| Friday, November 3
By Nancy Marrapese-Burrell
Special to ESPN.com |
|
On March 21, 1994, the Rangers sent Tony Amonte and the rights to
Matt Oates to Chicago for Stephane Matteau and Brian Noonan. At the time, the impetus for
the deal was to get Amonte out of Gotham. Then-Rangers' coach
Mike Keenan didn't care for Amonte, erroneously under the impression the
working-class kid from Hingham, Mass., was a rich kid from Boston.
|  | | Bourque brought All-Star and playoff experience to Colorado for the playoff drive. |
At the time, it was Amonte's departure that made the headlines. But no
one could have predicted that Matteau, a mammoth left wing with 15 goals in
65 games for the Blackhawks at the time of the deal, would become such an integral
part of the Rangers' playoff run that year -- a run that culminated in the club's first Stanley
Cup since 1940.
It was Matteau's goal at 24:24 of overtime in Game 7 of the conference
finals that knocked out the New Jersey Devils and propelled the Rangers into
the finals against the Vancouver Canucks. In 23 postseason games that season, Matteau had
six goals -- two of which were game winners -- and a total of nine points.
On the face of them, trade-deadline deals are always risky. There is the issue
of chemistry, of risking the devil you know for the devil you don't know, of
whether the new talent will blend in with the old talent.
History is full of examples.
In 1996, goaltender Patrick Roy wasn't dealt to Colorado at the deadline
but it was a deadline deal of sorts in that Roy announced to Montreal
Canadiens' chairman Ronald Corey in front of thousands of witnesses during a
game against Detroit that he had played his last game in bleu, blanc and
rouge.
Roy's sensational performance in the playoffs was the reason that club
went on to win the Stanley Cup.
Roy is certainly not the first unhappy player to find bliss - as well as
a championship -- elsewhere.
When the Detroit Red Wings went looking for defensive help in the spring
of 1997, they made a deal for Larry Murphy, who at the time had just turned
36 years old. Murphy, who was dealt away from a miserable and borderline ugly
situation in Toronto, helped shore up the Red Wings' blue line on their way
to the first of back-to-back Stanley Cups.
But there are times when it doesn't achieve the desired objective. Last
spring, in an effort to go for the three-peat, the Red Wings tried adding
defensive help again, this time in the form of veterans Chris Chelios and Ulf
Samuelsson. They also dealt for goalie Bill Ranford and forward Wendel Clark.
Three of the four (all but Clark) had won Cups on previous teams.
However, the end result last spring was, after sweeping Anaheim in the first round, a
second round loss to the Wings' nemesis -- the Avalanche -- in six games.
The Dallas Stars, who had tried a few deadline deals in 1998 only to
fall short, opted to rebuild their team that offseason through free agency --
getting the biggest fish in the pond in sniper Brett Hull. That helped lead
them to a Cup last year.
This season, teams have used a variety of approaches to deal with the end-of-season playoff push.
The Avalanche and Bruins made the most noise on a deal when
21-year veteran Ray Bourque and veteran left wing Dave Andreychuk were
shipped from Boston to the Mile High City in a multiplayer swap.
Bourque, who at age 39 struggled mightily during much of his final year
with the Bruins, has often times looked like a man a decade younger since
arriving in Colorado. Bourque had wanted to go to either Detroit or
Philadelphia, but Colorado was thrilled to get Bourque and Andreychuk if, for no other reason,
that Dallas and Detroit didn't.
Then there are teams that don't do anything substantial. Washington, for
one, is going so well that the Capitals didn't feel the need need to do anything.
On the
flip side, Anaheim GM Pierre Gauthier said he didn't want to vastly change
his lineup for fear of upsetting the chemistry. Interesting strategy. Only
problem is, if the playoffs started on Thursday, the Ducks would be on the
outside looking in. A chemical remix might have been in order.
If the Bourque trade was the biggest blockbuster, the most surprising
was between Pittsburgh and Ottawa. The Senators, burned by
eventual-finalist Buffalo in four straight games in the first round a year
ago, had concerns about their goaltending. So, they dealt Ron Tugnutt and good
defenseman Janne Laukkanen to the Penguins for veteran Tom Barrasso.
Granted, Barrasso is a two-time Cup winner, but that was back in 1991 and '92. This
year, Barrasso, besides being an insufferable presence in any universe, had
only played 18 games at the time of the deal. In his first two games with his
new team, he had a 1-1-0 record with a bloated 3.50 goals-against average and
.851 save percentage. Not exactly the stuff of which Cup dreams are made.
If that was the most curious deal, the most astonishing situation is in
New Jersey. And it had nothing to do with the Devils being sold to an affiliate of YankeeNets, a
transaction that will be finalized at the end of the year.
In terms of players, the Devils made a deadline deal in acquiring
sniper-when-he-feels-like-it Alexander Mogilny. Mogilny was swapped from
Vancouver for centers Brendan Morrison (who had been asking out of Devil-land
for ages) and Denis Pederson. If Mogilny gets hot, he can make a gigantic
difference for the underachieving Devils, who have been punched out in the
first round the last two years after finishing with over 100 points each time.
That was nothing compared to Thursday's bombshell when -- in the mother
of all post-deadline deals -- general manager Lou Lamoriello, deeply dismayed
about his club's slump after losing 10 of 16 games, fired coach Robbie Ftorek.
Firing a coach after a slump is by no means unprecendented but when the
team is in first place in the Eastern Conference? Lamoriello felt the team
wasn't going to come out of its downward spiral so he has turned over the
reins to Larry Robinson.
Whether this lightning strike works to fire up the Devils remains to be
seen. Trades are one thing, but firing a first-place coach near the end of the
regular season? Take it from Boston coach Pat Burns, who is arguably the most
embattled coach in the NHL:
"I was really surprised but then, nothing
surprises me," said Burns. "It's too bad. Robbie is a good man and I'm sure
he'll find a niche somewhere else. I guess Larry ends up doing what he didn't
want to do, coach again."
Nancy Marrapese-Burrell of the Boston Globe writes a weekly national NHL column for ESPN.com. |  |
