The NY Times, Jagr Might Be Answer the Rangers Want
REENBURGH, N.Y., Jan. 21 — With the Rangers' season seemingly in the balance, Glen Sather spent most of Wednesday working the phones here at the team's training center. But Sather was not just scouring for two defensemen who could step in and play for his injury-plagued team.
According to a person familiar with Sather's conversations, Sather has revisited the idea of obtaining the All-Star right wing Jaromir Jagr from the Washington Capitals.
Since the National Hockey League draft last June, Sather has toyed with the notion of trading for Jagr, who came into this season with five years and $55 million left on his contract. One team official in the league said it would be a salary dump on the Capitals' part.
"This isn't a player deal," the official said. "It's a money deal."
In all likelihood, a deal would hinge on how much of Jaromir's contract the Capitals were willing to pick up. When the Capitals and the Rangers broached the subject in late November, Washington was believed to be willing to assume about $20 million.
A six-time first team All-Star, Jagr, 31, is second on the Capitals in scoring this season with 16 goals and 29 assists for 45 points in 45 games.
With the Rangers slumping (2-4-2-1 over their last nine games) and in 10th place in the Eastern Conference and with some fans at Madison Square Garden calling for Sather's firing, Sather may be contemplating one more blockbuster trade in a last-ditch effort to shake the Rangers out of a seven-year funk.
Sather, the official said, has appeared ambivalent for months about trading for Jagr. Whether Sather is being urged to do so by the Garden's chairman, James L. Dolan, is unclear. Through a Garden spokesman, Barry Watkins, Dolan declined to comment on Sather's situation.
The Rangers' payroll is already about $80 million. Despite league-record payrolls, the Rangers have not qualified for the playoffs for a franchise-record six consecutive seasons. Sather is in his fourth season as the Rangers' president and general manager. Last Jan. 30, he replaced Bryan Trottier as coach.
But Sather, 60, has failed to turn around the Rangers, who are 18-18-7-4 this season. To compound Sather's problems, three of his top six defensemen and the Rangers' top defensive prospect are injured.
There was no guarantee that Sather would be able to get a competent defenseman in time for Thursday night's game against the Philadelphia Flyers at the Garden.
What seems more certain is that if the Rangers again play poorly, the chants of "Fire Sather!" that rang in the Garden for the first time this season on Tuesday will be heard again.
After his coaching staff put the Rangers through a brief 45-minute practice Wednesday without Eric Lindros (cold, flu), Petr Nedved (dizziness) and Tom Poti (back), Sather said he was not considering stepping down as coach to concentrate on front-office duties.
When it was pointed out to Sather that other general managers over the last few years had done that, he replied: "A lot of guys say: `Listen, the pressure is there and I don't want to deal with it.' And so they turn it over to somebody else. No, I don't feel that way."
To make his case, Sather pointed out that the Rangers, despite being thumped by Boston in a home-and-home series on consecutive days, are still only 2 points behind the Islanders in the race for the eighth and final Eastern playoff berth.
In addressing the fact that other teams had overcome injury problems this season, Sather reasoned, "You can lose a forward a lot easier than a defenseman."
An hour before Tuesday night's game, the Rangers learned that defenseman Darius Kasparaitis would be lost for 10 to 12 weeks (effectively, the rest of the regular season) with a tibial plateau fracture in his left leg and slight tear of the medial collateral ligament in his left knee.
Kasparaitis joined Greg de Vries, who is sidelined perhaps another month with a more serious tear of the medial collateral ligament in his right knee, on the injured list. The Rangers' top minor league prospect on defense, Fedor Tjutin, is out as long as de Vries with torn knee ligaments.