about 900 different wingers to replace Buchnevich and try to get that kind of KZB magic again, but it never happened.
The issue isn’t so much trading Buchnevich, it’s that it was 1) very rushed and 2) not needed immediately. There is zero truth to the argument the Rangers needed the cap space. Even with the Barclay Goodrow and Ryan Reaves contracts, the Rangers had a ton of cap space to work with. The issue is trading him for what amounted to spare parts when they could have given him a one-year deal out of arbitration and then figured it out midseason.
Adding Buchnevich to the 2021-2022 Rangers, the team that lost to Tampa in the Eastern Conference Final, dramatically changes the landscape. Kreider-Zibanejad-Buchnevich and Panarin-Strome-Copp/Vatrano is far, far better than what the Rangers had out there, and the assets used to acquire Copp–using Copp as the example since he cost more and was the 2nd trade between him and Vatrano–could have been used on fourth line help or defense depth.
Not only did the Rangers never replace his production, but they made so many lineup decisions trying to get Kreider/Zibanejad going. Think of all the times a line that looked good was broken up because they moved someone around if that duo hit a slump. Those slumps likely don’t happen if Buchnevich is with the Rangers.
Trading Buchnevich was a direct line to so many issues. It wasn’t needed, it was rushed, and there would have been far better packages out there had Drury simply been patient. Easily #1 on my list of worst Rangers trades since the lockout because it had a lasting impact far beyond even just 1-2 seasons later. Half a decade later, the Rangers still are feeling the impact.
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