The Legacy of Neil Smith

[AlternateSideParking]

Neil Smith was an outstanding GM.

Only idiots complain about the 94 deadline. Those were brilliant trades.

The Dead Puck Era killed the Rangers. If you want to blame Smith for not conforming to a disgusting style of hockey that destroyed the entertainment value of the sport, be my guest.

 

[pld459666]

Cablevision/ITT partnership bought MSG in 1994. However, Cablevision did not get sole ownership until they bought out ITT in 1997.

Fun Fact: Charles Dolan/Cablevision actually tried to buy the Islanders before the Rangers/MSG, but were declined.

James Dolan only became a factor after he won a VERY nasty and public fight with his dad for control of the Cablevision board.

And to celebrate the win over his dad, went to the Rangers locker room after the 1999 season and personally told the players that he was going to spend to bring in the talent to win.

Neil Smith gets blamed for that summer, but that was a directive from the owner.

Fleury, Kamensky, Qintal, Lefbvere, Tim Taylor and the goalie were signed at Dolan command

 

[Tawnos]

Everything Smith did for the cup was a side note compared to the Messier deal. If Pocklington didn't destroy the Oilers and the league didn't allow $10+ million to be included in the trade for Messier, we wouldn't be able to enjoy the spring of 94 footage on endless loop at MSG.

Lindros deal = Fail

Sakic Signing 1997 = Fail

Brendl Lundmark bust of 1999

Norstrom momentum killer in 1996

I was never a fan of him.

Yeah, I mean... if you only take the bad things he did, then he's definitely bad.

Sandstrom and Granato for Nicholls = Good (mostly because of what Nicholls got us. He had good seasons here, but Sandstrom had better seasons in LA... Gretz helps)
Dahlen for Gartner = Good
Shaw for Beukeboom = Good
Moller for Wells = Good
Oksiutia for Lowe = Good
Hurlbut for Karpovtsev = Good
Turcotte/Patrick for Larmer = Good
1st round pick/bunch of nothing for Verbeek = Good

Every GM has bad good trades and bad trades and his tenure is somewhat of a mixed bag, for sure, but he definitely did a lot of good things, particularly early on.

 

[Beacon]

The Rangers let him walk. He wasn't waived.

Either way, he wasn't supposed to become a UFA. He became one because Smith FORGOT to protect him as an RFA and he became a UFA. I remember clearly when Neil admitted it on the radio.

If Sheppard is a Ranger, we don't need to trade away Turcotte and Patrick for Larmer. If Turcotte is here, we don't need to trade away Marchant for MacTavish. Later, we don't need to deal away Norstrom and Ferraro for Kurri and McSorley if we have the depth from having Sheppard, Marchant and Patrick. I'm not saying things would've lined up perfectly, but this one mistake had serious consequences.

Alternatively, maybe we give up Sheppard instead of Amonte in the Matteau/Noonan trade or instead of Weight in the Tikkanen trade. Either way, things would've been much better with Sheppard, who scored 52 goals when we won the Cup in 1993-94. I am assuming those 52 goals would've come pretty useful to us.


Graves - Messier - Sheppard
Tikkanen - Kovalev - Gartner
King - Nemchinov - Amonte
Gilbert - Turcotte - Kocur

That's a hell of a lineup right there.

 

[Beacon]

YSandstrom and Granato for Nicholls = Good (mostly because of what Nicholls got us. He had good seasons here, but Sandstrom had better seasons in LA... Gretz helps)
Dahlen for Gartner = Good
Shaw for Beukeboom = Good
Moller for Wells = Good
Oksiutia for Lowe = Good
Hurlbut for Karpovtsev = Good
Turcotte/Patrick for Larmer = Good
1st round pick/bunch of nothing for Verbeek = Good

- Sandstrom and Granato for Nicholls was ok, not more. Sandstrom was a consistent 30-40 goal scorer, averaging 38 goals per 82 games in his first 7 seasons. The first 6 of these seasons were without Gretzky. Granato was also a consistent 30 goal scorer. I can't say that it was a win for the Rangers. In fact, I'd probably prefer that this trade not get done because I'd say that we lost it.

- Wells was an aging, marginal player by the time he played for the Rangers.

- Turkey and Patrick for Larmer was ok, but I wouldn't qualify it was a Rangers win.

 

[HFsNumber1Heel]

This is another thread that comes up every few months or years.

My thesis is; anything he did prior to 94 was fine and necessary. Anything after was awful. That is the tale of Neil Smith.

Trading Zubov, Norstrom, Knuble, Savard, Sundstrom, and Cloutier were all bad moves.

Rangers D in the late 90s could have been Leetch/Beuk/Zubov/Norstrom/Schneider/Kloucek and then eventually Zidlicky.

Verbeek trade was fine for the time but he was only around for a year and a half. That first round pick became JS Gigure but the Rangers would've probably used it on Jay McKee or so Smith said in some interview.

His only true pre-94 blunders were trading Aaron Miller for Joe Cirella, and letting Rob Zamuener go.

The reason Shepard was let go and also Kissio was because Smith had guys like Nemchinov, Amonte, and Weight who could play top nine roles come in the following season.

 

[AlternateSideParking]

The Larmer and Nicholls trades were OK?

The Rangers were a losing team before the Nicholls trade. They won their first division title in 50 years in Nicholls first season.

Larmer was one of the best two-way forwards in the game. Patrick and Turcotte were soft and expendable.

After the Larmer trade, the Rangers went 10 or 11 games without a loss.

 

[Tawnos]

Plus, neither Turcotte nor Patrick had particularly distinguished careers after the trade. Turcotte was injury plagued and never hit 50 points again. Patrick had two more 30 point seasons and then transitioned into a defensive player.

Moller wasn't very good, Wells was still serviceable. Consider that a win.

As I said, Nicholls was a good player for the Rangers, but that trade is mostly good because of what we turned him into.

 

[Tawnos]

Also, White Plains Batman... I would say the Mullen for Kerr trade was pretty bad. Not that
Mullen was a good player for much longer... Still a couple of more years. Plus Miller/Vial for Djoos and Kocur turned out pretty badly.

 

[AlternateSideParking]

Granato scored 30 as a rookie then disappeared in 1990. He was concussed by Richardson and wasn't the same. He went to LA and scored 30 playing with gretzky.

Nicholls was a 1st line center. The Rangers were one of the better teams in the league in his two years here.

 

[AlternateSideParking]

The Miller trade derailed the 1991 season. Coincidence or not, but the Rangers were leading the division with a few weeks left and never recovered.

To be fair, Kocur was a great teammate. A real leader. He couldn't stay healthy. Miller was playing top line minutes and was their best forward at times, which is why the trade confused me. They had King, Mallette, Domi and Jansenns. There wasn't a need for more toughness.

 

[McRanger]

This is another thread that comes up every few months or years.

My thesis is; anything he did prior to 94 was fine and necessary. Anything after was awful. That is the tale of Neil Smith.

Trading Zubov, Norstrom, Knuble, Savard, Sundstrom, and Cloutier were all bad moves.

Rangers D in the late 90s could have been Leetch/Beuk/Zubov/Norstrom/Schneider/Kloucek and then eventually Zidlicky.

Verbeek trade was fine for the time but he was only around for a year and a half. That first round pick became JS Gigure but the Rangers would've probably used it on Jay McKee or so Smith said in some interview.

His only true pre-94 blunders were trading Aaron Miller for Joe Cirella, and letting Rob Zamuener go.

The reason Shepard was let go and also Kissio was because Smith had guys like Nemchinov, Amonte, and Weight who could play top nine roles come in the following season.

Pretty much this.

He took a good foundation of talent and molded it into a cup winner.

After that he was an extremely bad GM and left the team in probably the worst state it had been in decades.

I have my doubts whether he could build a cup winner from scratch. Especially without being able to swing the financial hammer.

 

[Bleed Ranger Blue]

Either way, he wasn't supposed to become a UFA. He became one because Smith FORGOT to protect him as an RFA and he became a UFA. I remember clearly when Neil admitted it on the radio.

If Sheppard is a Ranger, we don't need to trade away Turcotte and Patrick for Larmer. If Turcotte is here, we don't need to trade away Marchant for MacTavish. Later, we don't need to deal away Norstrom and Ferraro for Kurri and McSorley if we have the depth from having Sheppard, Marchant and Patrick. I'm not saying things would've lined up perfectly, but this one mistake had serious consequences.

Alternatively, maybe we give up Sheppard instead of Amonte in the Matteau/Noonan trade or instead of Weight in the Tikkanen trade. Either way, things would've been much better with Sheppard, who scored 52 goals when we won the Cup in 1993-94. I am assuming those 52 goals would've come pretty useful to us.


Graves - Messier - Sheppard
Tikkanen - Kovalev - Gartner
King - Nemchinov - Amonte
Gilbert - Turcotte - Kocur

That's a hell of a lineup right there.

If you want to play the if game, how about this one....if Sheppard, Gartner, and Amonte were all Rangers at the end of the 93-94 season, the Rangers might not have won the Cup.

The way the Ranger's roster came together in '93-94 was fascinating. Had this board been around, the peanut gallery - who prefer how a team looks on paper from a talent standpoint rather than how they'd perform on the ice - would have blown a gasket. The 3 seasons between '91-92 and '93-94 were a real rollercoaster ride -- but the lessons of the '91-92 playoffs, where a tougher/more experienced Penguins team took down the President's trophy winning Rangers, was never forgotten by Smith.

So, when the team regained its footing after a disaster of a 92-93 season (and with Keenan's pushing), the Rangers focused on obtaining the grit and experience necessary for a 2 month long test of attrition through the playoffs. And guess what, it worked.

Ive seen plenty of people say that the Rangers would've been better off longterm had they kept the likes of Amonte, Gartner, Sheppard, whoever else was jettisoned during the early 90's. Perhaps - but given the Rangers won the cup in '94, Im sure as hell glad we'll never know. There were plenty of brutal mistakes after 1994 that continue to this day that explain the Rangers futility since then.

 

[HFsNumber1Heel]

The Miller trade derailed the 1991 season. Coincidence or not, but the Rangers were leading the division with a few weeks left and never recovered.

To be fair, Kocur was a great teammate. A real leader. He couldn't stay healthy. Miller was playing top line minutes and was their best forward at times, which is why the trade confused me. They had King, Mallette, Domi and Jansenns. There wasn't a need for more toughness.

John Ogrodnick himself addressed this when he was on Blueshirt Underground with The Mouth and Jim.

Kissio had a charlie horse injury and couldn't skate. Miller was playing top six in 90-91. He was traded and Kissio never recovered. Rangers became a one line team down the stretch. That was the reason Amonte and Weight ended up playing. That was the season.

The Mullen for Kerr trade wasn't that bad. Mullen declined after the 1991 season. He had one decent season on an expansion San Jose team, and one more season on the Islanders.

 

[Tawnos]

Kerr played 32 games for the Rangers. Mullen had two solid seasons. It turned out to be a bad trade. There have been worse, but it was a bad trade.

 

[NHRangerfan]

And to celebrate the win over his dad, went to the Rangers locker room after the 1999 season and personally told the players that he was going to spend to bring in the talent to win.

Neil Smith gets blamed for that summer, but that was a directive from the owner.

Fleury, Kamensky, Qintal, Lefbvere, Tim Taylor and the goalie were signed at Dolan command

IIRC didn't Checketts accompany Smith to Colo to help sign Kamensy and Lefbvre?

 

[Beacon]

How can people defend the Gartner for Anderson trade? Anderson was the Redden of 1994, but worse. He was done. Greg Gilbert was moved to the third line, Tikkanen to the second and Kovalev was moved to 1RW from 2C to place Anderson on the 4th line. Even there, he continued to be the least effective player on the line.

Gartner, meanwhile, was a first line star with speed and shooting ability. It was that day's equivalent of dealing Kreider for Redden, except Gartner>Kreider and Redden>Anderson.

 

[SingnBluesOnBroadway]

How can people defend the Gartner for Anderson trade? Anderson was the Redden of 1994, but worse. He was done. Greg Gilbert was moved to the third line, Tikkanen to the second and Kovalev was moved to 1RW from 2C to place Anderson on the 4th line. Even there, he continued to be the least effective player on the line.

Gartner, meanwhile, was a first line star with speed and shooting ability. It was that day's equivalent of dealing Kreider for Redden, except Gartner>Kreider and Redden>Anderson.

1) Because they won the Cup

2) Because Mike Keenan hated Mike Gartner

 

[Bleed Ranger Blue]

How can people defend the Gartner for Anderson trade? Anderson was the Redden of 1994, but worse. He was done. Greg Gilbert was moved to the third line, Tikkanen to the second and Kovalev was moved to 1RW from 2C to place Anderson on the 4th line. Even there, he continued to be the least effective player on the line.

Gartner, meanwhile, was a first line star with speed and shooting ability. It was that day's equivalent of dealing Kreider for Redden, except Gartner>Kreider and Redden>Anderson.

They won the Cup with Anderson and we don't know if they would've with Gartner. On a player to player basis, thats a piss-poor analysis, but since we have the luxury of hindsight here, it works because the team won it all.

They proved, without Gartner, they had enough goal scoring to win the cup. The organization obviously thought they needed grit, toughness, and experience to get there. And Gartner, for all his goal scoring acumen, didn't exactly like to get his nose dirty.

 

[HFsNumber1Heel]

Anderson was bad but he did score some pretty clutch goals like in Game 2 and also Game 3 of the Finals that were essential for the win.

Remember, if Gartner was there the ice time would have been distributed differently the space time continuum all messed up and maybe no Matteau.

Gartner, Amonte, Weight, Beezer, Marchant, Turcotte, Patrick were all sacrificed for the Cup.

Greschner and Erixon just ran out of gas shortly before.

I always crack up at seeing Mark Osbourne on Banner Raising Night in 1995 because he was gone for such a long time but a part of some of those wacky 80s teams.

 

[Beacon]

They won the Cup with Anderson and we don't know if they would've with Gartner. On a player to player basis, thats a piss-poor analysis, but since we have the luxury of hindsight here, it works because the team won it all.

They proved, without Gartner, they had enough goal scoring to win the cup. The organization obviously thought they needed grit, toughness, and experience to get there. And Gartner, for all his goal scoring acumen, didn't exactly like to get his nose dirty.

Anderson provided none of these. If they played Kypreos, much less Gartner, the team would've been just as good. It's not player to player analysis. It's the basic fact that Anderson was utterly useless, just an empty spot that did nothing, except occasionally turn over the puck.

While an argument could be made that we wouldn't have won without Matteau and Noonan, no such argument can be made for Anderson. There was no grit, there was no toughness, there was no scoring. He was previously a playoff scoring specialist, but was washed up by the time he got to NY. The justification was that he'll turn it on in the playoffs, but if he didn't have the big name, Kypreos or Olczyk would've played ahead of him.

 

[True Blue]

1) Because they won the Cup

I think that answers all questions. And again truly states what people like Smith mean historically to this organization. And Kennan too for that matter. But that is a subject for a different thread.

 

[Bleed Ranger Blue]

Anderson provided none of these. If they played Kypreos, much less Gartner, the team would've been just as good. It's not player to player analysis. It's the basic fact that Anderson was utterly useless, just an empty spot that did nothing, except occasionally turn over the puck.

While an argument could be made that we wouldn't have won without Matteau and Noonan, no such argument can be made for Anderson. There was no grit, there was no toughness, there was no scoring. He was previously a playoff scoring specialist, but was washed up by the time he got to NY. The justification was that he'll turn it on in the playoffs, but if he didn't have the big name, Kypreos or Olczyk would've played ahead of him.

Youre not going to get me to nitpick a roster that won the cup.

 

[Tawnos]

How can people defend the Gartner for Anderson trade?

Because whatever happened, whether it be the two HUGE goals he scored or it be his sage voice in the room, it worked. Do people criticize Chiarelli hard for acquiring Kaberle? Nah.

 

[E-Train]

I always crack up at seeing Mark Osbourne on Banner Raising Night in 1995 because he was gone for such a long time but a part of some of those wacky 80s teams.

Me too. It's too bad he didn't have anything left. Thought he was a good addition after the cup win.