News from March 2002
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Rangers Land Bure
Glen Sather sounded as if he were beaming last night as he spoke on the phone about the Rangers' blockbuster acquisition of Pavel Bure for a startlingly low price. And why not? The Florida Panthers gave Bure away. Sather, the Rangers' president and general manager, landed Bure, who has led the N.H.L. in goals the past two seasons, for Igor Ulanov, a 30-year-old defenseman who fell out of favor soon after signing as a free agent; Filip Novak, 19, an unsigned junior league defenseman; and the Rangers' first-round pick in this summer's entry draft and a fourth-round pick in 2003. The Rangers and the Panthers will also swap second-round picks in this year's draft. Sather feared he would have to deal Mike York, a 24-year-old All-Star, to obtain the gifted Bure, a right wing who turns 31 on March 31. "We didn't want to give up anyone," Sather said. He almost did not have to. "It was one of those situations where we had to have more flexibility in our roster," Florida Coach Mike Keenan said yesterday. Keenan was referring to the $20 million the Panthers saved by trading Bure, who has two guaranteed seasons left on his contract at $10 million a season. There is also a club option for the 2004-5 season for $11 million. "We really deliberated over this," Keenan said. "These kinds of players are extremely difficult to acquire. Pavel Bure is the best goal scorer in the National Hockey League, pure and simple. He's going to come in and electrify the New York crowd and the Rangers' fans, and he's going to energize the team." The Rangers sure hope so. With 12 games remaining in their regular season, the Rangers trail the Montreal Canadiens by 2 points in the race for the eighth and final Eastern Conference playoff spot. The Rangers are trying to avoid missing the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season, which would match the longest drought in franchise history. This is the second significant move by Sather, in his second season running the Rangers. He acquired Eric Lindros from Philadelphia last summer. Sather is gambling that Bure, who will almost certainly play on the top line with Lindros and Theo Fleury, will revitalize the Rangers' offense. The Rangers have lost five of their last six games, and have scored two goals or fewer in five of those games. "There are two guys who can lift you out of your seat when they've got the puck," said Sather, who called Bure one of the top four or five players in the league. "Mike Modano's one. This guy is the other one. He's a constant threat. He's somebody who can score any time he has the puck. He's a superstar. He's an artist with the puck." After scoring 59 goals last season and 58 goals the season before, Bure has only 22 goals in 56 games. Still, despite breaking his hand earlier in the season, he led the Panthers in goals and points (49). "Quite frankly and honestly, Pavel never played with a No. 1 center here," Keenan said. The Rangers nearly acquired Bure four seasons ago, before he was traded from Vancouver to Florida on Jan. 17, 1999 as part of a multiple-player package. Bure, a native of Moscow who is known as the Russian Rocket, will have no such problem playing with Lindros. The Rangers are certain that Bure, with his blazing speed, will be able to open the ice for Lindros. Still, Sather seemed ambivalent last week about how badly he wanted to acquire Bure, who has a reputation for being selfish. "It's been a real roller coaster whether to do it or not," Sather said, adding that he and Keenan had discussed the deal for about a month. "It was a tough trade for them to do. Yesterday, they told me they were not doing it. They called me this morning and said they had changed their minds." Bure flew from Miami to New York last night, and is expected to be in uniform at Madison Square Garden tonight, when the Rangers play the Vancouver Canucks. Last night, Sather denied that he had felt any pressure from the Garden chairman, James L. Dolan, to acquire Bure, even though the Rangers and the Knicks, the Garden's two main tenants, are in danger of missing the playoffs. The pressure now is squarely on Ron Low, the Rangers' second-year coach, who will probably come under scrutiny if the team fails to make the playoffs. Although Sather denied it, the Rangers are believed to have contacted Ken Hitchcock, the former coach of the Dallas Stars.
Hip Hip Bure!
Five days after refusing to deal Mike York, Igor Ulanov and Filip Novak to the Panthers for Pavel Bure, Glen Sather pulled the trigger last night and simply stole the NHL's most dynamic goal-scoring machine from Florida by somehow inducing GM Chuck Fletcher and coach Mike Keenan to accept a first- and second-rounder in York's place, while at the same time bringing a second-rounder back as part of the bargain. Again: the Rangers on the eve of the trade deadline were able to acquire Bure, who will make his debut on Broadway tonight against the Canucks, for a first-round selection in what is universally regarded as a weak draft; Ulanov, whom the team has been trying to move for months; the junior defenseman Novak; and a flip of seconds that will improve the Blueshirts' position in that round. Astounding. "You sure don't get the chance to get guys like Pavel very often," Sather said. "The things he's accomplished in this league . . . he's an artist. "He's going to be great for us." While acquiring Bure - who has scored 22 goals in 56 games this season of strife and despair in Florida, but who led the league with 58 and 59 goals, respectively, the last two seasons, and who has scored at least 51 goals in all five previous seasons in which he played at least 70 games - Sather continued to negotiate with the Oilers regarding Tom Poti. But while the GM was able to keep York out of the deal for Bure, Edmonton GM Kevin Lowe was insisting upon the inclusion of the workaholic winger in any package for Poti. Indeed, Lowe was playing Sather against Mike Milbury, pitting the Rangers directly against the Islanders in a play to up the ante for his defensemen. Most league sources believed that the Islanders would yield more for Poti than the Rangers - who were trying to conclude the deal in time for Poti to be available for tonight's match. Still, last night belonged to Sather, who pulled a coup in bringing the dynamic Bure to New York, where he has long wanted to play. The GM spoke by phone with Bure before pulling off the deal in an attempt to satisfy himself that the winger was indeed excited about coming to the Rangers, who are in ninth place with 12 games to go, looking outside in on the playoffs for a fifth straight year. Bure, who has two guaranteed years at $10 million per plus a team option remaining on his deal - no, there will be no restructuring or givebacks or conversions of money - assured the GM of his desire to earn his money in Manhattan. The deal was completed immediately after that conversation. "He was absolutely thrilled. He told me that he had always wanted to play in New York and would do anything we asked of him," said Sather, who had dispatched a Garden plane to Florida to transport Bure to Manhattan last night. "He was just great." The Rangers, of course, were bidding heavily for Bure before he was traded by Vancouver to Florida Jan. 17, 1999. But he got away when Neil Smith refused to include Manny Malhotra in a package that already included Dan Cloutier, Niklas Sundstrom and a first-round draft choice. It should be noted that there was no guarantee that Vancouver GM Brian Burke - loathe to grant Bure's wish to come to New York - would have gone forward with the trade had Smith been willing to toss Malhotra into the pot.
Rangers hope Bure puts shine back on Big Apple New York Rangers GM Glen Sather didn't receive a porter as a throw-in with Pavel Bure, which could be a problem with the baggage Bure brings to New York. Especially when he will be sharing a dressing room and perhaps even a line with two other problem players: Eric Lindros and Theo Fleury. But Sather doesn't care. Bure has been trouble judging by his one-dimensional game of late. But he has scored 139 goals the last three years for the Florida Panthers and is now a marquee name in a marquee town. The Ranger players won't care how he checks if he scores enough to get them into the playoffs. The Rangers acquired the superstar Russian winger and a second-round draft pick in 2002 in exchange for journeyman defenceman Igor Ulanov and well regarded blue-line prospect Filip Novak. The Panthers also receive first- and second-round picks in the 2002 draft, plus a fourth-round pick in 2003. Sather heard all the bad things about Bure -- he hates checking, for one -- but when you don't have to give up any player on your roster for a five-time 50-goal scorer, you go after him. Sather never had the resources to get players like Bure when he was in Edmonton. In New York, owner Charles Dolan doesn't much care that Bure's costing him a guaranteed $20 million over the next two years and $31 million if the Rangers want to give Bure the third year of his contract. With Sather giving away no one of real consequence, this was an in-season form of a free-agent signing. Sather got the Panthers' right winger, who can get them into the playoffs if he gets hot, without giving up his third-best forward, Mike York, in the deal. Not only that, he got the Panthers to take defenceman Ulanov and the $4 million he has left on his contract. Ulanov, as big as his heart is, has been an error waiting to happen this year and just returned from the minors. Don't forget Florida gave up Ed Jovanovski in 1999 to get Bure in the first place. Today, he's one of the top 20 blue-liners in the NHL. In this deal, the Panthers didn't get a name for Bure. Sather, for his part, is not concerned about spending millions of dollars. "It doesn't bother me at all (spending big money). That was the reason why I left Edmonton." Sather, as well, doesn't care about Bure's past. "There were all kinds of stories about Kent Nilsson (in 1987), when I got him and he was great for the Oilers. There were stories about Eric before we got him. I'm not worried at all about Pavel. "A lot of guys are talked about, and when they get to a new place, they conform to the team. What I see is one of the top four or five players in the game, a guy who can lift you out of your seat. There are two great players who can do that today." "One's Pavel, the other's Mike Modano, with their speed." Actually, Washington Capital forward Jaromir Jagr is there also as a crowd-pleaser when he feels like it. Which brings us to whether Stars owner Tom Hicks, who is calling a lot of the shots in Dallas. He has no checks and balances with longtime general manager Bob Gainey gone and team president Jim Lites quitting to take the same job in Phoenix. Will Hicks go after Jagr now? It's certainly a possibility. Money is no object to him. It was to Panthers GM Chuck Fletcher, who dumped Bure's contract. Question is, how is Fletcher going to sell this deal to the fans in south Florida with no front-line player? "What I go to sleep worrying about is how long it'll take us to be a contending team," said Fletcher. "We want to make the playoffs next year and we think this is the best way to do it." For now, Sather and the Rangers look like the winners in this deal. "I don't think I mortgaged the future," said Sather.
"Draft picks are always down the road. Some make it, some don't."
This Trade Could Be a Trembler On the N.H.L.'s Richter scale - no relation to a goalie of the same name - yesterday's trade of Pavel Bure from Florida to the Rangers is an earth-shaking event. Like some seismic episodes, it could be disastrous. At the very least, it rearranges the scenery and creates a great deal of excitement. Bure is similar in some ways to Rickey Henderson, the veteran baseball star. Both are future Hall of Famers who create impressive offensive statistics and care a great deal about themselves. Like Henderson, the Russian Rocket moves from team to team while leaving behind highlight reels and mixed feelings. Few Florida fans or teammates will miss Bure. The Panthers can finish out of the playoffs with or without Bure's lack of defensive diligence. Bure joins a team already filled with high-salaried, self-centered stars. In this sense, he may be a perfect fit, even if he never meets goalie Mike Richter and defenseman Brian Leetch in the defensive zone. Bure could play right wing on a line with Eric Lindros at center and Theo Fleury on left wing. Exactly who will take the backchecking role? Perhaps Glen Sather, the Rangers' desperate president and general manager, assumes these three will always possess the puck in the attacking end. Sather did not give up a lot to get Bure, though critics might suggest that trading a first-round draft choice is a risky way to mortgage future investments for immediate profits. There must be terrible pressure at Madison Square Garden to get this mediocre team into the playoffs. Without the Knicks in the playoffs and without the Yankees on MSG television, the people who own the operation need something to keep the lights on during spring nights. With his rock-star personality, Bure might be right for center stage on Broadway. Bure brings sizzle and publicity potential. Intelligent and handsome, he is one of the hockey stars who has been linked socially with the tennis player Anna Kournikova. In two languages, he is clever and insightful, when he chooses to speak. Should Bure's scoring flair lift the Rangers into the playoffs, local puck buffs could enjoy the Rangers, Devils and Islanders in the Stanley Cup tournament at the same time for the first time since 1994. That could help the league's profile in its largest market. Bure also has political connections. In Moscow last summer, he put together a pickup team to play an exhibition game. After the game, a visitor to the locker room was a celebrity hockey fan: Vladimir V. Putin, the president of Russia. Such contacts are not new to the Bure family. His ancestors, of Swiss origin, were watchmakers to the czars. Bure, while in Moscow, travels in armor- plated limousines among well-heeled big wheels. That act could play here. At worst, the deal is a lot like many bad moves the Rangers have made. Along with the acquisitions of Fleury in 1999 and Lindros last summer, the other Ranger hire of this magnitude was the acquisition of Wayne Gretzky as a free agent in 1996. Although the Great One provided a few memorable moments in his three seasons with the Rangers, he was past his prime and it was impossible to build a successful team around him. Turning 31 on March 31, Bure is five years younger now than Gretzky was then. But Bure's best years were in Vancouver, two teams and almost a decade ago. Sather needs Bure to provide instant success. Finishing his second year in New York, Sather has seen other Old Six teams like Montreal, Chicago and Boston rise around him. In Edmonton, Sather was one of the best general managers of the 1980's. What has he done lately? Despite bidding against few competitors - Bure's $10 million salary scares off most of them - Sather was crowing about his coup. Bure, Sather said, "is one of the top four or five players in the N.H.L." "He is going to make our team go," Sather said. Although Sather said, "We need somebody to push us in the playoffs," he also said there was "absolutely no pressure" to make the deal. "He's a superstar," Sather said of Bure. "He's an artist with the puck." Bure, he added, is a player who can "lift you out of your seats." With these words, Sather might have unintentionally used a double-edged expression. Should his team miss the playoffs again after adding so much payroll and personality, Sather could find his own chair getting a little hot.
Sather getting job done You could hear the whispers all around the league. Glen Sather had lost his fastball somewhere on the road from Alberta to Broadway. Right. Turns out that he lost his fastball just the way Roger Clemens had lost his. Acquiring Pavel Bure for essentially the difference of a dozen or so spots in this year's Entry Draft and an expendable prospect on defense doesn't guarantee anything this year for the GM or for his Rangers, who have played so poorly in the last few weeks they've lost sole control of their destiny. It sure helps, but it doesn't guarantee that the Rangers will make the playoffs. It does, however, guarantee that the Rangers will have a far stronger platform on July 1 from which to make offers to impending free agents Bobby Holik and Billy Guerin, each as essential as Bure and Eric Lindros in the team's necessary bid to shortcut the unacceptable length of time a 30-team league demands of a rebuilding program. Acquiring Bure - just another one of those one-dimensional 60-goal scorers who are absolutely ruining this NHL with their creativity, flair and skill, don't you know? - will open the eyes and ears of Holik and Guerin because great players want nothing more than to be surrounded by other great players. The money will be there this summer. What Guerin and Holik will want, in addition to the money, is the chance to win. Bure gives the Rangers that chance to win. Bure gives Holik and Guerin every reason to wait until July 1 to see what the Rangers will come up with. Bure makes the Rangers worth watching every night, the way Lindros does when he's healthy. Sather threw down yesterday. The GM left small-market Canada behind and stood up for New York, where the people who support his franchise have to pay $7 in tolls if they're driving in from Queens, $6 if they're coming across the Hudson, and then maybe $32 more to park before even stepping foot into the Garden to use the tickets for which they pay premium prices. The Rangers and Cablevision can afford the $20 million over the next two years they now owe Bure, can afford whatever it is that Holik and Guerin are going to want in July. What the Rangers and Cablevision can't afford is to keep missing the playoffs. The league can't afford that, either. The NHL can't have Broadway dark in May and June every year. It can't. Sorry if this offends, but the NHL needs a strong New York more than it needs a strong Calgary and Edmonton. That's reality, if not romance. Bure, not quite yet 31, comes with a reputation as a selfish player. Some of that reputation is a result of bad-mouthing from coaches by whom he has been betrayed. Duane Sutter, whom Bure recommended for the job when asked his opinion by ownership, turned on him quickly this year. Terry Murray can't say enough bad things about Bure. This is the same Murray, who, in Game 1 of the 2000 playoffs against a Devils team terrified of losing in the first round for the third straight year, decided it was time to teach his 58-goal scorer a lesson, and thus gave him 3:27 of ice in the first period of what turned out to be a New Jersey sweep. This is the same Murray who wouldn't allow Lindros to get on the ice against Sergei Fedorov in Game 1 of the 1997 Finals in what turned out to be a Detroit sweep. Bure will succeed here, I am sure of that. He will be fine here, just the way Lindros has been fine here, and I am sure of that, too. And he will have that chance - and we will have that chance to be entertained by him - because the guy from western Canada can still bring it.
Rangers get Bure in a steal Perhaps in time to save their season, the Rangers stole goal-scorer Pavel Bure from the Florida Panthers last night at a flea-market price. "He's a constant threat," Rangers general manager Glen Sather said. "He's someone who can score any time he gets the puck on his stick. He's an artist. He's a superstar." And he's a bargain. Bure comes to the Rangers, along with a second-round pick in this year's draft, in exchange for seldom-used veteran defenseman Igor Ulanov, 19-year-old defense prospect Filip Novak, first- and second-round picks in 2002 and a fourth-round pick in 2003. With 12 games left and the Rangers battling for a playoff spot, coach Ron Low was understandably ecstatic. "To me, it's amazing, because if you'd said you could somehow get Pavel Bure for a first-round draft pick at any time during this whole scenario, you would have been jumping up and down," Low said. "I mean, are you kidding me or what? This is basically a no-brainer." After practice yesterday, Low had expressed doubt that the Rangers would make any deals by today's 3 p.m. deadline. By the evening, he had gone from doubt to astonishment at news of the trade. In the organization's view, the most valuable asset given up was the first-rounder. Lack of an active market for Bure's services, combined with Florida's desire to deal him before the deadline in order to plan for the off-season, lowered the price. Bure will join the Rangers at this morning's skate in preparation for tonight's game against the Vancouver Canucks at Madison Square Garden. Low has not decided which center the right wing will play with -- Eric Lindros or Petr Nedved -- but some shuffling of the forward ranks is expected. Low went through his options for the top line, which involves Theo Fleury and Mike York, then said he would have to wait until today to slot Bure because he thinks "something else is coming." As of yesterday, Fleury had not been asked to waive his no-trade clause, but York could still be part of a deal, perhaps for 24-year-old Edmonton defenseman Tom Poti. Bure surely will be given a role on the team's first power-play unit to utilize his goal-scoring talents. Bure, 30, is a sniper, averaging 56 goals in his past three full seasons. The Rangers lost second-line right wing Radek Dvorak with a season-ending knee injury last week. Not only is Bure a significant upgrade, he becomes perhaps the Rangers' purest talent. Sather expects an immediate impact. "This guy is in tremendous shape. He wants to play, and he's very excited," Sather said. "There are two guys in the game who can lift you out of your seat when they get the puck. (Mike) Modano is one, and he is the other." Bure brings some baggage. With 22 goals this season, questions have arisen about his commitment while on a struggling young team like the Panthers. Bure can appear unmotivated and undisciplined, hanging out at the blue line for slam-dunk opportunities on breakaways, failing to help in his own end. Sometimes, if he doesn't feel there is a chance for him to win, his effort can be lacking. Still, Sather was motivated to acquire Bure in part because Bure has said he wants to play in New York. Sather spoke to Bure last night and Bure assured him that he is coming to the Rangers to win games and make the playoffs. "Pavel wants to be a winner. He wants to come to New York, and he said he'd do anything to help our team win," Sather said. "Even when he was in Vancouver (earlier in his career), he said he wanted to come here. But the biggest thing is that he wanted to win." Panthers coach Mike Keenan said he will not be surprised if Bure makes good on his word to Sather. "He's going to electrify the fan base there," Keenan said, "and he'll have renewed interest and a renewed surge of passion for the game." Sather doesn't doubt it. "I've heard a lot of rumors about a lot of players," he said. "Once you find out what makes them tick, things change in a hurry. I'm not worried at all." According to Sather, contact between the Rangers and Panthers regarding Bure was first made about a month ago. Talks ran hot and cold, and Sather said he thought Sunday that nothing would get done. But the Panthers contacted him yesterday and a deal materialized quickly. It is believed the Rangers will assume Bure's two-year, $20 million contract -- with a team-option third year at $11 million -- without reworking it to better fit their budget. Whether that affects their own plans for another potential bonanza free-agent crop this summer remains uncertain. Sather is more concerned with what happens now. "This makes us more mobile, this makes our team quicker," Sather said. "This guy is world-class, one of the top four or five players in the league. He's going to make our team go."
Rangers Dig Up Bure Treasure For the first time in six decades, the most prolific goal-scorer on the planet is a member of the New York Rangers. And for the foreseeable future, at least, it won't cost the Rangers a thing - except money. Pavel Bure, who led the NHL in goal-scoring the last two seasons, was acquired yesterday evening from Florida in a deal that was stunning only for what went the other way. The Rangers did not have to part with anything of note off their current roster - including forward Mike York, who remains a candidate to be dealt to Edmonton for defenseman Tom Poti before today's 3 p.m. trading deadline. Instead, the Rangers gave up highly regarded junior defenseman Filip Novak, unwanted veteran defenseman Igor Ulanov, their first- and second-round picks in the 2002 entry draft and their fourth-rounder in 2003 for Bure and Florida's second-round 2002 pick. "We stole him," a stunned Theo Fleury said last night. "Thank God Yorkie's still here." Bure, who was meandering through a 22-goal season for the also-ran Panthers after leading the league with 58 and 59 the previous two seasons, wasted no time in rushing to the aid of a Rangers team that today stands two points behind Montreal for the final Eastern Conference playoff berth. The Russian Rocket boarded Garden CEO Jim Dolan's private plane last night in South Florida and was whisked to New York, where he will take part in this morning's skate and be in the lineup against Vancouver tonight at the Garden. "He's a constant threat - he's somebody that can score any time he gets the puck on his stick," Rangers GM Glen Sather said. "He's a superstar. He's an artist with the puck. He's a great player." Reached last night at his Westchester home, Rangers coach Ron Low was happily shocked that his boss had been able to make the deal without giving up a current Ranger other than Ulanov. "To me, it's absolutely amazing," Low said. "I'm kind of excited. He's an obvious talent - one of the best, if not the best, goal-scorer in the league right now. "He has had a tough year. But the biggest thing is: Is he excited to come? I'm sure he is." Bure, whom then-Rangers GM Neil Smith passed on acquiring when he held out and forced the Canucks to trade him in 1998-'99, did not have to restructure his contract in order to facilitate the trade. The Rangers will pay him the rest of the $10 million due him this season, $10 million more in each of the next two seasons and then hold a club option at $11 million in 2004-05. That option switches over to Bure if the Rangers advance a specified number of rounds in the playoffs. The six-time All-Star and three-time goal-scoring champ, who turns 31 on March 31, has eclipsed the 50-goal mark five times in his 11-year NHL career. In 651 career games, he has 406 goals and 323 assists. Long criticized for putting individual statistics before team play, he showed a defiant measure of leadership by leading the summertime threat of a boycott of the Olympics by Russian players unless Slava Fetisov was named coach. But he enraged Florida management with his apparent willingness to let the Panthers slide out of playoff contention this season. Even though Florida acquired his brother Valeri from Calgary before the season began, Bure did not play up to his talent level. And his no-show performance Sunday night in Ottawa just might have pushed Florida GM Chuck Fletcher and coach Mike Keenan over the edge. Having called Sather Sunday to tell him they were no longer trading Bure after nearly a month of back-and-forth between the teams, the Panthers phoned back yesterday morning to say they wanted to make a deal. Whether Bure will skate with Eric Lindros or Petr Nedved tonight is up in the air. That's because Sather isn't finished attempting to reshape his roster for the 12-game push for a playoff spot. "I really don't know where he's going to play until I find out what we've got after the trade deadline," Low said. "I firmly don't believe this is the last thing that's going to happen." Bure's Plus/Minus What the Rangers get: Plus Minus Bure's Career Highlights
No-Brainer, But Hopefully Same Can't Be Said of Bure's Heart The most negative thing you can say about Rangers GM Glen Sather's acquisition of Pavel Bure is: What a great deal. A steal right up there with anything legendary Montreal GM Sam Pollock ever brokered in any smoke-filled room at the old Forum. An absolute ripoff of Florida GM Chuck Fletcher and coach Mike Keenan, who might as well declare team bankruptcy now, for the Panthers have just as bright a future as K-Mart. A five-time 50-goal scorer for Igor Ulanov, junior defenseman Filip Novak and a trio of draft picks? That's it? If the Rangers had "accidentally" left Ulanov behind at the National Car Rental Center after their last visit to Sunrise, an irate maintenance guy from the Panthers would have called the Rangers at the airport to yell at them for trashing the visitors' room. The Ulanov move alone is addition by subtraction. As for Novak and the draft picks, we can pretty much forget any Rangers plans of building from the ground up. Neil Smith didn't do it. Sather wasn't going to. There is no use continuing to flog that expired equine, so throwing them into the pot makes sense. They would have been traded somewhere along the line, anyway, and maybe not for as elite a player as Bure. "We needed somebody to help push us into the playoffs," Sather said last night of his prized new possession. "He's one of the top four or five players in the NHL." Amazingly, Sather got his man without losing any significant player off the Rangers current roster, not that there were many of those anyway. Even if the Rangers don't make any more moves before this afternoon's trade deadline - and the underappreciated Mike York might yet be dealt - the Rangers just clinched themselves a postseason berth. Of course, that's what we all thought when the Washington Capitals "stole" Jaromir Jagr from Pittsburgh for prospects last summer. There comes a point when you have to worry if the desire that drives great players to such heights erodes and then becomes extinct. If you are making $10 million a year, what, exactly, do you have to try so hard for? It's not a question of talent with Bure, but of character and desire. These were questions no one ever had to ask of Joe Sakic or Wayne Gretzky or Mark Messier. Sather said he has no qualms about Bure. "He's a superstar," Sather said. "He's an artist with the puck. He's a great player." And yet, he's a gamble. Bure, who turns 31 on March 31, led the league with 59 and 58 goals in the previous two seasons. This year, even with the Panthers trying to make him happy by adding his brother Valeri to the roster, he has 22 goals in 56 games. Don't even bother to look at the other stats. Goals are the only thing that matters with Bure. He doesn't make other players around him better. He doesn't do little things that don't show up in the summaries to win games. He scores goals. Period. You have to wonder why the Panthers sold Bure like a used car with an illegal odometer. Whether you're buying a hockey player or an air conditioner, if a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. But you can't help but think that coach Ron Low's weekend playoff vow now looks more like a sincere promise than a desperate wish. Sather is not scared by Bure's prima donna reputation, his penchant for selfish solo plays or the fact that he has made the playoffs just once in the last six seasons with the Panthers and Vancouver Canucks (his first team, which he will face tonight at the Garden). It didn't bother him with Eric Lindros. All Sather needs is for Bure to show up for 12 games, and the Rangers will be busy after all in the playoffs. An inspired Bure will use his speed and his shot and his pure love of goal-scoring to help the Rangers' power play. He is also an intimidating shorthanded scoring threat, which will fire up the penalty killers. He can be, as Sather described, one of the rare few players in the game who can bring fans out of their seats night after night. Will Rangers fans actually see this passionate version of Bure? We find out, starting tonight.
Bure heading to Broadway Rangers president/GM Glen Sather got his man last night, and he got him at a discount price. Sather found a way to lure right winger Pavel Bure from the Florida Panthers before the trade deadline, and without giving up Mike York. Sather will need to use York if he is to also get Edmonton's Tom Poti, as expected, today. A source said the team's private jet was en route to South Florida last night to pick up Bure, who is expected to be in the lineup when the Rangers play his first NHL team, Vancouver, at the Garden tonight. In exchange for the mercurial five-time 50-goal scorer, the Rangers gave up defense prospect Filip Novak, 19; unwanted defenseman Igor Ulanov, 32; first- and second-round picks in this June's draft (considered thin, by the way) and a fourth-rounder in the 2003 draft. The Rangers also are getting a second-round pick from Florida. Sather called the negotiations "a roller coaster'' and said that the Panthers' coach, Mike Keenan, told him they weren't dealing Bure as late as Sunday. Yesterday, the Panthers called and restarted the talks. "He's a great player, one of the top four or five players in the league,'' Sather said. Bure did not renegotiate his contract, as the Rangers had originally asked when they agreed last week on a deal that included Novak, Ulanov and York. With the renegotiation out of the question, York was pulled out of the offer. Sather may have to give up York and Tomas Kloucek in a package that will bring Poti (whom Sather drafted) and another forward, perhaps Mike Grier or Todd Marchant, from the Oilers before today's 3 p.m. deadline. Bure, who turns 31 on March 31, scored 58 and 59 goals the last two seasons, capturing the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy as the league's leading goal scorer each season. He twice scored 60 with Vancouver, including 1993-94, when he took the Canucks to the Stanley Cup finals against the Rangers, scoring 16 goals and 31 points in the playoffs. He also had 51 goals in 1997-98. This season, though, Bure often looked disinterested and had just 22 goals and 49 points in 56 games. He was shopped by an ownership and management group that hadn't been with Florida when he was acquired. Bure was dealt from Vancouver to Florida in 1999 in a blockbuster that sent Ed Jovanovski, Dave Gagner, Kevin Weekes, Mike Brown and a first-round pick to Vancouver for Bure, Bret Hedican, Brad Ference and a third-rounder. At the time, Bure openly wanted to come to New York, but the price was deemed too steep in terms of young players by then-Rangers president/GM Neil Smith. Bure went to Florida and scored 13 goals in 11 games before suffering a knee injury. That kind of production is exactly what the Rangers need from what they hope will be a rejuvenated Bure. They have 12 games remaining, and trail Montreal by two points for the final playoff berth. The Rangers' offense has stalled for two weeks, with only Eric Lindros scoring among their top offensive players. While Bure is absolutely a one-dimensional threat - and one who carries much baggage with a reputation as a selfish, often disinterested teammate - he could be exactly what the Rangers need in the short term. "I heard the same things about Eric,'' Sather said, when asked about Bure's reputation, "and he's been great this year.'' Long-term, only time will tell if this acquisition will be too expensive in terms of dollars and future moves. Bure has two years remaining on his contract at $10 million per, with a team option for a third year at $11 million, when Bure will turn 34.
With Bure at $10 million next year, and Lindros coming in somewhere around $9.5 million, it will be interesting to see if Sather can still go shopping for free agents like Bobby Holik (who, by the way, has been negotiating with Devils president/GM Lou Lamoriello these past few days) or Bill Guerin, or even for his own Mike Richter. The Rangers are expected to free up some $7 million by not picking up the option for next year on Theo Fleury's contract, and could come across more money if Mark Messier retires or re-signs for less.
Quite a Bargain The Russian Rocket is a Ranger. And it didn't cost Glen Sather much. Pavel Bure, one of the NHL's most dynamic offensive players, was acquired by the Rangers last night from the Florida Panthers along with a second-round draft pick in June for castoff defenseman Igor Ulanov, defenseman prospect Filip Novak and the Rangers' first- and second-round picks this year plus a fourth-rounder in the 2003 draft. With 12 games left in the season and the Rangers two points out of eighth place in the Eastern Conference, Sather and the Panthers agreed on a deal that essentially takes no one off the Rangers' roster and adds Bure, who has five 50-goal seasons in his 11-year career. He had 22 goals and 27 assists in 56 games for Florida, which is second to last in the Eastern Conference. And now the pressure is on the newest Ranger and his teammates to make the playoffs and justify the team's ballooning payroll - including buyouts, a league source put the tab at just under $90 million, by far the biggest in the NHL. "It's been a real roller coaster of whether they were going to do it or not do it," Sather said last night during a conference call with reporters. The Rangers GM said he talked with both Panthers interim GM Chuck Fletcher and coach Mike Keenan, the former Rangers coach, during the last month. "[Sunday] they called and said they weren't doing the deal, then they called back [yesterday] and said they wanted to consider it again," Sather said. "I don't think over the last couple of weeks we thought anything would happen." But Bure's giant contract, which calls for him to earn $10 million in each of the next two seasons and has an $11-million option for 2004-05, and a recent ownership change in Florida made the deal possible. Bure turns 31 March 31 and his occasionally passionless play this season for a rebuilding team also made him expendable. "We needed flexibility on our roster," Keenan said. "We need to build a program and move forward. I'm excited for Pavel; it's a great opportunity for him. He will electrify their fan base and I think he will have a renewed interest and passion for the game." Bure was on his way to New York last night and will be in tonight's lineup against the Canucks, which is a bit of a coincidence because Bure made his name with Vancouver and hoped to join the Rangers in the 1998-99 season. Neil Smith wouldn't give up Manny Malhotra, so Bure went to Florida. "This was his objective three years ago," said Mike Gillis, Bure's agent. "It's funny this has taken such a circuitous route, but it has happened and Pavel's ecstatic." Gillis said he had spoken with Sather last week, when the GM inquired about restructuring Bure's contract - Sather wanted to tie some of the $20 million Bure will get the next two years to goals met, like reaching the postseason - but Gillis said no. Sather would not comment, but the Panthers are believed to be picking up all $4 million remaining on Ulanov's contract. The 32-year-old defenseman was a free agent signed by Sather in July who proved to be a bust with turnovers and unwise defensive plays. Ulanov was waived last month and sent to the minors for a short stint. Novak, a second-round pick in the 2000 draft, impressed the Rangers in his first training camp but was never a factor to make the team this season. He has 12 goals and 44 assists for Regina of the Western Hockey League. Mike York was rumored to be a central part of the deal, but Sather intimated the forward's name barely was brought up. "The only ones mentioning Mike York in this trade were you guys," he told reporters. With York still in hand, Sather may not be done dealing before today's 3 p.m. deadline. York has been rumored also to be involved in a deal with the Oilers for defenseman Tom Poti and by adding Bure without subtracting much, Sather may try for other deals. "We've still got a few hours left," Sather said. "A lot could happen by [this] afternoon." But for now the Rangers have Bure, who Sather called "one of the top four or five players in the league." "It should do an awful lot for us in almost every position because it makes us better," Sather said "We're more mobile, we're quicker. He'll make our team go." Where Bure will take them, and how quickly, is what's left to answer, starting tonight.
STAPLE GRADES BURE
Panthers send Bure to N.Y. in trade The Florida Panthers' first superstar era ended after three years Monday when they traded right wing Pavel Bure - the National Hockey League's leading goal scorer each of the past two seasons - to the New York Rangers. Bure was flying to New York and unavailable for comment Monday night. In return, the Panthers received veteran defenseman Igor Ulanov and defense prospect Filip Novak, as well as the Rangers' first- and second-round draft picks in June's draft and the Rangers fourth-round pick in 2003. Bure was the first Panther who was an international superstar. He is treated in his native Russia the way Michael Jordan is in the United States. Gossip columns in Europe and North America have chronicled his personal life, especially when he was dating tennis star Anna Kournikova. No Panther was as glamorous as Bure, the only one with a South Beach condominium. And glamour often trumps all in South Florida … everywhere but in the athletic arena. Winning is the high card there. The Panthers will miss the playoffs this season for the fourth time in five seasons. Average attendance is up from last season's 14,679 but only because of several free ticket promotions. The day when Panthers tickets were desired rarities that inspired fistfights is gone. ''Many of the fans I've talked to seemed to look back fondly on this team the first few years we were in the league, when we didn't have a star other than [goalie] John Vanbiesbrouck,'' Panthers interim general manager Chuck Fletcher said Monday night at a news conference. ''We had a bunch of players who played hard. The common factor for many of the fans I spoke to was we were competitive, we won games, we overachieved. The last few years, we haven't been able to achieve at all. We've been awful.'' ''Even with Pavel winning the Rocket Richard Trophy [given each season to the top goal scorer], the team could not win enough hockey games,'' Panthers coach Mike Keenan said. ''And, I think that's the basis from which you have to look at this. Pavel did his job, but we couldn't get the job done collectively over the course of some times now. It didn't make sense to build the team without a broader foundation than what we have.'' So the Panthers began calling around about a month ago. They found two teams willing to talk, the Rangers and the Dallas Stars. The economics of modern major professional team sports, especially the NHL, was already driving both sides toward a Bure trade. New York and Dallas already had large payrolls, but were on the verge of missing the playoffs. The playoffs are where NHL franchises make money, so missing them with a large payroll is more than an embarrassment in talent appraisal. ''The bulk of our team is under the age of 25,'' Fletcher said. ??We have a 31-year-old superstar who has made it difficult to acquire the assets to get better.'' Specifically, financially difficult. Bure's $10 million salary is just over 25 percent of the Panthers' payroll. It didn't leave much economic room for complementary players. The feeling in the economically conscious NHL these days is that if you have a $10 million player, you better have a $50 million roster. An individual player can't lift an NHL team the way one can, say a National Basketball Association team. For example, Washington traded for Jaromir Jagr, generally considered the world's best player, and might miss the playoffs. Even a massive payroll is no guarantee of success. If it were, there would've been no Bure market. Meanwhile, the Panthers wanted to trade Bure before today's NHL trade deadline. ''You have to remember, there will be several quality unrestricted free agents that teams can acquire without having to give up a player,'' Fletcher said. ''Simply by writing a check, teams can acquire the players they need instead of writing a check and giving you three or four assets.'' Rangers general manager Glen Sather said the Panthers called him back Monday morning. The deal was done around 5 p.m. Monday afternoon. As with other markets, the one for Bure has fallen in the last three years. The Panthers got much less than what they traded to Vancouver for him on Jan. 17, 1999. Then, the Panthers acquired Bure, defenseman Bret Hedican, defense prospect Brad Ference and a third-round pick from Vancouver for defenseman Ed Jovanovski, center Dave Gagner, goalie Kevin Weekes, prospect Mike Brown and a first-round pick. Even then, Bure was considered to be an extremely talented player who suffered from bouts of petulance and selfishness. That reputation wasn't changed with the Panthers, where Bure could be brilliant … 13 goals in his first 11 games, 10 hat tricks, two 50-goal seasons … but also disinterested. Keenan, a Bure supporter, implied as much at Monday evening's news conference. ''He's going to electrify the fans base [in New York] and he'll have a renewed interest and a new surge of passion for the game,'' Keenan said. Sather said, ''Even when he was in Vancouver, he wanted to come here. The biggest thing is he wanted to win.''
Trading pricey Bure is a good move for him and for the Panthers So now the last good reason to go to a Panthers game leaves South Florida, a bolt of lightning headed to New York. Pavel Bure, an artist and a star, packs up his gifts and takes them a little closer to the playoffs. Analysis can complicate trades like this, making them about heavy subjects like economics and chemistry, but Panthers interim GM Chuck Fletcher articulated why this trade was made with five simple syllables Monday night. ''We have been awful,'' he said, accurately enough. Bure was a diamond in a dumpster here, a Picasso hanging in a trailer home. Keeping him made as much sense as driving a Ferrari over to the welfare office. It is good that he is going, for him and for this franchise, although the Panthers ought to just forfeit the rest of this season. Fans don't want to hear about the future. When team executives start talking too much about the future, it is always because they don't want you looking too closely at their present. The Panthers wasted Bure's three years here, completely. They won exactly as many playoff games with him as they would have won if their right wing had been Oprah Winfrey. This tells you how flawed this team is, and how much in need of an overhaul: Even with Bure making that red light go off better than anyone in hockey, the Panthers have won zero playoff games with him -- in a sport, no less, in which everybody makes the playoffs, including franchises that no longer exist and some soccer teams. Why do you trade Bure? Well, because the Panthers are only better than Atlanta and Columbus, which have had franchises for about seven minutes. You can do that poorly without Bure and his $10-million-a-year contract. The Panthers have won 19 games. They'd have to win 19 straight games just to get over .500. You need not be very smart, or even have a functioning brain, to see that all of Bure's scoring doesn't appear to be helping them very much. ''Team game,'' coach Mike Keenan said. ``You need the right ingredients in the right roles.'' One man doesn't carry a team in hockey, not unless he happens to be protecting the goal in the playoffs. Washington traded for Jaromir Jagr and is under .500. Calgary has the league's leading scorer and isn't over .500, either. Phoenix lost all its stars in the offseason and is now a better team, and with half the payroll. The Panthers of Brian Skrudland, a faceless team without star power, taught us while knocking Jagr and Mario Lemieux out of the playoffs that chemistry is more important in this sport than any of the others. That said, you wish the Panthers could have gotten a little more for a superstar of Bure's caliber. All they received was a young minor-leaguer (Filip Novak) and an older player (Igor Ulanov), the latter of whom can't be very good if he's as an 11-year veteran who had spent time in the Rangers' minor-league system. The first-round pick the Panthers got from New York? The better Bure plays for the Rangers, the lower it will drop for the Panthers. The key to this deal was not Novak, no matter how good an offensive defenseman he promises to be, and no matter how rare offensive defensemen are. The key was freeing up Bure's salary to spend elsewhere, and in more than one place. This team hasn't won any more with Keenan than it did without him. Kennan hasn't lost like this since his first year as a coach. He needs more pieces, a lot more. Fletcher probably should have waited right up until today's 3 p.m. trading deadline, hoping a desperate team would push more to the center of the table, but here's why he didn't: He didn't want to get stuck with Bure, as odd as that sounds. The Panthers are, in their own way, just as desperate as the Rangers, who are fighting for a playoff spot and are pretty much in a perpetual state of desperation. The Panthers need help all over the ice except in goal, and teams might not be as eager to trade for him in the offseason, when they could get a top free agent by simply writing a check without having to trade anyone. They were going to be trading Bure, period. If the Rangers pull out -- and there weren't that many teams bidding for Bure -- then you still have a 19-win team and probably don't get a better offer in the offseason. ''We have multiple needs,'' Fletcher said, which is not unlike Enron saying it has multiple concerns. Better to let Detroit and its 57 Hall of Famers win the championship this year and regroup for future fights, building around goalie Roberto Luongo. We never really got to know Bure, polite and accessible as he was. He wouldn't let us. He was the most private athlete in South Florida sports, even as he dated Anna Kournikova. He revealed very little, dancing around even the most benign questions. He made the red light go off. That's all he cared for you to see. Keenan and Fletcher kept talking about the ''electricity'' Bure brought to the ice, using that word over and over, and now that he leaves they might as well turn off the power at their new arena for the rest of this season. But this trade promises to bring more winning later, at least partially because, mathematically at least, it is very hard to win less. Lost electricity? Winning, all by itself, is electricity enough. Bure, all by himself, was not.
Bure rarely fit in Pavel Bure's good looks, high-living style and touch of roguishness seemed as perfectly tailored for South Florida as his inevitably black suits were for his muscular 5-9 frame. Bure and the Panthers were rarely as neat a fit. It wasn't that he didn't provide the raw goal scoring expected. Bure scored 152 goals, second-most in Panthers history, in only 223 games. He had NHL-leading seasons of 58 and 59 goals, 10 hat tricks (there have only been nine others in Panthers history) and two four-goal games. His goals could be electric, his breakaways artistry. One of his earliest goals as a Panther, a no-angle shot from the corner off the shoulder of Philadelphia goalie John Vanbiesbrouck, actually caused yelps and gasps in a jaded press box. ''He's been a great player,'' Rangers general manager Glen Sather said. 'There are two guys in the game that can lift you out of your seat when they get the puck. [Dallas' Mike] Modano is one. He is the other.'' Every night, there was the threat Bure could rack up a hat trick, no matter the goalie. Last season, he had three-goal games against Buffalo's Dominik Hasek and Toronto's Curtis Joseph, both among the best at their craft. Joseph flat out admitted, ``Bure outsmarted me.'' But Bure was a $10 million gorilla in the locker room. Two coaches that fell out of his favor, Terry Murray and Duane Sutter, were fired after Bure seemed to stop playing for them. It was so blatant this season that teammates Ryan Johnson and Jeff Norton publicly criticized the Panthers ''top players'' last fall, a euphemism that anybody could identify as including Bure. As Bure sat out one practice in the stands while injured, a Panther was asked what the team's problem was. ''The problem is sitting in the stands,'' the player replied. Panthers coach Mike Keenan threw the onus back into the locker room. ''I've coached some of the best players in the game, and they all have individual idiosyncrasies,'' Panthers coach Mike Keenan said. ``Certainly Pavel has his own. Probably something this team has to learn is to accept their own individual differences, whatever they might be.'' The Panthers traded offensive left wing Ray Whitney a year ago because they knew they were going to trade for brother, Valeri, another small, offensive winger. Valeri Bure makes more than Whitney and has produced less over the past five seasons. Also, the Panthers began to rely on Bure's offensive production even as they found they couldn't rely on getting Bure's best on any given game night. His effort during practice was usually exemplary. His effort during games could be a sometime thing. Whereas some offensive stars will take a hit to make a play, Bure rarely did. There were times the Panthers gave up tying goals in the final minute while Bure cheated at center ice for an empty-net goal. Instead of working off the superstar and with the superstar, they often worked to the superstar. Open shots, even occasionally breakaways, were forsaken to get the puck to Bure. So, on those nights when the breaks were going against Bure or Bure was playing as if it were a pickup game, the Panthers rarely got it together. ''I think it's going to make us more accountable,'' Panthers center Jason Wiemer said. ``We don't have our one superstar. We have to collectively be better.''
Panthers trade Pavel Bure to Rangers
His face is on ticket brochures, billboards, buses, TV commercials and virtually every nook and cranny inside National Car Rental Center.
Now watch the turnstiles spin
"You're the best thing that never happened. ... It's really too bad."
Rangers pocket a Rocket We've seen some great hockey from Pavel Bure throughout the years, both here and in Florida. But the way he was talking after his trade to the New York Rangers Monday, you can't help thinking the best may be yet to come. He may not score 60 goals again, but this is an increasingly difficult era in which to score. And he says now he doesn't care about personal goals anymore. What you will see if Bure keeps his promises made to his new general manager Glen Sather yesterday in their conversation is a superstar in his prime doing everything to achieve team goals. "It took me nine years, but I finally got there," said Bure by phone from Florida while awaiting the private jet sent to Miami by the Rangers to pick him up. "Ever since '93 in Vancouver when I first asked for a trade it was my dream to play in New York and now it has come true. "It's the best situation I could get into. They're part of the Original Six. I have all my personal goals achieved but what I want to do now is win a Stanley Cup and Glen has won five. He knows what to do to win. I'll do anything he asks of me. I told him I'll score if he wants. If he wants me to check, I'll do that." As one of only six players in the NHL to have five seasons with more than 50 goals, Bure has proven he can score but he's well aware of those who doubt his commitment, even though he was plus-25 during his first season with 58 goals in Florida. "If I score 10 goals and win a Stanley Cup, I'll be very happy. This is a team I've wanted to play for now especially because I know they have a man who knows how to win and they have the money to make it happen." For his part, Sather pulled off a total steal. Finally putting aside his personal need to beat up a player financially before doing a deal, the GM gave up trying to get Bure to renegotiate. Instead he worked over Florida, getting them to pay at least a million of the third year in the contract if the Rangers activate it for $11 million US and he ended up making a better deal not having to give up Mike York. Sather was finally able to use the leverage a big-market team has in its ability to take on a huge salary. He simply waited until Florida had exhausted its other options to dump the salary and then picked up a great player for a first round draft choice. He waited too long on Jaromir Jagr -- for whom Washington has been offered Brendan Morrow, Darryl Sydor and a first rounder by Dallas -- but not on Bure. "The only sad part for me is leaving my brother," said Bure, knowing full well Valeri will be faced with a rebuilding team unless the rumours about him moving to Chicago today to be reunited with his old coach Brian Sutter come true. "We had fun here and I didn't really want to leave, but to go to New York is special." While Bure enjoyed the lifestyle in Florida, it was clear the Panthers' new ownership group wasn't going to spend the money necessary to build a winner. Instead they want to hit the re-start button and go young and inexpensive, which was the entire thrust of this deal. In taking back stiff Igor Ulanov, who was making $2 million per for the next two seasons, the Panthers didn't drop the whole $10 million from their payroll but they came pretty close. Bure had no idea with whom he will play in his first game, against the Canucks (4 p.m., SNP, CKNW), but by the sound of his enthusiasm he wouldn't care if it was Steve McKenna and Matthew Barnaby. "It's funny to be playing the Canucks because I have so many great memories of Vancouver. A lot of good things happened for me there to get me going."
Rangers acquire Russian Rocket Just when everyone in the National Hockey League was talking about how quiet the hours approaching the trade deadline were, the Russian Rocket took off for New York with a big bang. The Florida Panthers traded Pavel Bure to the New York Rangers in a blockbuster deal last night that may burst a log jam and see another NHL superstar, Jaromir Jagr of the Washington Capitals, with a new team by the 3 p.m. EST trade deadline today. The only other trade NHL insiders are betting will happen is the Edmonton Oilers' shipping out of 24-year-old defenceman Tom Poti. He has been a disappointment offensively for the second consecutive season and has alienated the local fans. Bure and a second-round pick in the 2002 entry draft were sent to the Rangers for defenceman Igor Ulanov, defenceman Filip Novak, a first-round pick in the 2002 entry draft, a second-round pick in 2002 and a fourth-round pick in 2003. "[Bure] gives us a strong presence for a playoff charge," Rangers general manager Glen Sather told the Sportsnet television network. "He'll be in my lineup [tonight]." Sather said later on a telephone conference call that his negotiations with the Panthers were "a roller coaster for the last two weeks." On Sunday, Panthers interim general manager Chuck Fletcher told Sather he was not going to trade Bure. The player's agent, Mike Gillis, said last night that he was also sure by yesterday that a deal was off. Gillis said Fletcher then told him the Panthers would try to trade Bure in the off-season. Bure was happy about the trade, Gillis said, because when the Vancouver Canucks traded him to the Panthers in 1999, he really wanted to go to the Rangers. But talks resumed by yesterday morning and a deal was hammered out over the afternoon. The Rangers were one of the few NHL teams willing to take on the $20-million [all figures U.S.] left on Bure's contract over the next two years. They have not made the playoffs for the past four years and are two points behind the Montreal Canadiens, who hold the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with 70 points. The Canadiens have one game in hand on the Rangers. Bure will make his Broadway debut tonight when the Rangers play the Canucks at Madison Square Garden. He led the NHL in goals the past two seasons, but had only 22 goals in 56 games with the Panthers this season. Ulanov is a well-travelled 30-year-old veteran whose play has alternately disappointed and angered Rangers head coach Ron Low this season. Novak, a 19-year-old defenceman the Rangers selected 64th overall in the 2000 entry draft, is playing for the Regina Pats of the Western Hockey League. The Rangers were willing to give up Novak because another of their defence prospects, 18-year-old Fedor Tutin, who was taken in the second round of the 2001 draft, is playing well for the Guelph Storm in the Ontario Hockey League. The Dallas Stars and St. Louis Blues were also in the bidding for Bure, and once he was traded, Washington Capitals general manager George McPhee began getting calls about Jagr. It could not be confirmed that Stars GM Doug Armstrong and Blues GM Larry Pleau were chasing Jagr, but sources in Washington said trade talks about Jagr were being held last night.
Rangers land Bure The New York Rangers, three points out of an Eastern Conference playoff spot, made the first major move before today's National Hockey League trade deadline, acquiring sniper Pavel Bure from the Florida Panthers. New York was able to make the deal without dismantling its roster, sending defenceman Igor Ulanov, a bit player who spent time in the American Hockey League last month, blue-line prospect Filip Novak, currently with the junior Regina Pats, and three draft picks (first- and second-round choices this year and a fourth-rounder next year) in exchange for Bure and a second-round pick this year. The Rangers hope that the addition of Bure, who led the NHL in goal-scoring the last two seasons, will help carry them to the playoffs for the first time since 1996-97. New York is currently ninth in the Eastern Conference, three points behind Montreal heading into last night's play. "I'm very excited to be getting Pavel Bure," Rangers general manager Glen Sather said last night. "He gives us a strong presence for a playoff charge." Bure, however, brings few guarantees other than the $US10-million he will be paid over the next two years. While he scored 152 goals in 223 games with Florida, the Panthers haven't won a playoff game, let alone a series, since 1996. And with a salary that accounted for one-quarter of the Panthers' payroll, he was the logical starting point for Florida's rebuilding efforts. "We needed some roster flexibility and it's a great fit for Pavel going to New York," Panthers coach Mike Keenan said. "I talked to Pavel about this quite some time ago and if there was a choice, this would be his number one choice. I'm sad to lose him, [he's] a 50-goal scorer." The Bure deal -- or, more specifically, the reaction to the Bure deal -- could rescue what was expected to be a quiet deadline day. NHL insiders claim it's a seller's market this year, but the buyers are being asked for too much. "There isn't much out there to buy right now," said Washington Capitals GM George McPhee. "But you never know what can come up between now and Tuesday." Economics have changed the landscape, with the Rangers one of the few teams unaffected. Team budgets are struck during the off-season and there is little left over for late-season shopping. Colorado's acquisition last year of defenceman Rob Blake near the deadline enabled the Avalanche to win the Stanley Cup. And Bure might well lead the Rangers into the playoffs. But the pickings after Bure appear to be slim. Teams with fading playoff hopes, such as Calgary and Pittsburgh, could change the market if they decide it is time to start looking to next year. The Flames could deal defenceman Igor Kravchuk (US$2.25-million), clearing salary room for Jarome Iginla this summer. The Penguins, meanwhile have been in a budget crunch all season, which makes dealing defenceman Darius Kasparaitis (US$1.15-million) and forward Robert Lang (US$2.9-million) probable. "I'll certainly be standing by my phone, making calls and taking calls," says Penguins GM Craig Patrick. Detroit might be first in line for Kasparaitis because it has the cash and prospects -- much more so than the Leafs -- to make the transaction. But GM Ken Holland has balked at Patrick's asking price. Dallas might squeak into the playoffs, but the Stars aren't likely to go anywhere this spring, which is why Joe Nieuwendyk is being offered around. Ed Belfour might go, too. Some of the free agents-to-be -- Tony Amonte in Chicago, Bobby Holik in New Jersey, Bill Guerin in Boston, Teemu Selanne in San Jose -- could be staying put, with the possible returns in a deal not significant enough to break up a successful team. "We've been to war with pretty much everybody in this room before in the playoffs," Oilers forward Mike Grier said as the deadline neared. "We think we can get it done with these guys. "It's up to [GM] Kevin [Lowe] but I think everyone really loves the team that we have here."
Avs coach Bob Hartley doesn't have to fret. "The only good part about coaching: you don't get traded," Hartley told the Denver Post. "But that's something that players have to learn to deal with. It's part of our business."
Game Preview: Rangers versus Vancouver Canucks
With both teams battling for the final playoff positions in their respective conferences, Tuesday's match-up between the Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks is an important one to say the least. The Blueshirts currently sit in the ninth spot in the East and trail the Montreal Canadiens by two points with 12 games remaining on their schedule. Vancouver trails the Dallas Stars for the eighth and final spot in the West by one point.
RANGERS vs. VANCOUVER CANUCKS MARCH 19, 2002 MADISON SQUARE GARDEN - 7:00 PM ET  After joining his newest mates at today's practice at Madison Square Garden, Pavel Bure is set to make his Rangers debut tonight against the team that he broke into the NHL with back in 1991 - the Vancouver Canucks (7:00 PM ET, MSG Network, WFAN 660 AM).
With both teams battling for the final playoff positions in their respective conferences and the NHL trade deadline looming, tonight's match-up between the Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks is an important one to say the least. The Blueshirts currently sit in the ninth spot in the East and trail the Montreal Canadiens by two points with 12 games remaining on their schedule. Vancouver trails the Dallas Stars for the eighth and final spot in the West by one point.
The Canucks are rolling of late and are unbeaten (4-0-0-0) in their last four games, including a pair of weekend wins -- 4-2 in Atlanta and 3-2 (OT) at New Jersey.
LIFETIME SERIES:
RANGERS vs. CANUCKS - QUICK HITS:
Vancouver 3, NY Rangers 1 Pavel Bure's Broadway debut was upstaged by Todd Bertuzzi and the NHL's hottest road company. Bure scored in his first game for the New York Rangers, but Bertuzzi recorded his second career hat trick as the Vancouver Canucks continued a perfect road trip with a 3-1 victory at Madison Square Garden. Acquired on Monday night from the Florida Panthers, Bure arrived in New York amid hopes he could rally the Rangers to their first playoff berth in five years. He got help at the trade deadline as New York general manager obtained defenseman Tom Poti and left wing Rem Murray from Edmonton for center Mike York. Bure put the Rangers in front midway through the second period, but the rest of the night belonged to Bertuzzi and the Canucks, who improved to 5-0 on a road trip that concludes Thursday on Long Island. "Tonight was a very big task for us, especially with the Pavel trade and the atmosphere in the rink," Bertuzzi said. "I guess I'm a party pooper." Reigning NHL Player of the Week Dan Cloutier stopped 26 shots against his former team, helping Vancouver jump past idle Dallas into the final Western Conference playoff berth. "We're in no position to be complacent, no matter how many wins we have on the road," Bertuzzi said. "We're not satisfied, and we can't be because we're in no position to be satisfied." With Mike Richter battling the flu, rookie Dan Blackburn made 19 saves as New York fell into a ninth-place tie with Buffalo in the East, two points behind Montreal for the last postseason spot. The Rangers have lost four straight and six of their last seven games (1-5-0-1). "Obviously, I'm not satisfied with the loss, but everybody was ready to play and we had lots of chances," Bure said. "We need to finish them off." Bure finished off one of his team-high seven shots, but the rest of the Rangers struggled to find the net. Defenseman Brian Leetch show wide of an open net in a scoreless first period as New York wasted a 52-second two-man advantage. The Rangers ended up 0-for-5 on the power play. "I don't think our power play was up to snuff," New York's Eric Lindros said. "We had a 5-on-3 and a number of chances where we could have got the power play clicking. Our special teams have to pick up the pace." Bure delighted the crowd 10:41 into the second period. After Lindros broke up the middle and drew two defenders, Bure whacked a loose puck from the high slot past defenseman Mattias Ohlund and between Cloutier's pads for his 23rd goal. "There was a great amount of emotion with it being my first game as a Ranger and scoring my first goal," said Bure, a former Canuck who wore No. 9 in his New York debut. "I felt really great." Bertuzzi tied it less than four minutes later, rifling a low slap shot from the top of the right faceoff circle through traffic that beat Blackburn to the glove side. It was his 26th goal, surpassing the career high he set each of the previous two seasons. Vancouver grabbed the lead 3:14 into the third period on Bertuzzi's second of the night. After skating out of the left corner, he slipped the puck between Bure's legs in the faceoff circle and shoveled a backhander past Blackburn's right arm. "I really walked out and didn't know what to do," Bertuzzi confessed. "I slipped through (Bure) and just tried to get it on net, and it found its way in." Cloutier preserved the lead during a Rangers' power play just over five minutes later when he lunged and snared Martin Rucinsky's rebound with his glove. "He was there when we needed him and he came up big when the situation called for it," Canucks defenseman Ed Jovanovski said. Bertuzzi completed the hat trick by scoring into an empty net with nine seconds to play. One of the NHL's emerging power forwards, he has six goals and six assists in his last six games. "Things come easy when those guys are playing well," Bertuzzi said.
"As a line, we're getting tremendous amount of ice time, and offensively we are getting our chances."
Vancouver spoils Bure debut
March 21, 2002 - Corel Centre TV: MSG Network (6:30 PM ET) RADIO: WFAN 660 AM or on-line at newyorkrangers.com ____________________________________ March 19, 2002 - Making his Rangers debut at Madison Square Garden, Pavel Bure did what he was brought to New York to do ... score. Unfortunately, the Blueshirts needed more than Bure's 23rd goal of the season to stop the streaking Vancouver Canucks, who rallied behind a natural hat trick by Todd Bertuzzi to down the Rangers, 3-1, on Tuesday at MSG. Dan Blackburn, making his first start in the last six games, turned aside 18 of 20 shots on the night, while former Ranger Dan Cloutier stopped 26 of 27 shots in posting his fourth consecutive win. The game was important for both teams as the Rangers and Canucks find themselves in a late-season dogfight to make the playoffs. The Blueshirt loss, combined with a 5-1 Buffalo Sabres win over the Ottawa Senators, creates a tie for ninth place in the East bewteen the Rangers and Sabres (68 points), who trail the idle Canadiens by two points. For Vancouver, the win marks their fifth consecutive victory, all coming on their six-game road trip which ends on Thursday on Long Island. The Canucks now sit in the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, a point ahead of the Dallas Stars. The Rangers travel to Ottawa following Wednesday's practice, where they will face the Senators on Thursday at the Corel Centre (7:00 PM ET, MSG Network, WFAN 660 AM). QUICK HITS: * The Rangers are 18-16-2-1 at MSG; The Canucks are 17-18-1-1 on the road. * Bure made his Rangers debut, skating on a line with Eric Lindros and Theoren Fleury ... His goal marked his 50th point of the season - the eighth time in his career he has reached the 50-point plateau. * Lindros and Fleury collected assists on Bure's second period goal. * Bertuzzi's three goals marked the second hat trick of his career ... His 28 goals establish a career-high. * Daniel Sedin collected a pair of assists on the night. * Lost in the shuffle on Tuesday, the Rangers announced the signing of University of Alaska-Fairbanks (CCHA) stand-out center Bobby Andrews to a professional contract
Game Recap: Rangers versus Vancouver Canucks
Making his Rangers debut at Madison Square Garden, Pavel Bure did what he was brought to New York to do ... score. Unfortunately, the Blueshirts needed more than Bure's 23rd goal of the season to stop the streaking Vancouver Canucks, who rallied behind a natural hat trick by Todd Bertuzzi to down the Rangers, 3-1, on Tuesday at MSG.
Post Game Notes: Rangers versus Vancouver Canucks
QUICK HITS:
Bure: 'I will do what I can to help' An overjoyed Pavel Bure had just one concern when he joined the New York Rangers on Tuesday: Would his choice of a No. 9 jersey offend anyone? Bure, traded to New York from the Florida Panthers on Monday, participated in the Rangers' morning skate to get ready for the game against Vancouver. The 30-year-old Russian forward laughed as he chatted on the bench with Brian Leetch and Theo Fleury, and furrowed his brow in deep concentration as he talked strategy with new linemate Eric Lindros. "I'm here to help the team make the playoffs," Bure said. "I can tell you, I will do what I can to help. I will do whatever the coach and the GM want me to do." The only glitch was working out his jersey number. Bure asked Rangers GM Glen Sather on Monday if he could wear No. 9, made famous by former Montreal Canadiens forward Maurice "Rocket" Richard. The NHL trophy named after Richard -- awarded to the league's leading goal scorer -- has gone to Bure the past two seasons. The last Ranger to wear the number was the beloved Adam Graves, and Bure was extremely concerned he'd insult the veteran, now with San Jose. But Graves gave his blessing to a Rangers public relations executive, and Bure hoped to thank him in person after leaving a cellphone message. "It's a good number," Bure said, smiling. No. 10, which Bure wore in Florida, is worn by Sandy McCarthy. "I don't think the number really matters to him," McCarthy said, adding Bure had not approached him. "He's going to score lots of goals either way." Bure, often described as quiet and aloof, looked like an excited little boy as he was introduced by Sather. "It's great to be part of the New York Rangers -- one of the original six teams," Bure said. "It's been a dream of mine for such a long time." Bure began dreaming of playing with the Rangers when he first took the ice at Madison Square Garden in 1992. "I saw how great the fans were, how the building was crazy," Bure said. "Plus, New York is the greatest city in the world. For a long time, I've wanted to be here." Sather, smiling and smoking a cigar, knew he'd pulled off a deal of a lifetime. Besides Bure, he got back from Florida a second-round draft pick for 2002. He gave up only little-used defenseman Igor Ulanov off the club's NHL roster and turned over minor league defenseman Filip Novak along with three draft picks. "I'm happy we were able to get Pavel without hurting our team," Sather said, grinning. Sather also made a trade with Edmonton on Tuesday, giving up Mike York and a fourth-round pick in this year's draft for defenseman Tom Poti and forward Rem Murray. Bure is counted on to help take the slumping Rangers into the playoffs. New York began the day two points behind Montreal for the eighth and final playoff spot in the East. "This is a team game," Bure said, dismissing questions of feeling pressure. "There are 20 guys. One guy can't turn it around." Yet he feels New York will provide him with a fresh start after scoring just 22 goals this season. Bure finished the last two seasons with 59 and 58 goals, respectively. "While Pavel can't carry us," coach Ron Low said, "he definitely adds to the whole overall scheme." Low said Bure will play on the power-play and the penalty-kill units. The Rangers, weak offensively, are particularly poor on special teams. "Oh, we're only hoping for 20 goals," New York center Petr Nedved said, joking about the expectations. But Nedved added the trade provided "a big lift" to the team. As for learning how to play with the speedy, creative Bure, the Rangers have had little preparation. "Right now, we don't have the bonus of time," Lindros said. "We have to find something real soon. We've got to win the majority of our (final) 12 games -- if not eight or 10." Bure said he's up to the task of getting to the postseason.
"I've been in this league 11 years and I haven't won the Stanley Cup," he said. "I want that and that's what the Rangers' organization wants, too. We're on the same page there."
Panthers aggressors in trading away Bure The Rangers didn't have to make a final push to complete the Pavel Bure deal because it was the Panthers who pulled them back to the bargaining table. ''This was a tough trade for them to do,'' Rangers general manager Glen Sather said. ''(Sunday) they called and said they weren't doing the deal, and then they called back (Monday) morning and wanted to know if they could get it back on the drawing board.'' Out of the playoff hunt and clearly in the midst of a major rebuilding campaign, the Panthers undoubtedly reached the conclusion that a $10 million-a-season superstar was a luxury they could no longer afford. Theoretically, the money saved could be used to acquire unrestricted free agents this summer. Although Chuck Fletcher is the team's general manager, and Mike Keenan is coach, Keenan, a former GM, is playing a big role in the decision-making. Sather confirmed that he talked with Fletcher and Keenan in making the deal. Said Fletcher: ''Pavel is one of the greatest goal scorers in the history of the game, but we have several needs that must be addressed, and this move will give us the flexibility to do that.'' There was media speculation the Rangers would have to part with prize youngster Mike York to land Bure, but Sather said, ''The only people mentioning Mike York was'' the media. The Panthers surrendered four players -- including Ed Jovanovski and Kevin Weekes -- to obtain Bure from Vancouver in 1999. Considering the Rangers didn't have to surrender anyone significant off their roster, the price for Bure seems inexpensive. ''Trading draft picks isn't always as cheap as it seems, and (Filip) Novak is a good prospect,'' Sather said of the defenseman they gave up. ''Both teams are happy with the deal.''
Bure will be the biggest name moved before today's 3 p.m. ET trade deadline, but other intriguing players still could move, including Pittsburgh's Robert Lang and Darius Kasparaitis. Both can become unrestricted free agents, though the Penguins say they have a case to appeal Kasparaitis' status.
Bure Reacts to Blueshirt Blockbuster
Is Bure Superman? Sure Superman is faster than a speeding bullet and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. The question, really, is this: If you were to put Superman in a New York Rangers sweater, could he score 50 goals in a season? Fans of the Rangers will certainly tune in to see if newly acquired sniper Pavel Bure, the "Russian Rocket," has the payload capacity to lift the Blueshirts to new heights. But, if you're Bure, be aware that the track record of other 50-goal scorers has not been impressive once they don the red, white and blue of the Rangers. In fact, pulling a Rangers sweater over a player's head has been akin to tying kryptonite around Superman's neck. Consider this: the Rangers have had 21 players on their roster since 1970 that either played or came to New York with that prized 50-goal spot on their resume. Only two Rangers have ever scored 50 goals in a season -- Vic Hadfield did it in 1970-71 and Adam Graves, during the Rangers' magical Cup season of 1993-94, set the club's single-season goal mark at 52. Take a look at the 19 remaining players on that 50-goal list. Some of the players are Hall of Famers, future Hall of Famers or the kind of guys you remember and say, “Gee, he was a good hockey player.” Let's stroll down memory lane shall we? The list includes: Phil Esposito, Mike Gartner, Mark Messier, Wayne Gretzky, Pierre Larouche, John Ogrodnick, Boom-Boom Geoffrion, Guy Lafleur, Marcel Dionne, Blaine Stoughton, Jari Kurri, Bob Carpenter, Tim Kerr, Glenn Anderson, Luc Robitaille, Pat Lafontaine, Theo Fleury, Kevin Stevens and Bernie Nicholls. You have to take that list and understand that guys like Dionne, Kerr and Lafleur where brought in at the end of their careers. In Lafleur's case he came out of retirement. These were players the Rangers took a flier on just to see if they could rekindle their magic one more time. But Robitaille certainly looks like he's back on form. And The Great One? The most he could manage was 25 goals in 1996-97. In fact, Gretzky missed cracking the 100-point barrier during his time with the Rangers. He came close twice, scoring 97 points in 1996-97 and 90 points the next season. In fact, the Rangers have had just four players crack the century mark in points, including two in the same year. Jean Ratelle is the team's single-season point leader with 109 in 1971-72. Mike Rogers notched 103 in 1981-82. Mark Messier put a scare into Ratelle's record when he scored 107 in 1991-92, that season Brian Leetch also managed 102 points. Speaking of Messier, he is often referred to as "The Messiah" in New York. Messier is an incredible leader, a man who, at the top of this game, could seemingly will his team to win. He promised New York an end to its 50-year Cup drought and he delivered. Messier, it would seem, is the only big-name player the Rangers have acquired who has not felt the effects of kryptonite. Will Bure be next?
If the Russian Rocket does lift off on Broadway, it will be a true testament to his skills.
Can Russian Rocket make Rangers go? No These were some of the headlines Sunday in New York: "Rangers need plan, not Pavel," said the Daily News. "Trading for Bure Not the Solution," said Newsday. And Glen Sather did it anyway. The Rangers' general manager went ahead and traded for Pavel (the Russian Rocket) Bure, who becomes the latest expensive, enigmatic underachiever on Broadway. How perfect would it be if he plays on a line with Theo Fleury and Eric Lindros? "Let a high-priced, heavy-baggage player enter the trade market," the Daily News' Sherry Ross wrote Sunday, "and the Rangers are drawn to him like Anna Nicole Smith to a 90-year-old billionaire." In a sense, this deal is a steal. Sather didn't even have to give up Mike York. All he sent to south Florida for the Russian Rocket were a paltry prospect (Filip Novak), a disappointing defenseman (Igor Ulanov) and draft picks. Although one of the picks is a first-rounder, so what? Those aren't a lot of assets. The rich Rangers are basically picking up the hefty contract from the poor Panthers, who couldn't afford to pay Bure $10 million a year. The Rangers have become a better team in the short term. Not only could they make the playoffs, they could make some noise in the playoffs. But they still have too many holes to be considered a Stanley Cup contender. And, in the long term, the trade might backfire on them. Bure has 22 goals this season, after leading the league with 59 and 58 goals the past two seasons. With better players in New York, he should score more. But will he suddenly start playing defense? Will he suddenly start taking shorter shifts? Will he suddenly become an unselfish superstar? These are big questions. The Rangers always seem to go out and get players first, then try to fit them in later. They seem to have none of the Red Wings' touch with chemistry. They hit the jackpot the first time they acquired Mark Messier, but not the second. Fleury's behavior has been bizarre, to say the least. As good as Lindros is, he isn't the force he once was. "Chasing the hot name," Newsday's Shaun Powell wrote Sunday, "often causes you to get burned."
Stats Class: How good is Bure? A friend of mine who is an intense New York Rangers fan nearly went into convulsions when hearing the Blueshirts had acquired Pavel Bure. "But he doesn't play defense!" A few other choice words were offered about Bure's lack of toughness and unwillingess to help in the defensive zone. Indeed, with the Rangers just two points out of the playoff race in the East, it would seem they needed to add defense, not more offense: they've allowed 3.10 goals per game, 29th among the 30 teams. On the other hand, the Rangers are 11th in scoring (2.70 goals per game). Despite Bure's prolific goal scoring -- he has more goals over the past three seasons (139) than any player in the league -- his reputation around the NHL has been declining, especially for a player making $10 million per season. In analyzing the trade, ESPN's Darren Pang wrote, "Bure has many detractors in the NHL, and they are mostly the players that he plays against and with. He has become a one-dimensional 'cookie monster,' who has conveniently cut the ice in half." Strong words. Sounds like my friend. But, the ultimate question is this: Does Bure make his team better, even with his problems on defense? It's a difficult question to answer, but by breaking down some statistics and comparing Bure to other players, we can get an idea of his value to a franchise. We'll compare Bure to the other top five goal scorers over the past three seasons -- Jaromir Jagr (121 goals), Joe Sakic (106), Brendan Shanahan (105), Jarome Iginla (103) and Mike Modano (103) -- by looking at each player's plus-minus compared to his team's plus-minus. Plus-minus removes power-play goals scored and allowed to give us the goal differential while the player is on the ice in even-strength situations. By checking the team's plus-minus, we can see how he performs compared to the rest of his teammates. Here's Bure, with his games played and plus-minus, his team's overall plus-minus, the team's plus-minus when Bure wasn't on the ice and the goal differential with Bure vs. without Bure. Pavel Bure
Year Games +/- team w/o Diff.
+/-
2000 74 +25 +24 -1 +26
2001 82 -2 -28 -26 +24
2002 56 -14 -35 -19 +5What do the numbers mean? In 2000, Bure (and his linemates, of course) turned what was essentially a mediocre team into a good team: the Panthers finished fifth in the Eastern Conference with 98 points. The team was plus-24 and Bure was plus-25, as he ranked second in the NHL in scoring. There is no doubt he made the Panthers better. In 2001, Bure was just minus-2 ... but the team was minus-26 without him. The Panthers were bad when he wasn't on the ice but played almost even-handed when he was on the ice. Again, I would say he helped the team. This year has been a different story. The Panthers are once again awful, but Bure hasn't raised the level of the team; they're almost as bad when he plays as when he doesn't. While the knocks against his defense are valid, it's a lack of offensive production that is bringing down his plus-minus: he scored 59 goals in 82 games last season, but has just 22 in 56 games this season. Here are the other players: Jaromir Jagr
Year Games +/- team w/o Diff.
+/-
2000 63 +25 +7 -18 +43
2001 81 +19 +27 +8 +11
2002 56 -5 -24 -19 +14The best comparison to Bure is Iginla, a right winger on a non-playoff team. When Iginla is not on the ice, the Flames are even worse than the Panthers: an atrocious minus-34. But Iginla is plus-29, an amazing 63-goal differential when he's on the ice. He may be the best player in the league this year and it's safe to say that Bure is not in his class as an all-around player. These numbers also validate Sakic's MVP trophy from last year. While it's easy to rise above lousy teammates, Sakic managed to rise above good teammates, creating a 33-goal differential compared to his teammates when on the ice. That is a sign of greatness. As for Bure, there are questions that cannot be answered, such his motivation and how quickly he'll fit in with the Rangers' system. Will he squeeze the Blueshirts into the playoffs? My best guess is if he plays like he has this season with the Panthers, the answer is no; if he elevates his game back to previous levels, it just may be enough to get the Rangers the eighth seed.
Ïàâëà Áóðå ñòàë "Ðåéíäæåðâì"
 íî÷ü íà âòîðíèê ôîðâàðä "Ôëîðèäû Ïàíòåðñ" è ñáîðíîé Ðîññèè Ïàâåë Áóðå áûë îòïðàâëåí â "Íüþ-Éîðê Ðåéíäæåðñ". Çà ñâîåãî ëó÷øåãî èãðîêà "Ïàíòåðû" ïîëó÷àò íåâûñîêóþ êîìïåíñàöèþ, íî èìåííî îíè îñòàëèñü èíèöèàòîðàìè ñäåëêàìè, ãëàâíîé öåëüþ êîòîðîé áûëî âûñâîáîæäåíèå îò îáÿçàòåëüñòâà ïëàòèòü äåñÿòèìèëëèîííóþ çàðïëàòó "Ðóññêîé ðàêåòå" â òå÷åíèå åùå äâóõ ëåò.
Bure: 'I will do what I can to help'
Bure did not disappoint in his first game with the Rangers. The same could not be said about the rest of the Rangers, who squandered Bure's 23rd goal of the season in a disheartening 3-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks. Todd Bertuzzi of the Canucks had his second career hat trick as the Rangers lost their fourth straight and sixth in their last seven games. "I know we're going to score goals," Bure said after the Rangers went 0 for 5 on the power play and could not score on a 52-second two-man advantage early in the first period. "We had so many chances on the power play. We will score." If they don't start soon, the Rangers will miss the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season, a drought that would tie the franchise record. At 30-33-4-4 and with 11 games left in the regular season, the Rangers are 2 points behind the Montreal Canadiens in the battle for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Buffalo, which defeated Ottawa, 5-1, pulled into a tie with the Rangers for ninth place. The Canadiens and the Sabres hold two games in hand on the Rangers. Vancouver (34-28-6-3) won its fifth straight on a six-game trip, beating goaltender Dan Blackburn, who started because Mike Richter was ill. Bertuzzi's second goal of the game broke a 1-1 tie at 3 minutes 14 seconds of the final period. He scored on a nifty backhand after he making an even better backward move through the right circle to slip the puck between Bure's legs. The defeat was punctuated by loud chants of "Low must go!" in reference to Rangers Coach Ron Low. But after the events of the previous 24 hours, the loss seemed anticlimactic. The Rangers acquired Bure from Florida on Monday evening, then traded Mike York and a fourth-round draft choice to Edmonton for Tom Poti and Rem Murray just before yesterday's 3 p.m. trading deadline. "It's like a dream come true," Bure said after yesterday's early skate. "I'm as excited as I was when I entered the N.H.L. 11 years ago." But not even the presence of Bure could awaken the Rangers last night. Bure, who led the league in goals the past two seasons with 59 and 58, was acquired to ignite the Rangers' offense, which has scored two goals or fewer six times in the last seven games. Bure tried to dispel the perception that he is a selfish player. "I have two desires," he said. "I've been in the league 11 years and I haven't won the Stanley Cup. That's what I want to do. And I want to try to score 500 goals." Bure, who finished with a game-high seven shots in 28:38 of ice time (the most of any forward), scored No. 407 at 10:41 of the second period to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead. Bure, who skated on a line with Eric Lindros and Theo Fleury, flashed a broad smile on the bench as he watched a replay. "I think everyone knows what he can do from a goal-scoring standpoint," Mark Messier, the Rangers' captain, said before the game. "But he knows how to play a complete game. I've seen him do it. That's what makes him so intriguing. He can do everything. Our job is to get that out of him consistently." Referring to the 1994 Stanley Cup final, in which the Rangers beat Bure and the Canucks in seven games for their only championship since 1940, Messier said: "The thing he's lacked since 1994, I feel, is being in a competitive situation. Unfortunately, I guess you can say that about a lot of us." SLAP SHOTS MARK MESSIER, who underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left shoulder on March 1, skated with his teammates yesterday for the second consecutive day. GLEN SATHER, the Rangers' president and general manager, estimated that Messier, 41, who had been thought to be out for the regular season, could be ready to play in 10 to 14 days. That would mean Messier could be available for the final five regular-season games. "I fully anticipate being back for the start of the playoffs," he said. "I'm hopeful I can be back before. But that might be a little aggressive thinking."
Rangers' New No. 9 Isn't Enough With the Vancouver Canucks and the Florida Panthers, he wore No. 10, but as Pavel Bure scored the Rangers' only goal in a 3-1 loss to the Canucks last night, he was wearing No. 9. "Rocket Richard, I won twice his trophy," Bure explained, referring to leading the National Hockey League in goals. "I think it's a good number." No. 9 was once the N.H.L.'s most notable number. Maurice Richard, the Rocket, wore it. So did Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull and the Rangers' Andy Bathgate. More recently, Adam Graves wore it with the Rangers, but he's with San Jose now and none of the other Rangers was wearing it. Sandy McCarthy wears No. 10, so Bure got Graves's blessing to wear No. 9. The Rangers aren't the number-retiring type. Only two hang in the Madison Square Garden rafters: goaltender Ed Giacomin's No. 1 and right wing Rod Gilbert's No. 7. Someday the Rangers will presumably retire Mark Messier's No. 11, Brian Leetch's No. 2, Mike Richter's No. 35 and maybe No. 9 in Graves's honor, if not in Bathgate's and Bure's honor. But only if the Russian Rocket can help generate the Rangers into consistent Stanley Cup contenders, not merely lift these ragged Rangers into next month's playoffs. Bure's one goal last night wasn't enough to snap the Rangers' slump; they've scored only 11 goals in winning one of their last seven games.
By himself, Bure can't turn these Rangers into a Cup contender. They need more than Bure's swooping shots, no matter how many goals he scores. They need more than defenseman Tom Poti and center Rem Murray, acquired yesterday from Edmonton in a trade for forward Mike York. The Rangers need somebody like the Messier of a decade ago, when he arrived from Edmonton with all those Stanley Cup rings and measured his teammates for their 1994 rings. There's nothing in Bure's r?sum? to think he'll be the leader that Messier was, but he can score - 407 goals now over his N.H.L. career, including two seasons of 60 as well as 59, 58 and 51. But this season he has scored only 23 goals. Nearly 31, is he on the downslide? Or was he just disinterested on a pitiful Panthers team? And will he reawaken as a Ranger? "It was my dream to play with the Rangers since the first time I played in Madison Square Garden, in '92," he said. "We had the Cup final here in '94, plus New York is New York, the capital of the world. And I have two desires. I've been in the league 11 years and I haven't won the Stanley Cup. That's what I want to do. And I want to try to score 500 goals." The closest Bure has come to the Cup was that 1994 finals that turned on Richter's sprawling save on Bure's penalty shot in Game 4 at Vancouver. But for all his goals, Bure has detractors. They whisper that he doesn't backcheck, that he doesn't always hustle, that he's an aloof personality in the dressing room, that he lacks desire and dedication. In last night's loss, Bure was victimized on Todd Bertuzzi's winning goal, saying, "He came out of the corner and went around me." But Messier, the injured Rangers captain, who often skated on a line with Bure when both were with the Canucks, lauded his attributes. "These should be the peak years of Pavel's career," Messier said after yesterday's early skate. "The thing he's lacked is not being on a competitive team since '94. His conditioning is unrivaled. He could play 60 minutes if he had to. The Russian players that came up in that Red Army era about a decade ago, they learned respect for the game. They're professional in their preparation." Of the Rangers' 27 shots in their fourth straight loss, Bure took 7 of his line's 12 shots; Theo Fluery had 3 and Eric Lindros 2. "Pavel's a smart player," Lindros said later. "He's good with the puck, he's confident. He's just going to get better." Bure doesn't have much time. Only 11 games remain on the Rangers' treadmill to the Eastern Conference's final playoff berth. "It's been a long time," Messier said, "since an electrifying guy like him has been here. He's got a style unlike anybody I've ever played with or seen. He can play in any situation. It's our job to get that out of him consistently, especially now with everything riding on it." To Messier, who hopes to recover from shoulder surgery in time for the playoffs, that "everything" is the stretch run that resumes tomorrow night in Ottawa. And Pavel Bure knows his role. If you wear No. 9, it's because you can score goals.
Big Deal!
And if not shaken, then certainly not stirred; certainly not stirred enough to invest more than a pedestrian effort in a match that required the utmost urgency from everyone in uniform. And as such, despite the Broadway debut of Pavel Bure, the Rangers dropped a 3-1 game that extended their losing streak to four and dropped them into 10th place with 11 games to go. Having won one of the last seven and three of the last 13, they remain two points behind the eighth-place Canadiens, who hold two games in hand, and are now tied with the Sabres, who also have two more games to play than the Blueshirts. But, really, with so many players engulfed in deep slumps and by an obvious loss of confidence, the standings seem almost irrelevant. Because the fact is this: on a night that had all the potential to become an occasion, the Rangers only occasionally played as if they really cared. Hours before the game and minutes after he had said good-bye to Mike York, traded to Edmonton for Tom Poti and Rem Murray - who will join the team for tomorrow night's match in Ottawa - Ron Low talked about the significance of both that deal and the one for Bure. "The obvious message sent to the dressing room is that we are not going to let this thing flounder; we're going after the playoffs," he said. "It's up to us in the dressing room to do the rest. "There's going to have to be a real heart-and-soul effort from here on out from everybody. There are no excuses." Well, the Rangers did not get that effort and there are no excuses for any of them, including Low, who again gave way too much ice time to the painfully struggling Petr Nedved and barely visible Martin Rucincky while allotting way too little to infantrymen Sandy McCarthy and Matt Barnaby. The most blue collar of Blueshirts don't get on enough and the rest don't do their jobs well enough. Bure, who is wearing No. 9, received a very warm reception, skated with Eric Lindros and Theo Fleury (talk about struggling), played 28:38, scored to give the Rangers a temporary 1-0 lead at 10:41 of the second, and was beaten badly one-on-one by Todd Bertuzzi in his own end on the winner at 3:14 of the third before the big Vancouver winger completed a hat trick on an empty-netter. "Obviously, I'm not satisfied with the loss, but I felt pretty good," said Bure, whose every shift created an air of anticipation in the otherwise quiet arena. "Was there pressure? There's always pressure in the NHL." Yes, Brian Leetch did muff an empty net, and yes, Rucinsky did shoot one directly into Dan Cloutier's glove while the Vancouver netminder lay prone on his belly, but the Rangers hardly stormed the Bastille. They never do. They were 0-for-5 on the power play, overpassing and making their customary poor decisions. Day One of the Bure Era has come and gone. The Rangers played as if they hardly noticed.
Spirited Bure can't prevent another loss Pavel Bure started his first night with the Rangers with a fresh outlook, buoyed by the trade to the team he always wanted to play for and anxious to make a good impression. He ended his night mumbling about missed scoring chances and wasted opportunities, the same things his teammates have complained about for weeks. It was the perfect baptism. Bure scored the Rangers' only goal in their 3-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks last night at Madison Square Garden. He played a spirited, up-tempo style with linemates Eric Lindros and Theo Fleury and had seven shots on goal to lead the team. He worked hard, he kept his feet moving, he got the most ice time of any forward, more than 28 minutes. He enjoyed significant power-play time, taking on roles at the point and down low. On most nights, that's a successful debut for anybody. But not when there isn't much else going on to support that kind of performance. The Rangers are losers of four in a row now -- and nine of their last 13 -- and are sliding out of playoff contention in the East. They're tied today with Buffalo for ninth place in the East, but are really in 10th because Buffalo has two games in hand. They are struggling to score goals, even with a collection of world-class talent on their roster, and have 11 games left with which to work as they try to avoid missing the playoffs for the fifth year in a row. Desperation is lurking in their dressing room. Even a newcomer such as Bure feels it, although he is more confident than anyone that things will turn around. "We had lots of chances, and we need to finish them off," Bure said. "I know we're going to score goals. We had so many chances on the power play and five-on-five. Sometimes the goalie (Dan Cloutier) made a great save but sometimes we missed the net. "We will score." Earlier in the day, head coach Ron Low said the acquisition of Bure was meant in part to show the Rangers that management tried to improve the team, and the players should respond. Low wasn't unhappy with the effort, but the goal drought is getting to him. "You have got to find ways to put the puck in the net. When we had chances, we didn't do it," Low said. "I don't know how you fix that." More performances like Bure's should at least help. Bure pulled on his No. 9 sweater yesterday morning -- only after calling former Ranger Adam Graves for permission to wear his former number -- and swore his allegiance and commitment to his new team, for which he has wanted to play for years. "This was my dream for such a long time, to be a part of it, and my dream came true," Bure said. "I wanted to play here from the first time I played at Madison Square Garden in '92. Then we had a big final here in '94, and I saw how the fans were. Plus, New York is the biggest city, the capital of the world. For a long time, I wanted to be here. "I've got two desires. I've been in the league 11 years, and I haven't won a Stanley Cup. The Rangers want to win a Cup, so we're on the same page. I also want to score 500 goals. These two things are very important to me." Playing well defensively was not on that list, and Bure was beaten out of the corner in his own zone by Todd Bertuzzi for the eventual game-winner. Concerns about Bure's penchant for such lapses have dogged him, as have opinions that he is selfish and aloof. Mark Messier sees something different in Bure. Messier played with Bure in Vancouver, and believes Bure can embrace the job. The team needs someone to come up big and guide them to a playoff spot, and Messier does not doubt that heart and desire are as much a part of Bure's game as anyone else's. "I don't think you can question whether he wants to win or not. He took that team (in Vancouver) to the Cup in '94," Messier said. "It's been a long time since he's been in that kind of situation. He finds himself in a situation now where the games mean something. "I think the thing he has lacked is being able to be competitive. It's been since '94. Unfortunately, I guess you could say the same about us. It should be a rallying cry for all of us. Let's have fun again."
He scores, they lose One of the many parts of Pavel Bure's complicated reputation is that he can keep it exciting in both ends of the rink. Last night, in his Rangers debut, Bure did that and the Rangers lost an enormous game, 3-1 to the Vancouver Canucks at the Garden. With 11 games remaining, the Rangers fell into a ninth-place tie with Buffalo, which has two games in hand, as does eighth-place Montreal. The Rangers have won one of their last seven games, and since the Olympics they have lost six of eight at home. They are three under .500 for the first time this season, and on a four-game losing streak overall. Rangers coach Ron Low said his players are "squeezing their sticks too tight'' and, yes, goal-scoring has been the root of the problem lately. "It's been desperation time for a long time,'' Eric Lindros said. "It's time to get some wins now.'' "Regardless if we play well or poorly,'' Brian Leetch said, "we have to find a way to get some points.'' With all their dealing, the Rangers left themselves undermanned for a huge game. Since Tom Poti and Rem Murray couldn't possibly make it from Edmonton, and with Mike York headed north, the Rangers were short-handed. Complicating that was a stomach flu that hit goalie Mike Richter hard, forcing the Rangers to go with teen-ager Dan Blackburn. Bure wore Adam Graves' still-warm No. 9, he said, in honor of Maurice "Rocket'' Richard (Bure has won the Richard Trophy as the NHL's goals leader the last two years). Bure spoke to Graves in San Jose via phone before making that decision, rather than asking Sandy McCarthy to give up his No. 10, which was Bure's number in Florida and, for a while, in Vancouver. Halfway through the second period of a scoreless game, Bure did what he's handsomely paid to do. Vladimir Malakhov stole the puck in the Rangers' end and sent Theo Fleury up the left side. Fleury found Lindros in the slot, but Lindros was double-teamed, and dropped it off. Bure jumped on the puck and slapped it through the pads of ex-Rangers goalie Dan Cloutier to a huge ovation, his first goal as a Ranger at 10:41. It was the second time in nine games in which the Rangers scored first. But the Canucks got it tied less than four minutes later when Todd Bertuzzi scored the first of his three goals. In the third, Bure's shortcomings were exposed. Bertuzzi came out of the corner, put the puck through Bure's skates on his way to the slot, and backhanded a shot past Blackburn on the short side for a 2-1 lead at 3:14. Bertuzzi added an empty-netter.
"We have to score more goals than one,'' Bure said.
Sather steals star who may actually help Rangers The fault, Shakespeare told us, lies not in ourselves but in our stars. Last night, Pavel Bure made his dramatic debut, taking the puck from Eric Lindros and blasting a quick shot past Dan Cloutier to open the scoring in the Rangers' game against Vancouver. Then Todd Bertuzzi scored twice for the Canucks and the Rangers were denied two precious points. The Rangers, 3-1 losers when Bertuzzi added an empty-net goal, are running out of time. With only a dozen games left in their season, they were desperate to climb up just one more slot in the conference standings and make the playoffs for the first time in five years, so they did what they've always done and brought in the brightest star they could find. Rangers president Glen Sather stole Bure from Florida, where he spent the last four seasons, for a handful of nothing, making this a very good deal. "We needed somebody to help push us into the playoffs," Sather said. "He's a superstar. He's an artist with the puck." Last night, he showed he can be the kind of scoring threat Jaromir Jagr might have been here if Sather hadn't let him slip to Washington last summer. Bure has flaws, but that's why he was available, why any star becomes available. Philadelphia worried about Eric Lindros' fragile skull. Colorado didn't want to deal with Theo Fleury's personal problems. Florida tired of Bure's reputation, one he shares with Jagr, as a player who doesn't maximize his tremendous talents. The Panthers, buried deep in the conference standings, were willing to ship him here and save the $10 million they'd owe him in each of the next two seasons. "I don't think any of us will ever play with a guy who treated the game like Pavel," Trevor Kidd of the Panthers said the day after the trade. "That's the nicest way to put it. He's put a lot of goals into the net the last couple of years, but he didn't do very much toward getting us where we wanted to go." Bure was the last one to show up at the rink, and the first one to leave. "Anybody that doesn't think this organization did the right thing by trading Pavel, if they spent five minutes in the dressing room, they wouldn't be speaking negatively about it," Kidd said. "He gives you goals," he added, "And that's all." For the Rangers, a team that can't put the puck in the net anymore, that would be enough. Bure, with 407 career goals, won't do the little things that don't show up in the box scores. He won't dig the puck out of the corners, or level an opponent with a vicious check. But the Rangers won't ask him to. They can afford his attitude, and the salary that just makes him another high-priced star here. "We know what kind of player he is and what he's capable of," said Mark Messier, still the Rangers' unquestioned leader. "Everybody remembers '94 and what he did." Eight years ago, when Messier was leading the Rangers to the promised land, they met Bure and the Vancouver Canucks for the Stanley Cup. "He took that team and carried them to the finals," Messier said. "He was a preoccupation for us every time he stepped on the ice." That was the last time the Rangers or Bure advanced that far in the playoffs. "He knows how to play a complete game," Messier said. "I've seen him do it. It's what makes him so intriguing. It's our job to get that out of him on a nightly basis." Just scoring would be more than enough. Bure has scored 50 goals or more five times in an 11-year career, including each of the last two seasons when he led the NHL. And, just about to turn 31 years old, he can do it again. That would be a very big difference. The Rangers have brought in 20 other 50-goal scorers over the years, from Boom Boom Geoffrion to Phil Esposito to Marcel Dionne to Guy Lafleur to Wayne Gretzky. But not one of them ever scored 50 goals for the Rangers. "This is a fresh start," Bure said yesterday before he played his first home game at Madison Square Garden. "I'm happy to be here. I've got two desires. I've been in the league 11 years and haven't won the Stanley Cup. I'd like to do that. And I want to try to score 500 goals. "Those two things are very important to me." Making the playoffs now is very important to his team. "There's a breath of fresh air in the room," Rangers coach Ron Low said. "They know we've gone out and done something to make our hockey team better. Management has gone out and done their jobs. It's time for us to do ours." Last night, though, they lost ground again. They lost their fourth in a row and sixth of their last seven. It wasn't the star's fault. Pavel Bure scored.
He just couldn't win.
Bure Scores Goal in Rangers Debut
Todd Bertuzzi ruined Pavel Bure's night in every way.
Bure Nets First Goal & Mistake New, gaudy bauble to display. Same unsightly result to add to the heap. Pavel Bure scored a goal in his Rangers debut, momentarily lighting up the building he long desired to call home. But he and linemate Eric Lindros - the previous "stolen" superstar who was supposed to change the fortunes of this team - both committed own-zone mistakes that led to Todd Bertuzzi goals in a 3-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks last night in the Garden.
The defeat was the Rangers' fourth straight, dropped them to a season-low three games under .500 and left them two points behind idle Montreal for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot. The Rangers have just 11 games remaining to Montreal's 13. And don't look now, but the Buffalo Sabres are coming up from behind. Buffalo, which also has 13 games left, beat Ottawa last night to move into a tie with the Rangers. Given loads of ice time as the right wing on a big-money line with Lindros and Theo Fleury, Bure showed off his entire repertoire - both the good and bad of his game. There was plenty of the former - threatening rushes, shots galore and a perceptible rise in the Garden's noise level every time he collected the puck.
But the latter became evident when Bure was turned inside out by Bertuzzi early in the third period, enabling the power winger to whisk a backhand shot past Dan Blackburn for the goal that broke a 1-1 tie. Bertuzzi completed his hat trick with an empty-net goal and sealed the surging Canucks' fifth straight victory on a six-game trip that ends tomorrow at Nassau Coliseum. "It was nice to score my first goal," Bure said. "But I would rather have had a victory." The loss ended a day that had begun with so much glee for the Rangers. Making a rare public appearance, Cablevision chairman Jim Dolan had this to say about Bure's acquisition: "This just reaffirms our strategy and that we have a great president and general manager (Glen Sather) and we have all the confidence in the world in him. Our plan is to continue to support him with whatever resources he deems necessary in order to move the team forward." Dolan made no such unsolicited proclamations about coach Ron Low, who again heard chants for his head from disgruntled fans. Low, however, is powerless to fix what currently ails the Rangers most: Bure or no Bure, they can't finish nearly enough of their chances, scoring just 11 goals in their last seven games. Brian Leetch had the first golden opportunity with half an open net off a cross-ice feed from Petr Nedved on a power play 6:52 into the game. Leetch hit the outside of the net with his one-time shot. Martin Rucinsky then flubbed a chance from the slot with Vancouver goaltender Dan Cloutier out of position. And in the third period, with the Rangers trailing, 2-1, Rucinsky had Cloutier on his belly but couldn't flip a point-blank shot over the goalie's catching glove. "The effort is there, for sure," Low said. "But we've got to find a way to put pucks in the net. I don't know how you fix that." Sather tried by acquiring Bure. And the Russian Rocket came through 10:41 into the second period, smacking a drop pass from Lindros through Cloutier's pads to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead. But when Lindros broke his stick behind the Rangers net four minutes later and then cut in front of goaltender Dan Blackburn, he created the screen at the other end that enabled Bertuzzi to tie it. And 3:14 into the third, Bertuzzi beat Bure badly in the left circle and then whisked a backhand shot past Blackburn to give Vancouver the lead it held to ruin what had begun as a dream day for the newest Ranger. How race for final playoff spot in East shapes up over final three weeks: Canadiens (70 points) Rangers (68 points) Sabres (68 points) Bure's Night Goals: 1
Panthers: Bure did not fit team As soon as a person leaves the room, those remaining talk about him -- and usually not in the most complimentary of terms. So it was in the Panthers' locker room about Pavel Bure the day after the right wing's trade to the Rangers. And the strongest criticism of the departed icon of the Panthers' National Car Rental Center era came from a departing icon of the Panthers' Miami Arena era. As for Bure, he was happy to be in New York, where he made his Rangers debut Tuesday night against his first NHL team, Vancouver. 'It's a great honor to be part of the Rangers' organization, an Original Six team,'' Bure said. ``This is my dream for such a long time, to be a part of it. And my dream came true. ``I have two desires. I've been in the league 11 years and I haven't won a Stanley Cup. The Rangers want to win a Cup, so we're on the same page. I also want to score 500 goals. These two things are very important to me.'' Just after left wing Bill Lindsay was picked up on waivers by Montreal, tonight's Panthers opponent, he eviscerated Bure. ''Pav's not a bad guy off the ice,'' Lindsay said. ``He's a good guy. There's nothing wrong with him. Heck, he's making $10 million and he had to be our guy. If our $10 million [guy] doesn't care . . . Even if he doesn't think we have a good team, I would've been much more appreciative if he could've given me a little more.'' Lindsay's comments were echoed around the room, but without the emotion. Perhaps no other Panther had the emotional investment Lindsay had in this season. He was trying to resurrect his career and trying to help the franchise with which he has spent seven NHL seasons. ''The one experience I've had with winning was that Stanley Cup run [in 1996],'' Lindsay said. 'I can look at every one of those guys and say, `Thank you, man. You gave me your all.' If the team didn't succeed, so be it. 'If I have to shake Pav's hand, I don't know if I could do it and tell him, `Thanks for everything,' '' Lindsay continued. ``Because, in a way, he hung me out to dry. Because he's better than that and he knows he's better than that. I hope he goes to the Rangers and proves what he can do.'' As far as Panthers' goalie Trevor Kidd is concerned, what Bure can do could fit on a Post-It. ''Everyone that's been around him knows what he brings to the table,'' Kidd said. ``That's goals. And that's it.'' Bure had an amazing 130 goals in 167 Panthers games going into this season. In 1999-2000 and 2000-01, he won the Rocket Richard Trophy (Top Goal Scorer). But the two years were quite different. In 1999-2000, Bure was December's NHL Player of the Month. Most of his goals put the Panthers ahead in games or were at least scored at meaningful times in games. Last season, 40 of Bure's 59 goals came after the Panthers had six wins in their first 36 games. The consensus of NHL scouts is that unless Bure is scoring, he is a liability because he won't do the little things. ''He can play a complete game,'' said Rangers center Mark Messier, a Bure teammate in Vancouver. ``He knows how. I've seen him do it. Our job is to get that out of him on a consistent basis.'' Kidd compared Bure unfavorably to Colorado's Joe Sakic and Anaheim's Paul Kariya. ''They're solid goal scorers, but they offer so much more to the team, the organization,'' Kidd said. ``We tried hard to include Pav in everything we did as a team. Sometimes, that went unnoticed. ``He is a quiet guy. He does his own thing. But, somewhere along the line, there does have to be some give and take.'' Funny, but Messier said the same thing in New York on Tuesday. ''This is a little bit of a marriage,'' Messier said. ``He has to understand that. You can't play the game as an individual. You need your teammates. He needs to respect what's going on around him.'' Panthers captain Paul Laus said the team thought having brother Valeri Bure around would bring Pavel closer into the family unit that is a team. The distance between Bure and most of his teammates remained as great as the distance between Bure's South Beach residence and the Broward/Palm Beach County homes of the other Panthers. ''He's just a private guy,'' Laus said. ``We all knew that.'' Nobody expected Bure to turn into a megaphone-barking cheerleader when he was named co-captain with Laus by then-coach Duane Sutter. But some captains lead by example rather than or in addition to voice and charisma. 'You just can't say to a guy, `You're our superstar, you've got to be this way,' '' Laus said. 'It's like going to [skinny rookie] Kristian [Huselius] and saying, `OK, Kristian, we need you to fight.' You just can't put that into someone. Everybody has a certain role on this team. And I just didn't think [Bure] was comfortable with it.''
Players won't miss Bure
Pavel Bure exhilarated South Florida hockey fans by leading the NHL in goals for two consecutive seasons, but there were few tears shed over the Russian Rocket's departure from the Panthers' dressing room Tuesday.
Deal was a tough call, Cohen says
While Panthers majority and rookie owner Alan Cohen admitted Tuesday that trading Pavel Bure was a difficult decision, he said he couldn't be concerned about potential fan backlash.
Bure welcomes shot at big-stage stardom There's no stage like Broadway. Dramas and comedies, operas and musicals. What better place for the unpredictable Pavel Bure to strut his stuff than Madison Square Garden? "What he really finds exciting about New York is that attention -- playing on this stage with everything that's on the line for us and being the guy who can be the difference," injured New York Rangers forward Mark Messier said Tuesday of being reunited with Bure, acquired from Florida on Monday night in a multi-player swap. "People who want to compete want to come here to play. It's a long time since we've had an electrifying guy like him here." Well, there is Eric Lindros, Theo Fleury, Petr Nedved and Messier. But they've all failed to ensure the Rangers will make the playoffs. And, with Bure set to pocket $31 million over the next three seasons, bumping the payroll to a staggering $67.3 million, the Russian Rocket had better be in blast-off mode, the way he was in the spring of 1994 for the Vancouver Canucks. That's when the Rangers needed seven games to ground Bure and capture the Stanley Cup. However, Bure had just 22 goals in 56 games with the Panthers before being dealt for defencemen Igor Ulanov and Filip Novak, plus first- and second-round picks in 2002 and a fourth-rounder in 2003. The Rangers also get a second-round 2002 pick but must hope Bure, who turns 31 on March 31, can regain the form he showed in back-to-back 60-goal seasons with the Canucks in 1992-93 and '93-94. Bure was saying all the right things Tuesday. "I didn't ask for a trade but I'm happy it happened," he said after donning a No. 9 jersey in admiration of the late Rocket Richard, whose trophy he's won twice as the NHL's top goal scorer. "I've got two desires. I've played 11 years, haven't won a Stanley Cup and I want to score 500 goals. The first time I played in Madison Square Garden was in 1992. I saw how great the fans were and the building was crazy. "Plus, New York is New York. It's the greatest city in the world." How great Bure can be is open to debate. He still has blinding speed and the ability to embarrass defenders one-on-one. But what of his will? "Some people expect me to score 60 or 70 goals every year, and even 40 is hard," he said. "I've had a lot of injuries this year and you can't compare it to two years before. It's a fresh start for me and I'll do whatever the coach and GM want me to do." Coach Ron Low didn't know whether the Rangers could pull off the deal, which had been rumoured for the past week. "It's phenomenal," said Low. "It's something we've needed badly since (Radek) Dvorak went down (knee surgery). [Bure] can't carry us but it's an absolute bonus. It's a breath of fresh air in the room." The Canucks' Trevor Linden had Bure as a linemate in '94 and believes the selfishness rap the Russian carries is a product of his productivity. "He can make something out of nothing and no one loves to score like Pavel," said Linden. Said former Bure teammate Markus Naslund: "One of the greatest all-time goal-scorers and a world-class player." benkuzma@hotmail.com DRY EYES There were few tears shed in the Florida Panthers locker room over Pavel Bure's departure. A day after he was traded to the Rangers, a number of Panthers said he was a distant teammate who showed no leadership and little commitment to the team or winning. "Any fan or anybody that doesn't think the organization did the right thing by trading Pavel, if they spent five minutes in the dressing room, they wouldn't be speaking negatively about the trade," goaltender Trevor Kidd said. "I'm disappointed playing with Pavel this year," Bill Lindsay said minutes after finding out Montreal had claimed him off waivers. "Ten million dollars, I expected more from him. ... Pav's not a bad guy off the ice. ... There's nothing wrong with him but, heck, he's making $10 million and he had to be our guy. If our $10-million guy doesn't care, we're not going to win." Told about his ex-teammates' comments before making his Rangers debut Tuesday, Bure said: "Everybody has their opinion. ... Would I say something bad about them? No, I would never do that ... because I think it's no class. Look at where this is coming from."
Rocket, Schmocket; Bertuzzi's got the firepower Pavel Bure was good. Todd Bertuzzi was better. Bertuzzi scored all three goals in a 3-1 Vancouver Canucks victory over the New York Rangers Tuesday, ruining the coronation of Bure and leapfrogging his club back into a playoff spot. On a night when Bure was supposed to be the main story, Bertuzzi stole the show with the second hat trick of his career. "Todd was a force out there and he has been for a long time now. It's great to see the way he is playing and we are riding him right now," said Markus Naslund. "He's been using his size but he's also got great finesse. He's a unique player, he's got the skill of a little guy but the size of a big guy." The best example of Bertuzzi's excellence on this night was the game-winning goal 3:14 into the third period. He took the puck from Daniel Sedin in the corner and beat Bure to get to the slot, hoodwinking the former Canuck by slipping the puck through his legs and walking around him. "I just walked out, really didn't know what to do, and slipped it through. I just tried to get a shot on net and it went in," said Bertuzzi, who has seven goals and three assists on this trip. An empty netter with just seconds remaining in the game gave Bertuzzi his 28th goal of the season, a career high. Rangers defenceman Brian Leetch was impressed by the Canucks as a whole, but especially by Bertuzzi. "Everybody knows how big and strong he is, and as soon as he gets body position on you that's the type of things he can do," said Leetch. "He can create offensive chances by himself just by his strength, by getting position." Four years after leaving Lower Mainland hockey fans in the lurch after his refusal to ever play for the Canucks again, Bure had the only New York goal but was his usual consistent self, eye-popping at one end of the ice and disinterested at the other. Bure logged almost 29 minutes of ice time but finished the game minus-2. "I felt pretty good," said Bure. "Obviously I'm not satisfied with the loss, but we had lots of chances and we need to finish them off. "I felt really comfortable. There was a great amount of emotion -- my first game as a Ranger and scoring my first goal. I felt really great." Overlooked by the performances of Bure and Bertuzzi was the solid play of Dan Cloutier in the Canucks net. Cloutier turned aside 26 shots for his 24th win of the season and was outstanding, especially in the second period when the Rangers dominated. But his best save came with the Rangers on the powerplay midway through the third period when a rebound popped loose to the left of his goal. Cloutier was face down at the time but was able to get his glove hand in the air to rob Martin Rucinsky from eight feet out and the top half of the net wide open. "This one was definitely satisfying," said Cloutier. "We are 4-0 on the road coming into Madison Square Garden and they get a new player, a superstar player, with a playoff-type atmosphere out there. But we found a way to win. Give our team credit, we didn't give up and we got the goals when we needed them." Vancouver also got great performances from the Sedin twins. They teamed up with Bertuzzi on his first two goals, with Henrik outmuscling Eric Lindros despite giving up two inches and 40 pounds to set up the first one. "They played excellent, they have been playing really good for a while now," said Bertuzzi. "Hank battled down low with Eric both offensively and defensively, and the same with Danny, and they created a lot of chances." With one game remaining on this road trip the Canucks have a chance in Long Island on Thursday to do the unthinkable, post a perfect 6-0 record. That was their goal when they left Vancouver 10 days ago; they knew they had get at least nine of a possible 12 points to have a chance at securing that final playoff spot in the Western Conference. "We are not satisfied though, we can't be. We are in no position to be satisfied," said Bertuzzi. "We have to forget about this game, it's over with, and prepare ourselves for the Islanders because they aren't the same team they were before. We have to make sure we are ready for that one and end this trip on a good note." ICE CHIPS: The Rangers went 0-for-5 on the powerplay, with their best chances coming in the first period ... Vancouver held New York to just three shots on goal in the third period ... Bure had seven shots on goal, but none in the third period ... New York was credited with 26 blocked shots.
Canucks rain on Pavel's parade Todd Bertuzzi knew the Rangers would be riding high after adding six-time all-star Pavel Bure to their roster. He was determined to spoil the debut. Bertuzzi scored all three Vancouver goals as the Canucks beat New York 3-1 Tuesday night. "Tonight was a big task," Bertuzzi said, "especially with the Pavel trade." Ed Jovanovski, who played a solid and physical game against Bure's linemate, Eric Lindros, also took note of the occasion. "There was a lot of excitement in the air before the game, with Pavel coming to play for New York," he said. "He can really raise the emotional level for the crowd and the team. We came in there and played a calm game. We weathered the storm." Bertuzzi's final goal was scored into an empty net with 8.2 seconds left, giving the Canucks their fifth straight win -- all on the road. Vancouver moved past Dallas into eighth place in the Western Conference. Bure electrified the crowd and gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead, but New York flubbed a chance to tie idle Montreal for the eighth and final playoff spot in the East. The Rangers are tied with Buffalo for ninth place with 11 games remaining -- all against Eastern Conference foes. "I felt pretty good although, obviously, I'm not satisfied with the loss," Bure said. "We had lots of chances, we just didn't finish them. Sometimes that happens." Bure, acquired from Florida on Monday, was the best player on the ice for the Rangers, showing bursts of speed and puck sense not seen all season. He finished with 28:38 of playing time, second only to Brian Leetch's 29:02. "Oh, he's definitely talented," Lindros said. "He takes lots of shots, which is good. There are lots of rebounds up front when they're not going through to the net. He's quick and strong on the puck. I think things are just going to get better." After a strong first period, Bure scored at 10:41 of the second after a nifty back pass from Lindros. Defenceman Vladimir Malakhov got the puck out of trouble in the Rangers' end and passed to Theo Fleury along the boards. Fleury found Lindros with a centring pass, and Lindros left the puck in the slot for Bure, who rifled it through the legs of Dan Cloutier. In celebration, Bure lifted his stick and then his other arm before collapsing into an ecstatic embrace with Fleury as the Madison Square Garden crowd roared. Bure, who said it was "a dream come true" to be introduced as a Rangers player Tuesday morning, smiled as he watched the highlights of his 23rd goal of the season on the video monitor. "There was a great amount of emotion -- my first game as a Ranger and scoring my first goal," Bure said. "I felt really great." Dan Blackburn, starting in place of an ill Mike Richter, was screened as Bertuzzi scored his 26th goal of the season to tie the game 1-1 at 14:34 of the second. Bertuzzi, who has 10 points on the Canucks' road trip, fired it past Blackburn's glove side. Bertuzzi gave Vancouver the lead at 3:14 of the third, making a swift move to pass the puck to himself around Bure and then backhanding in the game-winner for his 27th goal. "That was an unbelievable play by Bertuzzi," Rangers coach Ron Low said. Bertuzzi hardly planned to deke Bure. "I walked out and didn't really know what to do," he said. "I slid the puck through him and tried to get it on net. I'm lucky it went through." The Rangers showed why they need a finisher like Bure. In the third period, on a power play, Martin Rucinsky missed a wide-open net. Fleury, Malakhov and Leetch missed open chances early in the first period. Bure made perfect passes to Fleury and Malakhov. "Tonight, I had an empty net. Rucinsky had an empty net," Leetch said. "You only need to create a couple of chances and capitalize on them." The Rangers were 0-for-5 on the power play. "The power play has to score tonight, it's imperative," Low said.
Bure gets tough role in N.Y. The movie is the same, only the actors have changed. In the latest version of the National Hockey League's It's a Mad, Mad World we have Pavel Bure in the title role, playing the former 50-plus goal scorer acquired by the New York Rangers to fix all that is wrong with the ailing franchise. According to team historians, Bure is the 21st former 50-goal scorer acquired by the Rangers either through free agency or via trade. And were he to ever register a 50-goal season in a Ranger uniform he would become the first of his ilk to do so. Luc Robitaille, Tim Kerr, Jari Kurri, Guy Lafleur, Wayne Gretzky and Phil Esposito -- to name just a few -- have come into New York as "saviours" and never lived up to their previous exploits. This is the world that the 31-year-old Bure enters, one with immense pressure and steep expectations for those in the spotlight, especially those who earn $10 million US a year. At least 40 reporters squeezed into a small room in the bowels of Madison Square Garden to hear Bure's first words as a member of the Rangers Tuesday morning. He also joins a team that is fighting for it's playoff life, rooted in a fierce battle with Montreal and Buffalo for the last spot in the East Conference. "I can tell you one thing, I'll do the best I can to help the team. I'll do whatever the coach and general manager ask me to do, whatever is needed to help the Rangers make the playoffs," said Bure on Tuesday. "Some people expect me to score 60 or 70 goals every year, but just scoring 40 is really tough. I had a lot of injuries this year and you can't compare it to the two years before. It's a fresh start for me and I'll do whatever the coach and GM want me to do." His arrival in New York is a dream come true for Bure, who has experienced some of his finest moments in the NHL at MSG. "It is a great honour to be part of the Rangers organization, one of the Original Six teams. It has been my dream for a very long time so I am really excited and very happy," said Bure. "The first time I played in Madison Square Garden was in 1992. We had a big final in '94 and I saw how great the fans were and the building was crazy. Plus, New York is New York. It's the greatest city in the world." Former Canuck captain Mark Messier, out at least a couple more weeks with a shoulder injury, believes Bure still has a lot of good hockey in him, enough to help the Rangers in their time of need. "I think Pavel is still a 50, 60 goal scorer, there is no question of that in my mind," said Messier. "But goal totals and individual statistics are really secondary at this stage of his career, I think. What intrigues him and what he finds most exciting is coming here and having a chance to make the playoffs, play in the playoffs and play on a stage here in New York when it is the most exciting time of the year." Rangers coach Ron Low, who will likely lose his job should the Rangers fail to make the post-season despite the trade deadline acquisitions of Bure and Tom Poti, believes his club has improved itself tremendously in the last 48 hours. "He is going to add lots to our hockey club, he can kill penalties and he can score lots of goals. And he is pretty determined, he would like to make the playoffs and help us make a run. I can tell you right now that he makes our hockey club better," said Low. "With him coming and filling a spot, we are missing [Radek] Dvorak who has been scoring some goals for us on a regular basis, our hockey club is now in a pretty good situation. I think everyone in here understands that management has gone out and done their job and now it's time for us to do the job in this room." Of course, the question of Bure's heart and dedication to team goals will always come into question. He addressed that issue Tuesday.
"I have two desires," said Bure. "I have been in the league 11 years and I haven't won a Stanley Cup. And I think that is what the New York Rangers' organization wants too, a Stanley Cup. We are on the same page. Another goal I have is I want to score 500 goals. Those are the two things that are really important to me."
Ex-teammates don't wait long to blast Bure Pavel Bure was the subject of a few parting shots from his former Panthers teammates as he prepared to begin the next stage of his career with the New York Rangers on Tuesday. Bure, who scored in his Rangers debut against Vancouver at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night, was painted by those he left behind in Florida as a selfish player who exhibited no leadership and little desire during much of his three-plus years in Florida. "Everybody who's been around our locker room knows what he brings to our team: goals, and that's it," goaltender Trevor Kidd said. "I'm disappointed with Pav this year," said Bill Lindsay, who spoke after being claimed on waivers by Montreal. "Ten million dollars. I expected more from him." Bure's former teammates spoke of a player who added little or nothing to the team dynamics: who typically was the last guy on the ice and the first off at practice, who rarely if ever participated in informal team functions, who refused to take any leadership role, who didn't meet even the most basic requirements of a $10 million player. Lindsay recalled during the team's Stanley Cup run in 1996, "I could look every one of those guys in the eye and say, 'You know what, you gave it your all.' If I have to shake Pav's hand, I don't know if I could do it, and say, 'Thanks for everything.' He hung me out to dry. Because he's better than that. He knows he's better than that." Informed of the comments before Tuesday's game, Bure fired back. "I'm surprised, but everybody has his opinion, and you can't do anything about it," he said. "Would I say that? No. Because I think it's no class at all, especially when it comes from somebody with no class like this. "I've played with big stars like Mark Messier, and he and I are still friends. I care about his opinion because he is Mark Messier. Look where this is coming from." When he was placed on waivers last week, Kidd said if he left he would go with good feelings about "most of the guys in this room." Bure is clearly one exception. Kidd said players on a similar plane, such as Colorado's Joe Sakic and Anaheim's Paul Kariya, are complete players who "offer so much more to the team, to the organization." "He's presented as a guy who wears a letter," Kidd said, referring to the fact Bure was named a co-captain by coach Duane Sutter at the start of this season. "It's different from what it represents in the locker room in this circumstance. "Everybody knows who those guys are: 'Weems' (Jason Wiemer), Paul Laus, Billy Lindsay. These are the guys who talk up in the dressing room." "He did speak up a couple times early in the year," center Olli Jokinen said. "If you've been in the league 10 or 11 years and you've always been doing it one way, it's hard to change. That was his way, so take it or leave it." Jokinen said it was a better situation in Los Angeles, his first NHL stop, where defenseman Rob Blake and forward Luc Robitaille accepted the responsibilities that came with being the highest-paid players. "Blake would take care of the young guys, he was the captain, he was the leader of the locker room. Pavel was always the last guy in the room and the first to leave. I guess he's been doing that for the 11 years he's been in the league. But he scored the big goals." Laus said he expected last summer's acquisition of brother Valeri would have gotten Pavel more involved with the team, but it didn't happen. "He's a shy guy, maybe it was uncomfortable for him," he said. "You can't say, OK, you're a superstar and now you have to be this way. You can't go to Kristian (Huselius) and say, 'We need you to fight.' Everybody had a role on this team, and I don't think he was comfortable with it." Lindsay said he felt Bure's lack of commitment to the team has left his future in jeopardy. "A guy like me is only as good as the team," he said. "So the better the team is, the better I'm going to do, and if our $10 million guy doesn't care... even if he doesn't think we've got a good team, I would honestly have appreciated it if he could've given us more."
Rangers are Bure's dream team Pavel Bure reflected fondly on his three years as a Florida Panther on Tuesday as he prepared to begin the latest chapter in his career, as a New York Ranger. "I had a really good time there the last three years," Bure told Newsday of his Florida stay. "There are great people there. It's a great organization, with great fans." Media reports have said Bure worked hard to swing a deal that would have sent him to the Rangers instead of Florida when he had his falling out with Vancouver during the 1998-99 season, going so far as to approach Wayne Gretzky's agent at the time, Mike Barnett, about hiring him to get that done. In the end, Neil Smith, then the Rangers' general manager, nixed a possible deal, with the stumbling block being the inclusion of young center Manny Malhotra, a player New York finally dealt to Dallas last week. While not commenting on that, Bure did say Tuesday, "It's great to be a part of the Ranger organization. It has been my dream for such a long time to be a part of it. I'm really excited, really happy." Bure, who wore uniform No. 9 -- Sandy McCarthy wears No. 10 for the Rangers -- compared his excitement to when he joined Vancouver in 1991. "The way I feel right now is the same way I felt when I first pulled on the Canucks jersey in Vancouver 11 years ago," he said. He said he understands the expectation is that he will single-handedly carry the Rangers into the playoffs. "It's a team game and we have 20 guys here," he said. "I really believe one guy can't do it all." Rangers captain Mark Messier, out for the season with a shoulder injury, said he feels this situation will be different than any Bure has faced in recent years. "The one thing that he's lacked, I feel, is being in a situation where he can be competitive. I don't think he's had that since 1994," Messier said. That was the year Vancouver lost to the Rangers in a seven-game Stanley Cup finals. "I have two dreams," Bure said. "I've been in the league 11 years and have never won a Stanley Cup. I think that's what the organization wants to do. Another goal is to score 500 goals." He's currently got 406.
Rangers are Bure's dream team Pavel Bure may have been the best player on the Florida Panthers, but he clearly wasn't best friends with his former teammates. ``Any fan or anybody that doesn't think the organization did the right thing by trading Pavel, if they spent five minutes in the dressing room, they wouldn't be speaking negatively about the trade,'' goaltender Trevor Kidd said. Kidd and other Panthers spoke out after Bure was traded to the New York Rangers on Tuesday. ``I'm disappointed playing with Pavel this year,'' former Panther Bill Lindsay said after he was claimed off waivers by Montreal on Tuesday. ``I expected more from him. The biggest beefs against Bure? His indifferent attitude and a failure to play within the system. ``Look, I'm not the best player in the world, but I'm going to try hard,'' Lindsay added. ``And I've got to come and watch a guy that makes $30 million come to the rink last and leave first.'' Bure, with 23 goals this season, led the NHL in goals scored the previous two years. He has two years left on a contract that pays him $10 million per season, plus an option in the 2004-05 season for $11 million. Bure, who turns 31 later this month, shrugged off the comments. ``Everybody has their opinion, and I can't do anything about it,'' he said before Tuesday's debut with the Rangers. ``Would I say something bad about them? No, I would never do that and I never will because I think that's no-class. ... Look at where this is coming from.'' The Panthers had 50 points -- the third worst total in the NHL -- entering Wednesday night's games. Panthers co-captain Paul Laus came closest to defending Bure. ``You can't force a guy to be around the guys,'' he said. ``He had his own things. You can't grab him and say you have to be here 24 hours a day. ... He's just a private guy. We all knew that.''
Added Kidd: ``Everyone that's been around him knows what he brings to the table. That's goals. And that's it.''
Two great days in the Tri-State! Trade No. 1: Pavel Bure from the Florida Panthers for defensemen Filip Novak, Igor Ulanov and a 2002 first-round draft pick. Florida will also receive a fourth-round pick in 2003 and the teams will swap second-round picks in 2002. Getting Bure for what they gave up is roughly equivalent in Hollywood terms to trading Porky Pig for Russell Crowe or trading Petunia Pig for Julia Roberts. What did they lose? A defenseman in Ulanov who they didn't want and virtually meaningless draft choices. In return, they get one of the greatest players of our time. Bure could be a catalyst to get them in the playoffs. Obviously, Florida wanted to get rid of Bure because of his contract. He is one of the three $10 million players in the league (the others being Jaromir Jagr and Paul Kariya), and the Panthers didn't want to pay him anymore. I can understand that. Hey, it's a free country, and if the Rangers want to pay it, so be it. Overall Grade: A+ Trade No. 2: Mike York and a 2002 fourth-round draft pick to the Edmonton Oilers for Tom Poti and Rem Murray From a sentimental viewpoint, this is kind of sad. York was a very beloved player and very useful, but he always ran out of gas after midseason. The fact of the matter is that even when York was playing his best hockey, he was not leading this team into the playoffs. When you get a defenseman (which the Rangers need more than anything) like Poti, who played on the USA Olympic team, and then toss in a Rem Murray, well that equals two-for-one … and two-for-one is awfully good. Overall Grade: A
Considering both deals, I think the Rangers improved more than any team in the league at the trading deadline.
Despite trades, Rangers still have work to do When you look at the overall picture, the Rangers added three quality players to the roster this week for the price of one. Getting Pavel Bure from Florida provides the team with a legitimate game breaker. The biggest key in acquiring Bure is that he wanted to play in New York, and when you get into the mental aspect of the whole scenario, that's a positive. There has been some criticism that Bure is not a two-way player, but there are a lot of guys who are just defensive and not offensive. Besides, for a team that is struggling offensively, Bure's job is simply to score goals. He's also a threat on the penalty kill, which is a plus because the Rangers are desperate for help on the power play. Bure knows his role, and I think he'll be a good fit in New York. He's a quiet guy; it's not his personality to be the leader of the team. He's a goal scorer, can provide excitement and is a breakaway-speed skater. I don't think he will be a problem in the locker room, but he won't be a leader either. His game is on the ice. Now that the Rangers have the powerful offensive weapon they were looking for, they must find out who will benefit Bure as linemates. With the season winding down, the Rangers will have to work fast to come up with the right line combinations.
Some people argue that the timing of the NHL trade deadline doesn't allow teams enough time to assimilate new players. The only thing that bothers me about the deadline is having games played on the same day. I don't think it's smart. There are too many teams that make deals, just like the Rangers did, and you can't get people into town in time.
Signing Bure Right on Mark at MSG
THE RANGERS hosted Vancouver last night, and the last time the Garden hummed like this was when the Rangers hosted Vancouver eight years ago. You know the occasion.
Bure Deal Needs No Defense, But Club Could Use It Pavel Bure, one of the greatest goal scorers in league history, has the cure for his new Ranger team's ills. "It's pretty simple," Bure said. "We have to play better defensively." Well, it's a little too late for that concept, given the deals made over the last two days to acquire Bure from the Florida Panthers and Tom Poti from the Edmonton Oilers. To be perfectly truthful, Bure added, "And score more goals" to that sentence. In last night's 3-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks, the Rangers did neither. Bure did score a goal, his 23rd of the season in his first game with his new team, but the Canucks' Todd Bertuzzi scored three times after that for a hat trick and a loss that prevented the Rangers from scratching their way into the eighth and final playoff spot. The Rangers now have company in ninth, since the surging Buffalo Sabres beat Ottawa, 5-1, last night and also have 68 points.
Bure played on a line with Eric Lindros and Theo Fleury, a combination that will have its dynamic offensive moments - as with Bure's goal off the rush - and its dismal defensive ones. Bertuzzi's first goal, at 14:34 of the second period, came after Lindros broke his stick and then looked utterly lost about what to do defensively. The Canucks simply took over the boards, and Bertuzzi scored from the right point on a shot that was both deflected and screened by Lindros. On Bertuzzi's second goal, the eventual game-winner at 3:14 of the third, Bertuzzi dangled the puck through the skates of Bure and scored on rookie goalie Dan Blackburn. To be fair, this wasn't the new-look Rangers at full strength. Mike Richter was sidelined with the flu, and Blackburn had to sub in goal. Poti, an offensive defenseman who won't do much to cure the Rangers' defensive-zone woes, and Rem Murray will join the team for tomorrow night's game in Ottawa after being acquired for Mike York. (Memo to league GMs: how about drafting a motion not to have games played on next year's draft deadline day?) Rangers fans were roaring full throttle when Bure took warmups, whenever his face appeared on the scoreboard, whenever he took one of his seven shots on Vancouver goalie Dan Cloutier and on the uncountable ones he shot wide. Yet with Bure playing more than 28 minutes, including nearly every one of over nine minutes of power play time (including 52 seconds at two men up), the Rangers quickly learned what the Canucks and Panthers did before them: One player does not make a team. The fleecing of Florida was made possible by Bure himself. He was a $10 million player on a 50-point team, scoring only 22 goals this season after netting 117 in the previous two. As the only Panther in the spotlight, Bure and his sulks were visible to all, especially to the players with whom he shared the dressing room. Not a single ex-teammate, with the exception of his brother Valeri, mourned Bure's departure. In fact, it sounds as if there would have been a stampede of volunteers to drive Bure to the airport to catch his private jet to his new home if no limo had been available. Giving up only Igor Ulanov, Filip Novak and three draft picks may go down as one of the great steals in NHL history, but only if the Rangers earn enough points in the next 11 games to make the playoffs. The only move left for the Rangers would be firing coach Ron Low, who was booed last night and inexplicably singled out by the fans for chaos not of his creation. Low had better get used to it, because the love affair with Bure will not cool anytime soon. Their future does not go past April 14. If the Rangers make the postseason for the first time in five years, then GM Glen Sather will have done his job, and nothing else matters. If not, the Rangers will have to look a lot harder at the concept of actually building a team, rather than buying stars. Even shooting stars as occasionally brilliant as the one they unveiled last night.
Panthers: We'll Be Fine Without Bure Pavel Bure may have been the best player on the Florida Panthers, but he clearly wasn't best friends with his former teammates. ``Any fan or anybody that doesn't think the organization did the right thing by trading Pavel, if they spent five minutes in the dressing room, they wouldn't be speaking negatively about the trade,'' goaltender Trevor Kidd said. Kidd and other Panthers spoke out after Bure was traded to the New York Rangers on Tuesday. ``I'm disappointed playing with Pavel this year,'' former Panther Bill Lindsay said after he was claimed off waivers by Montreal on Tuesday. ``I expected more from him. The biggest beefs against Bure? His indifferent attitude and a failure to play within the system. ``Look, I'm not the best player in the world, but I'm going to try hard,'' Lindsay added. ``And I've got to come and watch a guy that makes $30 million come to the rink last and leave first.'' Bure, with 23 goals this season, led the NHL in goals scored the previous two years. He has two years left on a contract that pays him $10 million per season, plus an option in the 2004-05 season for $11 million. Bure, who turns 31 later this month, shrugged off the comments. ``Everybody has their opinion, and I can't do anything about it,'' he said before Tuesday's debut with the Rangers. ``Would I say something bad about them? No, I would never do that and I never will because I think that's no-class. ... Look at where this is coming from.'' The Panthers had 50 points--the third worst total in the NHL _ entering Wednesday night's games. Panthers co-captain Paul Laus came closest to defending Bure. ``You can't force a guy to be around the guys,'' he said. ``He had his own things. You can't grab him and say you have to be here 24 hours a day. ... He's just a private guy. We all knew that.'' Added Kidd: ``Everyone that's been around him knows what he brings to the table. That's goals. And that's it.''
Hard-working Graves remains NHL's class act When Pavel Bure arrived in New York, the Rangers pulled out the Welcome Wagon. "Anything you want, Pavel. It's yours," Rangers' brass likely told the Russian Rocket, traded to the Rangers from the Florida Panthers on Monday. Bure wanted to wear No. 9. He wasn't about to arm-wrestle Rangers winger Sandy McCarthy for his old No. 10, the number which Bure wore in Florida. But No. 9 was up for grabs. Well, not exactly. The sweater had been in storage in the Rangers equipment room since Adam Graves, one of the most popular players in Rangers history, found his way to San Jose last summer. The Rangers franchise, which has been in existence for 75 years, has retired two sweaters: Eddie Giacomin, No. 1; and Rod Gilbert No. 7. But Graves, who played 10 years on Broadway, was a folk hero. That's when the call went out from Rangers PR executive John Rosasco to Graves. "Do you mind somebody else wearing 9?" Rosasco asked the former Oiler. In typical fashion, Graves, who has never taken himself very seriously, laughed - as if to say, 'What are you, nuts?'' "Number 9? Hey, I don't play in New York anymore. It's just another number. I've moved on. Sure he can have it. Pavel left a message on my machine, too, asking me if it was all right," said Graves. "He's a great player ... as a fan I enjoy watching him play, too. And that was classy of him to call." Graves always goes the extra mile. The Toronto native, who turns 34 next month, won the Masterton trophy last year for his tireless dedication to hockey. He has consistently been a diligent supporter of charities, wherever he plays. On and off the ice, Graves still works hard. His role in San Jose is a lot like it was when he was helping the Oilers win a Cup in 1990. Graves was a star in New York, especially the year (1993-94) when he scored 52 goals, more than any other Ranger has ever scored. He scored No. 51 in Edmonton on March 23, 1994, breaking Vic Hadfield's club record. It was his only 50-goal season in a career that has seen him score 316 times. "The stars were all aligned that year," Graves recalled. "I don't think anybody's ever said, 'Geez, how come that guy only had one 50-goal year?' I think I must have had 30 go in off my rear end ... It was more a product of who I was playing with. Messier. Leetch, everybody," said Graves, self-deprecating -- as always. When he was 22, Graves worked the boards here on a line with Joe Murphy and Marty Gelinas. He was the bull in a china shop, plowing through everything. He later became a scorer in New York -- until his speed dropped and he experienced back problems. Now, in San Jose, he does a little bit of everything. After an awful start, when he just couldn't score, Graves now has 13 goals. He may end up with 17 or 18, and that's OK in his books. "I'm an older player now, and there's a lot of emphasis on playing at both ends, doing some penalty-killing, playing on different lines," he said. Graves has been a joy for San Jose coach Darryl Sutter, who has always loved character -- a quality Graves is blessed with. "He plays all over, but thank God (that) Adam has the team attitude he does. It's never an issue with him. I really trust him and when somebody is struggling, I know who's going in his place, right away," said Sutter. "He's still good on the wall, good in front of the net. That tells me the courage is still there." Graves's hands aren't what they used to be. But he can live with that. He marvels at a guy like Bure and knows exactly why the Rangers went after him. "Scoring's at at premium in the NHL today and anytime you can get a player that has that ability, you go for it. You can teach guys how to play defence, but you can't teach guys how to score. It's a gift. That's why guys who have that ability are compensated the way they are. If everyone could do it, there wouldn't be a premium for it." Graves knew that the Rangers wouldn't blink at Bure's salary. "Business in some cities is bigger than business in other cities. That's just the way the world is. You see it in the business world, too. I liken it to the competition for CEOs. "The only thing I don't like is the talk of how much guys make, when it's associated with hockey. I know, as a fan or a kid, my dad didn't appreciate reading about it, and I don't either. Nobody wants to listen to the other part, me included," said Graves. What he does like talking about, however, is players. Like Mike York, his former Rangers teammate who's now wearing an Oilers sweater. "People here are going to love this guy," said Graves. "(He) works his tail off, practice, games. He's not a big guy, but he's as strong a guy as you'll find on the puck. York will go into a corner with guys twice as big and he'll come out with it. People here will really appreciate him," said Graves.
Just like we appreciate Graves, even if he was wearing No. 9 for the Sharks on Wednesday night at Skyreach.
Game Preview: Rangers versus Ottawa Senators
UPCOMING SCHEDULE:
Trades May Be Too Late for Rangers
Despite Bure's presence on Broadway, the Rangers are tied for ninth place in the Eastern Conference, 4 points behind Montreal, which holds the eighth and final playoff spot. If the Canadiens go 5-6-1 in their final 12 games, the Rangers will have to win 8 of their last 11 to overtake Montreal. The Rangers are in danger of missing the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season. For a swooning team that has lost four consecutive games, six of seven and 21 of their last 30, the chances seem dim that the Rangers, who will face the fifth-place Senators in Ottawa tonight, will reach the playoffs. Sather bolstered the Rangers for the stretch run in the hours leading to the deadline, acquiring Bure, the premier goal scorer in the N.H.L., for a song on Monday night. He then shipped the popular Mike York to Edmonton on Tuesday in exchange for Tom Poti and Rem Murray, players Sather had originally drafted. They are expected to be in the lineup tonight.
Russian Rocket's farewell bitter Pavel Bure's ex-teammates in Florida had some final words for him on the day after he was traded to the Rangers. They were in the vein of "Good riddance and don't let the door hit you on the way out." Word out of Sunrise is that Bure was not the best of teammates and that he was consistently looking out for himself. Panther goalie Trevor Kidd and forward Bill Lindsay (who was picked up on waivers by Montreal Tuesday) both made disparaging remarks about their ex-teammate. Kidd did not like the way Bure approached the game and called the Russian Rocket a "non-factor" during the Panthers' 98-point season two years ago. Lindsay felt that he could not look Bure in the eye while shaking his hand to tell him thanks for everything. "I've read a lot of things about a lot of guys that left teams and I don't understand why players say anything about anybody when they've left," Rangers coach Ron Low said. "I was wondering if they were saying it to them when they were there, that's the thing that always bothers me." Bure scored 58 and 59 goals in his two full campaigns in Florida from 1999 through 2001, leading the league both years. The Panthers were swept in the first round of the playoffs in 2000, by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Devils. They then failed to make the postseason in 2001 with a 22-38-13-9 mark. Two practices and one game are no measuring stick, but time will tell if the remarks coming out of Florida have any credence. With veterans like Brian Leetch and Mark Messier in the dressing room, chances are if Bure starts showing an attitude or a lack of motivation, it will be adjusted immediately. Meanwhile, the Rangers face the Senators in Ottawa tonight and newcomers Tom Poti and Rem Murray are expected to be in uniform. Low stated that Poti would be paired with Sylvain Lefebvre, moving Vladimir Malakhov back with Leetch. The moves leave Tomas Kloucek as the odd defenseman out. "He is a skill player," Leetch said of Poti. "I'm not sure where he is going to fit in power-play wise, but he'll certainly be an asset." Messier skated with the club yesterday and he proclaimed himself day-to-day. He doesn't have a time frame of when he will be back. "It's like someone took a saw to my collarbone and sawed it in half," is the way the Captain described his rotator cuff surgery.
NY Rangers 5, Ottawa 2 The New York Rangers are fresh, revitalized and in the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff race. In what their coach called one of their best games of the season, the Rangers received significant contributions from their newcomers and earned two crucial points with a 5-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators. Pavel Bure, defenseman Tom Poti and Rem Murray -- all acquired before Tuesday's trade deadline -- combined for two goals and three assists, helping New York move within two points of Montreal for the final postseason berth in the East. "The new guys add a dimension of freshness and vitality," said coach Ron Low, whose team had gone nine games without scoring more than three goals. "They all had solid games." The Rangers relinquished two leads but scored the last three goals and snapped a four-game losing streak. They have played two more games than the Canadiens, putting a premium on each of their last 10. "We've got a good team here, we're just running out of time," said center Eric Lindros, who opened the scoring. "We need to focus period to period and game to game and do the little things it takes to get there." The game was significantly less important to the Senators, who could have moved past Toronto into fourth place in the East. That carries home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs. "They outplayed us for 60 minutes," Ottawa captain Daniel Alfredsson said. "They were definitely the better team. They showed more discipline and more intensity. We simply didn't come to play." The Rangers dominated when it counted, grabbing a 3-2 lead on Poti's power-play goal with 1:49 left in the second period. Poti pinched from the left side and one-timed Martin Rucinsky's feed past goaltender Patrick Lalime. "It was a great pass," said Poti, who was acquired Tuesday from Edmonton. "Once I had it, I just tried to get it through to the net. And luckily, we got a bounce." New York poured it on in the third period. Sandy McCarthy, the team's best player the past two weeks, scored off a rebound at 5:15 and Theo Fleury padded the lead with a backhander from the low slot at 12:32. "We've been struggling for goals like crazy lately, so tonight was nice to see," said Low, whose team totaled 11 goals during a 1-6-0 stretch. "It's nice to see some sound defensive play. I thought to a man we had one of our best games of the year." A few of those men are new, but they've fit in perfectly. Bure had a goal and an assist in his second game with his new team and Poti and Murray each had assists in their debuts. "The guys have welcomed us with open arms and I know that I am looking forward to a fresh start," Poti said. "Hopefully, we can liven things up a little bit and make a good run in the playoffs." "Obviously, the most important thing is the win," added Murray, who came over with Poti for Mike York and a draft pick. "But from my standpoint, it's great to come to a new team and contribute right away." The NHL leader in goals the previous two seasons, Bure gave New York a 2-1 lead with 7:29 left in the first period. He also scored in Tuesday's 3-1 home loss to Vancouver. "It was a very big thing, adding Pavel," Low said. "We really needed that scoring punch." Lindros opened the scoring six minutes into the game with his 29th goal, 67 seconds before defenseman Shane Hnidy tied it with his first in more than a year.
Marian Hossa scored 6:36 into the second period to tie it at 2-2, but Ottawa managed just four shots on Mike Richter in the third and dropped its second straight game.
Game Recap: Rangers versus Ottawa
Needing a win to move back within two points of the Montreal Canadiens for eighth place in the Eastern Conference, the Rangers rolled into Ottawa and came away with a solid 5-2 win over the Senators on Thursday, snapping a four-game losing streak.
Bure a class act to call Graves Kudos to Rangers' President and General Manager Glen Sather for bringing the Russian Rocket to Broadway while giving up only one player (the No. 8 defenseman) from the current roster. Ranger fans, players and coaches did not want to see Mike York go, but in adhering with the you-have-to-give-up-something-to-get-something philosophy, Sather acquired from Edmonton a potential All-Star defenseman, along with a versatile forward who can kill penalties, win faceoffs and has scored as many as 21 goals in a season (1998-99). The trade deadline was certainly an exciting time for fans of the Broadway Blueshirts, and there was a magical feeling inside Madison Square Garden when Pavel Bure wore his Ranger jersey for the first time on Tuesday night against Vancouver. The building erupted when Bure scored to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead in the second period, and you could sense the fans on the edge of their seats whenever No. 9 had the puck on his stick.We'll find out over the next three weeks whether or not Bure, Tom Poti and Rem Murray can help lead the Rangers into the playoffs for the first time in five years. It will certainly be exciting to watch one of the greatest goal scorers in NHL history day-in and day-out as a member of the Rangers. GOOD COMPANY: Bure is the 21st player acquired by the Rangers who has previously scored 50 goals in a season. Of course, none of the previous 20 reached the half-century mark with the Rangers. Mike Gartner came the closest, with 49 in 1990-91. But remember: none of the previous 20 were coming off back-to-back 58 and 59-goal seasons, either. The only Rangers to score 50 goals in one season remain Vic Hadfield (50 in 1971-72) and Adam Graves (52 in 1993-94). The last Ranger to score 40 goals: Mark Messier (47 in 1995-96). CLASS ACT by Bure to call Graves in San Jose before donning uniform No. 9. Also classy by Bure to mention in his first press conference as a Ranger that he would wear No. 9 to honor Maurice "Rocket" Richard, whose trophy he won the last two seasons as the NHL's top goal scorer. WHIRLWIND 24 HOURS for Mike York, who skated on a line with Bure and Eric Lindros at the morning skate at MSG on Tuesday. Less than four hours later, he was traded to Edmonton. Wednesday evening, York made his Oilers' debut, wearing his familiar No. 16. CONGRATULATIONS to Theo Fleury, honored last Thursday in Rye at the "Friends of Karen" charity dinner, along with Giants running back Tiki Barber and former Giant and current Philadelphia Eagle punter Sean Landeta. DEJA VU: Jason Arnott scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal for the Devils in June 2000 against Dallas. Arnott became a member of the Stars on Tuesday. Six years before Arnott's Cup winner, Messier scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal for the Rangers against Vancouver, then became a Canuck three summers later. FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER - and they started playing against each other during the 1926-27 season - the Rangers were perfect (4-0) against Montreal. Only twice previously (2-0-1 in 1985-86 and 3-0-1 last season) had the Rangers even gone unbeaten against the Habs. DAN BLACKBURN has become only the fourth goaltender in NHL history to appear in 20 games in a season at the age of 18, joining Harry Lumley, Tom Barrasso and Jocelyn Thibault. Ironically, Blackburn played in his 20th game on March 7 in Chicago. The opposing goaltender: Thibault. ONLY TWICE has a goaltender been selected by the Rangers in the first round of the Draft: Dan Cloutier in 1994 and Blackburn in 2001. They opposed each other for the first time in their NHL careers on Tuesday. MATTHEW BARNABY for ZDENO CIGER: Sather pulled the trigger on Dec. 12. Barnaby with Tampa Bay this season: 0 points in 29 games. Barnaby with the Rangers: 13 points in 37 games. Ciger recently had his contract bought out by the Bolts. SEVEN OF THE 25 CURRENT RANGERS HAVE MARCH BIRTHDAYS: Brian Leetch (3rd), Bryan Berard (5th), Tomas Kloucek (7th), Radek Dvorak (9th), Martin Rucinsky (11th), Poti (22nd) and Bure (31st). ROSTER BREAKDOWN by COUNTRY: Canada (10), USA (5), Czech Republic (5), Russia (3), Sweden (2). HUSTLE AWARD to MSG Network Rangers' producer Joe Whelan for videotaping Bure landing at Teterboro Airport and exiting the plane at 2:37 a.m. Monday night/Tuesday morning. And happy birthday to my radio partner Sal Messina, still going strong in his 29th season in the Ranger broadcast booth. MURRAY's older brother Pat, who also starred at Michigan State, played 25 games with the Flyers in the early 1990s and had a terrific minor league career in the AHL and IHL. COLUMN A -- PLAYERS ACQUIRED BY THE RANGERS THIS SEASON: Barnaby, Rucinsky, Lyashenko, Bure, Poti, Murray.
Luongo hurt as post-Bura era starts with loss Judging by Wednesday night's game, life without Pavel Bure won't be much different for the Florida Panthers than it was with the two-time NHL goal-scoring champion. The Panthers, playing their first game since trading Bure to the New York Rangers on Monday, turned in a dreadful performance in a 4-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens at National Car Rental Center. And if this week's transactions didn't deplete the Panthers enough, the team may have lost goaltender Roberto Luongo for, at least, the short term. Luongo injured his right ankle with 13:10 left in the first period while making a twisting save after finding himself one-on-one with Montreal's Richard Zednik. Luongo stayed sprawled on the ice for several minutes before gingerly skating off with the assistance of two teammates. Luongo was on crutches after the game and said he would undergo an MRI today. Without Bure, as well as several other players moved before Tuesday's trade deadline, the Panthers' roster looked more like that of an AHL affiliate than an NHL team. The Panthers (19-38-7-5) certainly could have used Bure on Wednesday, because they were unable to generate much offense. The Panthers failed to score during a critical five-minute power play in the second period and managed only a handful of scoring opportunities against goalie Jose Theodore, who allowed only a second-period goal by Byron Ritchie. "We're going to have to find an identity," Panthers left winger Peter Worrell said. "We don't have that guy to score 60 goals for us. We need to go back to where we were several years ago when we had guys to grind it out." Bure, sent to the Rangers for a package of players and draft picks, led an exodus of Panthers out of town this week. Also dealt were defenseman Jeff Norton and Darren Van Impe. Veteran winger Bill Lindsay was picked up on waivers by Montreal on Tuesday and faced his ex-teammates Wednesday. But Florida's struggles on offense left little doubt how much Bure will be missed. "It's definitely going to take a little bit of adjustment," defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh said. "We relied a lot on Bure and now he's not here. Somebody else has to fill that spot and tonight we didn't get that done." With a number of other Panthers unavailable because of injuries, coach Mike Keenan was forced to use seven rookie skaters. Left wing Eric Beaudoin made his NHL debut and defenseman Igor Ulanov made his Panthers debut. "There's very few rookies that come into this league and have their 'A' game every night," Keenan said. "When they don't now, it's really going to stand out." It stands out even more minus Luongo, the team's new franchise player. Trevor Kidd replaced Luongo and promptly gave up a goal on the first shot he saw off the stick of Andrei Markov, giving Montreal a 2-0 lead. Arron Asham staked the Canadiens to a 1-0 advantage two minutes into the game with an assist from Lindsay, a fan favorite during two stints with the Panthers. The mention of Lindsay's name on the public-address system elicited one of the loudest cheers of the night from a crowd mostly made up of Montreal fans.
Keenan defends Bure and 'his artistry' Panthers coach Mike Keenan said Wednesday that he did not agree with the post-trade bashing of Pavel Bure by some of his players. Several Panthers criticized Bure, who was traded to the New York Rangers on Tuesday, for a lack of leadership and intensity. "I've coached the best players and Pavel is one of the best players I've ever coached in terms of his ability to do his job," Keenan said. "He's a goal scorer and that's what he does better than anyone in the league. He's a great talent. Some of the players here didn't understand his artistry." Some players criticized Bure because he didn't provide leadership inside the locker room. Several players said Bure often was the last player to show up for practice and the first to leave and rarely took part in informal team gatherings. Keenan said that rap was misplaced. "There's always two sides to every story," Keenan said. "Maybe he should have interacted a little more with them. But I had Wayne Gretzky, who was artistic but didn't have that much of a verbal presence in the room at all. "I think the players here felt they were looking for more because of his stature in the game, his ability, and maybe the amount of money he was being paid. But if you're not that type of individual, it's not going to change." Keenan indicated that some players may have been "too inexperienced" to understand a player like Bure. After arriving in New York on Tuesday and being informed of his ex-teammates' comments, Bure said: "Would I say something bad about them? No, I would never do that and I never will because I think that's no class.... Look at where this is coming from." Keenan said Bure should fit in with the Rangers, who are loaded with veteran, star players. In New York, Keenan said, Bure's reputation as a loner "won't make any difference because he's with a bunch of people where he can sit in a corner and do his thing. "That's all they'll expect from him. He's going to be quiet. He's going to be the first out of a locker room. But (Brian) Leetch and (Mark) Messier and (Theo) Fleury probably don't care. It's a better fit for him. I told him that when he left."
Game Preview: Rangers versus Atlanta Thrashers
The Rangers face-off against the Atlanta Thrashers tonight following last night's 5-2 win over the Ottawa Seantors at the Corel Centre, which halted a four-game losing streak. Last night's match in Ottawa also marked the Ranger debuts of Tom Poti and Rem Murray, who each registered points, including the game-winning goal from Poti. New York has captured all three meetings vs. Atlanta this season, registering a pair of wins at Philips Arena on October 19th (4-3) and February 8th (2-1) and a victory at MSG on November 18th (6-2). The Rangers come into tonight's game with 70 points at 31-33-4-4 through 72 games and are just two points behind Montreal for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. The Thrashers have posted a 17-42-8-4 mark for 46 points this season in 71 matches. They are in fifth place of the Southeast Division. Following tonight's game, the Rangers will have two days off before heading to Uniondale to meet the Islanders on Monday night at the Nassau Coliseum (7:00 p.m.). Their next home game will be Wednesday night vs. the Philadelphia Flyers (8:00 p.m.).
Atlanta 5, NY Rangers 2 First, the Atlanta Thrashers knocked out Mike Richter. Then, they dealt another blow to the New York Rangers' playoff hopes. Tony Hrkac scored a pair of goals and Frederic Cassivi made 33 saves in his first NHL start as the Thrashers cruised to a 5-2 victory, their first on the road in more than two months. Hrkac scored his 15th on the power play by cycling around the net untouched and wristing the puck over rookie goaltender Dan Blackburn's left shoulder to give Atlanta 2-0 lead 3:36 into the second period. His second goal came 35 seconds after Eric Lindros cut New York's deficit to 4-1 early in the third. Hrkac gathered a rebound at the top of the right faceoff circle and fired a slap shot over Blackburn's glove. The Thrashers had not won on the road since a 6-1 triumph over Florida on January 19, going 0-7-1 since. They were 1-8-1 in their previous 10 games overall. Cassivi faced few quality chances in the first 40 minutes and carried a shutout into the final period. Lindros ended the bid 47 seconds into the third by flipping a rebound over the goalie's pads. "We've been trying to play defense," Thrashers coach Curt Fraser said. "What I think is that we have a lot of young kids in here that compete hard and they've got more grit and they're a little more determined and they bring a lot of energy." The Thrashers gained the advantage 2:20 into the game when a slap shot by former Ranger Chris Tamer hit Richter in the side of the head. Richter left with a laceration on the top of his right ear and a mild headache. He was replaced by Blackburn, a teenage backup who surrendered five goals on 31 shots for his third straight loss. "I don't know if that was the turning point, but it was bad for them," Cassivi said. "(Richter's) a really good goalie and it's tough for Blackburn to jump in there when he's not expecting to play tonight." It was all downhill from there for the Rangers, who began the night two points behind Montreal for the eighth and final playoff berth in the Eastern Conference. They had posted an impressive 5-2 win in Ottawa on Thursday. Tomi Kallio opened the scoring with 3:32 remaining in the first period. Blackburn got caught out of the net when a dump-in by Thrashers winger Jeff Odgers took an odd bounce off the end boards and slid to the right side of the crease. Blackburn managed to get back to stop Pascal Rheaume's point-blank shot, but the rebound sat in the crease for Kallio to tap home. Just under two minutes after Hrkac gave Atlanta a 2-0 lead early in the second, Jeff Cowan flipped a rebound over Blackburn's right pad for his fourth goal. "We got the puck on a good breakout on a good draw and I just tried to keep my feet moving and just shot it," Cowan said. "I just tried to get the puck off my stick as quick as I could and found a hole." "Obviously, we didn't come out sharp," Rangers winger Theo Fleury said. "Unfortunately, we got a bad break on the first goal. They got a couple of power-play goals and we were on our heels." Rookie Dan Snyder capped the three-goal second period with his first NHL tally, a wrist shot from the right faceoff circle over Blackburn's glove. Pavel Bure added his third goal in as many games since joining New York with 3:42 left in the game.
"When you're losing, you're always disappointed," Bure said. "We had so many good chances, but we just didn't score enough goals. (It) feels like everything went wrong."
Post Game: Rangers versus Atlanta Thrashers
Seeking back-to-back wins, the Rangers fell behind 4-0 after two periods of play and were unable to mount a comeback, suffering a 5-2 loss to the visiting Atlanta Thrashers at Madison Square Garden on Friday.
Post Game: Rangers versus Atlanta Thrashers The Rangers got the bounce they expected from their huge trading deadling deals one game later than expected, crushing the Senators 5-2 in Ottawa last night. The difference this time was that Tom Poti and Rem Murray joined Pavel Bure in the line-up -- neither was availabel last game, nor was Mike York, the player they were traded for. Bure and Poti each had a goal and an assist, and Murray had an assist, as the three newest Rangers were in on every goal scored. The win gives the Rangers new life, closing the gap with Montreal to two points and opening up a two point lead over the Sabres, losers to Boston last night, though each of those teams retains two games in hand with the Rangers having ten games left. But with a home game against Atlanta, the league's worst team, on tap tonight, the Rangers stand to move closer to .500, and at least keep pace with the Canadiens, who play Tampa at the same time. Bure and Poti weren't the only Rangers who showed up to play tonight. Most significantly, Eric Lindros, the real Eric Lindros, was in attendance, playing a mean, physical game, winning bucketloads of draws, and registering a key goal himself. And Theo Fleury, after another invisible start, crashed the show and was a big factor in the Rangers putting the game away in the third period. On the other hand, the top defensive pair of Brian Leetch and Vladimir Malakhov, and the Czech friends Petr Nedved and Martin Rucinsky (despite registering assists on Poti's power play goal), continued their horrific post-Olympic play. With Poti and Murray joining the team, the Rangers started the game out with new line combinations and defense pairings. Murray took the spot York often filled over the past two seasons between Fleury and Sandy McCarthy on what was essentially a checking line, though the trio put up both third period goals. Matthew Barnaby took the left wing slot on the top line along with Lindros and Bure and made a nice pass to set up Lindros for the game opening goal, and helped create the havoc that led to Bure's goal, though he got no credit on the scoresheet for it. The Czech line of Nedved and Rucinsky with Michal Grosek on the left side started the game as second line, though fourth line center Roman Lyashenko took over for the demoted Nedved early on, Nedved centering fourth line wingers Andreas Johansson and Mikael Samuelsson thereafter and ending up with a low 14:10 of ice time. Leetch and Malakhov were re-united so that Poti could be matched with Sylvain Lefebvre. The former were as dreadful together as they have been apart the past few games, but a brain dead Ottawa team, suffering its second five goals against loss in a row, could not take advantage more than once. Poti and Lefebvre were steadier, as were the third pair of Bryan Berard and Dave Karpa, but really, no one was challenged in this most gentlemanly of games, and it was merely luck that the Rangers did not miss the hitting of Tomas Kloucek, the young bruiser now the odd man out in Glen Sather's defensive corps. Neither goalie, Mike Richter for the Rangers returning from a case of the flu and Patrick Lalime for the Senators, was at his best this game, each giving up a goal on the second shot they faced in a low-shot game. But Lalime was worse by far, giving up two goals on his first three shots, three goals on his last five shots spanning the late second and early third, and an awful five goals on 18 shots overall. His team wasn't much better, with only two shots on goal during the 13 minute period in which the Rangers broke a 2-2 tie and scored three times. Lindros opened the scoring six minutes into the first period in a demonstration of one of the qualities Bure brings to the team other than simply putting the puck into the net. As Barnaby carried down the right side on a rush, Bure drove to the net, drawing everyone's attention. That opened up the high slot for Lindros, who one-timed a pass from Barnaby into the net past the poke check of Radek Bonk, the Senators' premier two-way center who was simply awful in this game at both ends of the ice. Ottawa tied it up 67 seconds later off a draw that Nedved lost, Shane Hnidy beating Richter through a Lefebvre screen on a shot Richter should've stopped. That fired up the moribund home team for a few shifts, though the Rangers blocked almost all of the Sens' shot attempts before they could reach Richter, who did have to make one good glove save during the sequence on Marian Hossa off a Leetch turnover seconds after a good backchecking play by McCarthy. Then Bure himself scored off a draw, taking the wind out of the sails of the Senators. The draw was not won cleanly by either team. With Barnaby tying him up, Chris Phillips kicked the puck ahead, putting it right on Bure's stick blade. Bure snapped a shot past the helpless Lalime to give the Rangers their second lead of the game. The Rangers followed that up with a two on one on which Rucinsky was stopped by Lalime and a three on one on which Bure's pass to Lindros did not connect. They then dodged a bullet when Magnus Arvedsson put a rebound shot behind Richter that went across the unguarded crease and wide of the opposite post. The teams traded chances over the first third of the second period, chances being few and far between throughout this less than scintillating exhibition of ice hockey. They then traded chances again on end to end plays, the result being an Ottawa goal to tie the game at two. Lalime made one of his few clutch saves on a two on one shot by Grosek. Hossa picked up the loose puck, carried it down the ice into the Ranger zone, and blew by the flat-footed Leetch while executing a nice give and go with Sean McEachern, redirecting the return pass past Richter with his backhand as Leetch remained ineffective. On the ensuing shift, the once again revived Senators had a two on one, but Jody Hull (just how the heck did this guy remain in the NHL all these years with his utter lack of talent?) muffed it. Late in the period, the Rangers had their only power play of the game, and were in the process of frittering it away without any attack, as they had all but two of their prior 33 advantages. But with only one second remaining, and after having shot wide on an earlier set-up, Poti came down from the point and hit the open back door off a nice pass from Rucinsky. That gave the Rangers their third and final lead of the game. They quickly built on that lead in the third period, McCarthy setting a screen for a Dave Karpa point shot and then backhanding home the rebound after the forechecking of Fleury and Murray created turnovers in the Ottawa zone. On a similar play several minutes later, Fleury was the beneficiary of his own forecheck, going to the net to redirect a pass from Poti after his forechecking pressure created a turnover to Poti. That completed the scoring. And that completed the Rangers' first win after four straight losses. Despite their dismal record since the Olympics, and since New Year's Eve, the Rangers miraculously remain in position to compete for the eighth and final playoff spot. But with ten games left, and with Montreal possessing a cream-puff schedule, the newly re-tooled Rangers are going to have to win as many over their last ten games as they have lost over their past ten.
And whether they make the playoffs or not, the slew of big-time trades over the past week or so have left them no choice but to win a Stanley Cup over the next couple of seasons, because if they don't, the system has been so denuded of prospects and other young assets, it will be many years before they can compete again.
In defence of the Rocket In his playing days, Russ Courtnall was one of hockey's chattiest characters. He loved holding court with the media and lending his two cents worth to any issue. So when he saw one-time Vancouver Canuck teammate Pavel Bure being skewered in Florida by several Panthers, Courtnall felt compelled to speak.
Forward Bill Lindsay, who left the Panthers himself this week on waivers, declared that Bure "hung me out to dry" because he didn't give enough of an effort. "If I had to shake Pav's hand, you know what, I don't know if I could really do it and tell him thanks for everything," said Lindsay. Russ Courtnall was appalled by these remarks. "I'm shocked to hear those things," Courtnall said from Los Angeles, where he now resides. "My experience with Pavel was all positive. Maybe in his defence, playing on a team like that, going to the rink and maybe not having the best chance to win every night, was pretty tough on him. It would be tough on anyone. "Pavel is there to score goals and for Trevor Kidd to say all he's worried about is scoring goals, well, that's what he's paid to do. That's his job. Trevor Kidd's job is to stop the puck. As for Bill Lindsay, Pavel has probably scored more goals in a month than Lindsay has scored in his career." (Lindsay actually has 82 goals in 11 seasons so he's not quite that big a stiff. Nonetheless, when Russ Courtnall is rolling, you can't stop him.) "Bill Lindsay probably doesn't realize the fitness regimen Pavel has been going through his whole career to be at that level," Courtnall continued. "I think the pressure for Pavel to play every night amongst a bunch of average players in Florida, and perform at his level, is pretty tough in this day and age. You have to have good players around you and I just don't think that was the case for Pavel. " Geoff Courtnall, Russ' older brother and also a Bure teammate in Vancouver, figures the griping in Florida was probably sour grapes. "I know guys in Florida were going behind his back trying to get him traded," said Geoff, who was represented by Bure's agent, Mike Gillis, during his playing days. "On every team, not everybody likes everybody. I don't care if a guy hangs around with me off the ice, all I care is that he's there when the puck drops. "When Pavel first came over here, he didn't speak English so he didn't really hang out with a lot of the guys on the team. He never has, That doesn't mean he's not a good team guy. I was surprised Trevor Kidd and Bill Lindsay ripped Pavel in the media but who are they and what have they done? It's disappointing when guys take shots at other guys, or at management, when someone leaves, or they leave. "I think if you have a problem, you should talk to a guy face-to-face. That's the problem - a lot of guys are too gutless to talk to a guy face-to-face. It's disappointing." Lest we bring out the violins on behalf of Bure, it is still a fact that he had his detractors within the Canuck room when he played here. Former captain Trevor Linden, among others, wasn't his best buddy. Dave Babych was more ambivalent. "It wasn't that bad in Vancouver, or maybe it was, I don't know," Babych said. "My relationship with Pavel certainly wasn't anything like the comments coming from Florida. We accomplished a lot of things with Pavel and a lot of that success was due to him. I had no complaints. Later on, when Mark Messier was there and things obviously didn't go well, maybe everyone's attitude went south." Babych did find it amusing that Bure scored in his Ranger debut but was also on the ice for all three Canuck goals in a 3-1 Vancouver victory.
"That's Pavel," he chuckled. "That's the way it goes. Give a little, take a little."
Glen does Graves injustice Glen Sather is the same guy who awarded No. 17 to Rem Murray immediately after Jari Kurri left Edmonton, so it's pretty obvious he could care less about the propriety of giving away shirts off great players' backs. But that doesn't excuse the insensitivity the GM displayed here this week in awarding Pavel Bure the No. 9 that belonged for so long to Adam Graves and should never have been worn by another Ranger. This isn't on Bure. The Russian Rocket doesn't have the obligation to be a student of Ranger history, only to make it. This is on Sather, who seems to take delight in playing the curmudgeon no matter the time or place, and who does have the obligation to mind Ranger heritage, the relatively little of it worthy of recognition that there is. It's beyond me why Sather didn't bother to ask Sandy McCarthy to surrender No. 10, or why McCarthy himself didn't volunteer to yield the number upon Bure's arrival. It's hardly as if McCarthy - who wore No. 15 in Calgary, No. 20 in Carolina, No. 21 in Philadelphia and No. 10 previously for 81 games in Tampa - has some career attachment to the number Bure has traditionally worn and initially requested. This isn't the same as Kevin Lowe coming and taking the No. 4 that Ron Greschner wore well for so many years. Nor is it the same as one journeyman after another being handed the No. 3 that Harry Howell wore with distinction for so long. Howell was never embraced by the gallery at the old Garden. Indeed, in a piece of lore that should make newest No. 3 Tom Poti comfortable, Howell was booed out of the captaincy early in his career. Fans root for the sweater more than they do for individuals. As such, perhaps it's more appropriate to suggest that No. 9 belongs more to Ranger fans than it did to Graves, or than it does to the organization or to Bure. And as such, it is entirely appropriate to suggest that giving away the uniform worn so proudly and so well for a decade by the most beloved athlete in franchise history - and one of the most admired athletes ever to earn a paycheck in New York - is an insult not only to Graves, but to Ranger fans, themselves. An insult, even, to the community. Graves would have given the shirt off his back to anybody on the street in need. But neither he, nor I, could have dreamed that Sather would have gone ahead and done it for him.
Bure trade should have come sooner
Let's be honest. The Panthers' brass just doesn't want to join the chorus of its players and badmouth Pavel Bure.
What's a player like Bure really worth? What does it say about the economic state of the NHL when a player who has won the past four scoring titles (Jaromir Jagr) and another who has led the league in goals the past two seasons (Pavel Bure) are traded for five players, not a single one of whom was playing in the NHL at the time of the trades? Of the three players traded for Jagr last summer, only Kris Beech is on an NHL roster this season. Bure was dealt for two players and picks, but Igor Ulanov had been playing in the minors at the time of the March 18 trade.It all means that if a team is going to sign a player to a long-term deal worth massive amounts of money, it does so at its own peril. The fact is, the better the player is, the more difficult he is to trade because of his salary. You know things have gotten silly when the Edmonton Oilers get more for Tom Poti and Rem Murray than the Pittsburgh Penguins received for Jagr or the Florida Panthers yielded for Bure.By the way, Jagr and Bure earn about $21 million (all figures in U.S. funds) between them this season. Beech and Ulanov check in at a combined $3.025 million.
The measure of a man I like Pavel Bure. His philosophy of life is practical, big picture and based on loyalty to friends and family. And health. ''I could have all the money in the world, but if I'm too sick to go out and spend it, what good is it?'' Bure said. I never saw him behave rudely when asked to sign an autograph. He did whatever the Panthers franchise asked of him as far as marketing, promotion and fan relations and, generally, did it without griping. Dealing with him daily as a media member usually wasn't a problem. He could be repetitive and guarded in on-the-record interviews but was an interesting casual conversationalist. Little written about him bothered him. I heard him snarl openly over a column that pointlessly dredged up Anna Kournikova long after their March 2000 breakup. The Rangers undoubtedly helped themselves more than any team at the trade deadline by adding Bure, defenseman Tom Poti and center Rem Murray to their NHL roster while giving up only Mike York. And Bure will play inspired hockey for them the rest of this season. Maybe next, too. All that said, the Panthers had to trade Bure. What follows isn't dumping on a guy just because he's gone. Little hasn't been written before and in this space. There are reasons why only two teams raised their paddles when Bure went on the auction block at $10 million per year. The Panthers intended to build around Bure when they traded for him. They made two mistakes. They didn't realize Bure isn't a player you can build around, and they financially shackled themselves when they gave him the massive, 5-year, $47 million contract. Forget Bure leading Vancouver's drive to one game away from the 1994 Stanley Cup. Bure isn't the same player, and this is a bigger, more obstructed NHL, much less to Bure's liking. As long as Bure was here, the Panthers couldn't afford to trade for a player to build around and keep good support players (unless they were willing to drown in red ink for a few years). But, if the Panthers didn't get that centerpiece player and other support players, Bure would have too central a role and the team would go nowhere. Somewhere, Joseph Heller is smiling. One reason you can't build around Bure is the type of player he is. Another is the approach he takes as that type of player. There are great goal scorers. Some are also great scorers. One distinguishing characteristic of who's not is yearly having more goals than assists. Examples of those in the first category: Bure, Washington's Peter Bondra, Detroit's Brett Hull and even St. Louis' Keith Tkachuk. Examples of those in the second category: Colorado's Peter Forsberg and Joe Sakic, Washington's Jaromir Jagr, Anaheim's Paul Kariya and Pittsburgh's Mario Lemieux. Jagr has gone from Category A to Category B during his career. In Category A, he was considered a great talent. When he moved to Category B, he was considered the best player in the world. Great goal scorers are a threat to snatch a game. A great scorer can snatch a game, but he also can control it. He has the distribution instincts and ability a top team needs as the nerve center of its offense. The great goal scorer lacks similar instincts or ignores them. His creativity often extends only to himself. Things can become predictable, especially in the offensive zone. Although their tremendous skills allow them to overcome that, when fewer players are involved, fewer become threats and fewer are part of the team's cohesive flow. You can't build a Cup threat around those players these days unless they're also fast, powerful puck luggers. Atlanta might get away with it because Ilya Kovalchuk is the Russian version of Maurice Richard. St. Louis never won anything with Hull as its offensive centerpiece. Hull earned his Stanley Cup on a Dallas team built around Mike Modano's myriad skills. Modano stands in contrast to Bure. Bure's small, but the lanky Modano isn't exactly the thickest twig on the tree. Still, he has added some grit and defense to his pretty-boy game. Rangers general manager Glen Sather said Bure and Modano are the two players who can lift fans out of their seats (is Sather mad at Jagr?). The difference is Modano tries to bring that game every night. When Bure was traded to the Panthers, the Vancouver writers said there would be nights when you thought Bure could get a hat trick every night. There also would be nights when Bure looked as unhappy as a little boy made to sit in a suit through a long Sunday service. Everybody has flat nights. Everybody has off nights. But I've never seen a top player take more nights off than Bure. At $121,951.21 per game, that's some expensive hooky. Excusing Bure's lackadaisical nights by saying he probably wasn't happy being on a bad team lets him off the hook too easily. Plenty of excellent players have been on very bad teams. Lemieux, Jagr, Wayne Gretzky, Marcel Dionne and Joe Sakic all had to rise above the muck around them. They did it as team leaders. When I think of Bure as a team leader, I think of two things. The first is Bure, an alternate captain, ducking the media on the day Bryan and Terry Murray were fired as general manager and coach, respectively. Part of wearing the A or the C is facing the media, and, by turn, your fans, at times like that. Bure booked out, leaving other players to speak. The second is Nov. 17, a 1-0 overtime loss to Montreal. From his first shift, it was obvious Bure was taking an on-ice vacation. Bad enough in a game your $10 million goal scorer is supposed to make a difference. But when a fabulous performance by Panthers goalie Roberto Luongo ended with a Montreal goal and Montreal-native Luongo flopped in despair, co-captain Bure just left the ice. No tap on the pad for keeping the Panthers in the game. No acknowledgement of how hurt Luongo obviously was. You can win with Pavel Bure. You can win because of Pavel Bure. But you can't build a winner around Pavel Bure. That should be in the deal for $10 million a year.
Ditching Mr. Bure provides fresh start Pavel Bure barely has a skate out the door and his former Panthers teammates start blasting him for being aloof and selfish and one-dimensional. Aloof? Duh. He was better than anyone in the room and knew it. Selfish? So what? He selfishly scored goals, carrying the weaker teammates who couldn't. One-dimensional? So was Mozart. All the bum could do was make music. Billy Lindsay, of all people, criticizing Bure? Moments after being claimed off waivers? This is like Cote criticizing Shakespeare. What difference does it make if Bure was the last player to arrive and the first to leave? He scored more goals than anybody in the world in the time in between. If every Panther did his job as well as Bure did his, this trade would never have been necessary, and this team would rival the Red Wings for the league's best record. Panthers teammates were suspiciously quiet about Bure while he was here, but they wouldn't shut up about his lack of leadership once he left, thus exposing their own lack of leadership. This is one of the many reasons Bure had to be traded -- because this team was broken at its core, on and off the ice, and he was the only one outside of goal with the value to bring draft picks and salary flexibility. Did the Panthers get enough for him? No. He's one of the best players in the universe. You should get more than a stiff defenseman, a minor-leaguer with promise and draft picks. But it wasn't for lack of effort. Teams knew Bure was available, and there weren't that many interested -- his contract was more daunting than even his greatness. The Panthers did the best they could, given the economic handcuffs. Hockey is becoming more and more like baseball (never good company), with only a handful of teams able to afford the highest levels of competition. In an ideal world, you keep Bure and his $10-million-a-year contract and spend crazy dollars to build around him. But the Panthers aren't like the Rangers, printing money. They should be, with the stadium that was built for them, but they aren't. They have a salary ceiling, and Bure was eating too much money for one of the league's worst teams. Better to scrap the blueprint and start over, using money that would have gone to Bure to rebuild. The Panthers, with him, were only better than godawful Atlanta and Columbus. They won zero playoff games with Bure. They had won just 19 times at the time of the trade and needed to win 19 straight just to get one game over .500 this season. They could just as easily be that bad without his help, so now they start over, with a new direction. A better direction? Obviously. If only because the direction with him couldn't get worse.
Game Preview: Rangers versus New York Islanders
TONIGHT - Nassau Coliseum
Loss to Isles would be Rangers' final blow The last time the Islanders made the playoffs, way, way back in 1994, it was the Rangers who knocked them out in a sweep. Now, barring an unforeseeable collapse, the Islanders will be playing in the Stanley Cup tournament for the first time in eight years. And tonight they can pretty much finish off their archrivals and assure the Rangers of a fifth straight non-playoff season. Really, the Rangers' season probably ended Friday in that unforgivable, astounding 5-2 loss to 30th-place Atlanta at the Garden. Really, their season probably unravelled when Eric Lindros' concussion on Dec. 28 turned him from arguably the most dominant player in the game to a perimeter-playing non-factor; and when Theo Fleury's personal problems manifested themselves in a parade of short-tempered behavior that turned him from one of the top wingers in the game to a struggling pile of frustration. And their season didn't get any rosier on Friday when Mike Richter was hit in the mask by a shot and suffered a mild concussion. Richter was still feeling concussion symptoms yesterday, told not to even come to the rink to practice, and will not play tonight. Rookie Dan Blackburn will start, backed up by emergency callup Johan Holmqvist. It would take a miracle, realistically, for the mismatched Rangers to dig themselves out of the deep funk in which they have spent the entire second half of the season (9-20-1-2), because of the number of teams vying for the eighth playoff berth in the tepid Eastern Conference. But mathematically they are still in the picture, only because the other mediocre denizens of the East aren't capable of taking control of a playoff spot. Montreal, for example, got only one point - a stolen, final-seconds tie at that - in two road games against Tampa Bay and Nashville Friday and Saturday. Buffalo couldn't even get a goal against Toronto's backup goalie in a crucial game Saturday. And Washington, on its best roll of the season, is only a point ahead of the Rangers and two behind the Canadiens. The Islanders, with 12 games remaining, have a magic number of 14 points to end their non-playoff streak. If they win seven of 12, Washington, the Rangers and Buffalo can't catch them, and therefore they will be playing games in late April. That magic number also includes points that get away from the Capitals and the other teams from ninth place on down. This week, though, the picture could become much clearer at the bottom of the Eastern battle. The Rangers - who have the fewest games remaining (nine) of the pretend- ... er, contenders - are the longest shot to make it. After tonight's tilt on Long Island (Question: Was 1994 the last time the Rangers won an important game at Nassau?) they are home for Philadelphia Wednesday before a four-game trip through Florida, Tampa Bay, Toronto and Boston. When that's over, they have home games against Pittsburgh (a team they can't seem to beat) and Toronto, then close the season in Philadelphia April 13. Montreal, coming off its 1-1-2 trip through the South, has won just two of its last nine. But the Canadiens had taken points in five in a row and eight of 10 before Saturday's surprising 5-1 loss in Nashville. The Habs, who have the easiest remaining schedule of any of the pretend- ... er, contenders, are home this week for non-playoff-bound Florida, Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh. Washington has won three in a row in the middle of an eight-game road trip. Jaromir Jagr, who was being chided for his lack of care most of the season, has turned it on big-time and carried his team - unlike Lindros, who only started to play his game the last two times out. The Capitals finish the trip with last night's game at Pittsburgh, tomorrow's visit to Buffalo and Friday's game in New Jersey. They then play three in a row at home, against the Islanders, Tampa Bay and Ottawa. Buffalo went across Ontario last night to play the Senators after Saturday's loss in Toronto. They are home for the Capitals tomorrow, go to St. Louis Thursday, and start a home-and-home with the Flyers Saturday. The Rangers will likely need to win seven of their last nine to survive the turtle-paced race. A loss tonight would make that requirement seven of their last eight.
Do you think Mike Milbury's boys would take much glee in that?
NY Islanders 4, NY Rangers 2 The New York Islanders got the bounces in the third period and moved a step closer to bouncing the archrival New York Rangers out of the postseason picture. Oleg Kvasha scored twice in a three-goal third period as the Islanders rallied for their fourth straight home win, 4-2 over the slumping Rangers. Kvasha played just six minutes over the first two periods but played the hero in the third as the Islanders halted a five-game home losing streak against the Rangers. With 6:48 remaining, he took a bad-angle shot from along the goal line, to the left of rookie goaltender Dan Blackburn. The puck hit the left skate of Rangers defenseman Bryan Berard and caromed past Blackburn. "You think about it before you put the puck on net, that maybe you're going to hit some skate or hit some stick," Kvasha said. "I think it was tough to see the skate, I was in a bad position for that play. That's it, it was just lucky." Just under four minutes later, Kvasha got a pass from Mariusz Czerkawski and drifted to the top of the left faceoff circle before firing a slap shot. Newcomer Rem Murray went down to block it for the Rangers, but the puck hit him in the skates and deflected under Blackburn's left arm and inside the far goalpost. It was the eighth goal of the season and first game-winner for Kvasha, who took three shots in less than three minutes of ice time in the third period. "He's been playing well since he's been back from his (knee) injury," Isles coach Peter Laviolette said. "I think he's been playing with a purpose, and tonight, as the game got on, he got better. He always gets a couple of opportunities and doesn't drop one, so it's nice to see him drop a couple." Claude Lapointe added an empty-netter with three seconds left for the Isles, who climbed within four points of fifth-place Ottawa in the Eastern Conference. They also took the Pat LaFontaine Trophy after taking the series from their New York rivals, 3-2. "It was one of the best hockey games I've been a part of, just the environment, and the Rangers played a great game," Laviolette said. "Just back and forth, playoff hockey." Theo Fleury and Roman Lyashenko scored for the Rangers, who remained three points behind Montreal for the final Eastern Conference playoff berth. The Rangers have just eight games remaining, two fewer than the Canadiens. "We put ourselves in a bad position back in December and we can't afford to put ourselves in this position," Rangers right wing Matthew Barnaby said. "We had chances and we didn't bury them. We hit some posts, we had some great chances, they just didn't go in for us." The Islanders would like nothing better than to bury their archrivals. "We kicked the Rangers down a few more steps and hopefully close to their season being over," Isles right wing Mark Parrish said. "Last year, I got a good taste of (the rivalry), but it didn't mean a whole lot, other than the LaFontaine Trophy and a lot of pride. This year, when it means making the playoffs and maybe knocking them out, it feels a lot better." Both teams scored in a spirited first period. Rangers right wing Theo Fleury took two penalties in the opening five minutes, and the Isles cashed in with three seconds left on the initial power play. Unchecked on the left side, Kip Miller redirected a cross-ice pass by Michael Peca at 2:55 for his sixth goal. Fleury got even just over six minutes later, flicking a wrister from low in the right faceoff circle over goalie Chris Osgood, who was caught at the other side of the net after anticipating a shot from Murray. "I thought Theo played with tons of emotion tonight, a solid hockey game," embattled Rangers coach Ron Low said. Steve Webb leveled Fleury just outside the Islanders' blue line during a scoreless second period, but Lyashenko put the Rangers in front 5:17 into the third. Mikael Samuelsson moved down the left side and left the puck for Andreas Johansson, who centered from behind the net. Lyashenko reached between the legs of former Ranger defenseman Eric Cairns and put a wrist shot from the edge of the slot off Osgood's right arm and into the net for his second goal of the season. "When you're up, 2-1, it's tough to lose it, but they worked, and we did, too," Low said. "It was a game that was going to be won on a bounce like that. ... It was definitely playoff-type hockey." Osgood made 27 saves while Blackburn -- starting for the injured Mike Richter -- stopped 28 shots.
"We got real great goaltending from Danny," Rangers center Eric Lindros said. "He was real solid in net. He handled the puck well, make key saves for us. We did have a 2-1 lead with six minutes left, so it's frustrating."
Post Game Notes: Rangers versus NY Islanders
The Rangers' five-game unbeaten streak at Nassau Coliseum came to an end on Monday as the Islanders rallied for three goals in the third period for a 4-2 victory over the visiting Blueshirts.
QUICK HITS:
Odjick gunning for Kidd Gino Odjick returns to the Canadiens lineup tonight and, from the sound of things, he has a score to settle with Florida goaltender Trevor Kidd. "I figure (Kidd) will wake up (this morning) at 9:30 and read the paper at 10. That leaves him nine hours to learn the duck dance," Odjick said yesterday. "I haven't played in a week and all I've been doing is shooting at watermelons - because that's the size of his head. "I figure to get 10 minutes of ice (against the Panthers). That means I should be good for three shots. And I was hitting the melon often last week. I'm an Indian, so I'm good at hunting." Odjick, who missed six games with a deep bruise to his left foot, took umbrage with disparaging remarks Kidd made last week against Pavel Bure following Bure's trade to the New York Rangers on March 18. In short, Kidd suggested Bure was a selfish player who cared only about scoring goals - not a totally unredeeming characteristic considering Bure has been the only recipient of the Maurice "Rocket" Richard trophy, awarded the last two seasons to the league's goal-scoring leader. Bure scored 117 goals over that span, but has slumped in 2001-2002, with 25 goals in 59 games. Any player who slags Bure apparently is also putting a knife through Odjick's heart. Odjick spent most of the 1990s as Bure's teammate on the Vancouver Canucks and has a 5-year-old son named Bure. "In case (Kidd) doesn't know, I'll give him a history lesson. Me and Pavel played on the same team and were roommates for eight years," Odjick said. "Plus I have a gift from God. When he yaps and criticizes Pavel, he's dishonouring me and my son. "I respect everyone on the Florida team, especially (coach) Mike Keenan. They all have a free pass, except for Kidd." The Panthers were in New Jersey last night, so there is no guarantee Kidd will face the Canadiens. With Roberto Luongo out for the remainder of the season with an ankle sprain, Florida's netminding duties now fall on Kidd and Wade Flaherty. The latter has yet to play this season. The Panthers, of course, have an answer for Odjick. He's known as Peter Worrell. Worrell is 6-foot-6 and 225 pounds, and took a league-leading total of 306 penalty minutes into last night's game. Odjick's return probably will make a spectator of rookie Marcel Hossa. "He (Odjick) is a leader in his own way," said Canadiens coach Michel Therrien. "We need his enthusiasm. His return will be good for the team."
Plotlines remain thick as season winds down Just because the Panthers are out of the playoffs doesn't mean there aren't story lines in just about every game they play. On Thursday they return to Ottawa, where Peter Worrell has a score to settle with enforcer Chris Neil from a game 10 days ago. On Saturday, Pavel Bure makes his first visit to the National Car Rental Center in Sunrise as a New York Ranger. And Tuesday night it was Montreal, where one of Bure's best friends, Gino Odjick, had his sights set on goaltender Trevor Kidd. Odjick, so close to Pavel that he named a son Bure, returned to the lineup following a foot injury and vowed to go after Kidd's head. Unfortunately for him, Kidd was given the night off, as coach Mike Keenan opted to give Wade Flaherty his first start of the year. "I haven't played all week and I've been shooting at watermelons, because that's the size of his head," Odjick told the Montreal Gazette. "I figure to get 10 minutes of ice. That means I should be good for three shots. And I was hitting the melon often last week." Kidd laughed when he heard Odjick's comments. "If they're buddies . . . I'd probably do the same," Kidd said. "So be it." Kidd was stationed across the ice from the visitors' bench, behind a pane of glass. But he sounded like he wouldn't be taking any chances. "If you see me wearing my mask during the game," he laughed, "you'll know why." It was Odjick who got the last laugh; he assisted on the only goal of the first period, scored by Yanic Perreault.
Odjick plays head games with Kidd You've got to be pretty open-minded when a guy says he wants to fire a puck at your head and you say you understand the sentiment. Last week's disparaging comments about former Panther Pavel Bure by Panthers goalie Trevor Kidd inspired Montreal's Gino Odjick, Bure's best friend, to retort in Tuesday's Montreal Gazette. ''I haven't played in a week and all I've been doing is shooting at watermelons -- because that's the size of his head,'' Odjick said. ``I figure to get 10 minutes of ice. That means I should be good for three shots. And, I was hitting the melon often last week. I'm an Indian, so I'm good at hunting. ``When he yaps and criticizes Pavel, he's dishonoring me and my son.'' Kidd found out Tuesday that Odjick and Bure were so close that Odjick's 5-year-old is named Bure. ''So be it,'' Kidd said while laughing about the threat. ``If that's his best buddy, I'd probably do the same.'' Kidd had two reasons not to be worried. First, he wasn't playing and the short Molson Centre visitors' bench requires the spare goalie to sit in a runway that's impossible to hit intentionally with a hard shot. Second, considering Odjick's troubles hitting a 4-foot-by-6-foot net -- 64 goals in 597 games -- Kidd's head would seem to be safe.
Habs' head-hunter is after Kidd
Trevor Kidd got a previously scheduled night off Tuesday against Montreal, but he said, "If you guys see me wearing my helmet on the bench, you'll know why."
Game Preview: Rangers versus Philadelphia ..1 The New York Rangers try to keep their playoff chances from slipping away when they host the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday. The Rangers are tied with the Buffalo Sabres for 10th place -- three points out of the final postseason berth in the Eastern Conference. They received a hit to their fading playoff hopes Tuesday when they learned tha goaltender Mike Richter has a slight skull fracture and will miss the rest of the regular season. Richter, 35, has a linear fracture of the right temporal bone above his ear and will sit out the final eight games of the season. He suffered his third season-ending surgery in as many years Friday against Atlanta when he was hit with a slap shot from former teammate Chris Tamer. Richter's injury leaves the starting role in the hands of Dan Blackburn, an 18-year-old rookie who has lost his last three starts and is 7-13-0 this season. New York has lost six of its last seven games, including a 4-2 loss to the New York Islanders on Monday. Theo Fleury and Roman Lyashenko scored for the Rangers, who have lost four in a row at home. Conversely, Philadelphia clinched a playoff berth on Tuesday and trails the Boston Bruins by four points for the top spot in the Eastern Conference. Captain Keith Primeau scored twice in his first game in a week to lead the Flyers to a 4-1 triumph over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Monday. Primeau missed the previous two games after aggravating a rib sprain on March 18 against Tampa Bay. Simon Gagne netted his team-leading 32nd goal and defenseman Dan McGillis added an empty-netter for Philadelphia, which is 2-0-2-0 in its last four overall and on the road. The Flyers are without centers Jeremy Roenick and Jiri Dopita. Roenick remains sidelined with a sprained right knee while Dopita sustained a less severe right knee sprain Saturday.
Philadelphia is 30-11-6-2 against Eastern Conference opponents but 1-2 vs. New York this season. In the last meeting, former Flyer Eric Lindros scored a hat trick in a 6-5 victory on March 2.
Game Preview: Rangers versus Philadelphia ..2
TV: ESPN (8:00 PM ET)
Philadelphia 4, NY Rangers 2 Somewhere, Bob Clarke may be laughing. Eric Desjardins and Keith Primeau each had a goal and an assist as the Philadelphia Flyers dealt a another blow to the New York Rangers' fading playoff hopes with a 4-2 victory. Clarke, the Flyers' general manager who has a tumultuous relationship with Eric Lindros, traded the player he stripped of his captaincy in Philadelphia to New York in the offseason. The Rangers made the deal hoping it would signal a return to the postseason. But after losing for the seventh time in their last eight games, they remained three points behind Washington and Montreal for the East's final playoff spot and are on the verge of missing the postseason for the fifth straight year. Desjardins scored late in the second period, giving Philadelphia a 2-0 lead. He also assisted on John LeClair's goal just past the midway point of the third that made it 3-1.
Primeau assisted on Desjardins' goal and added an empty-net tally with 28 seconds remaining for Philadelphia, which tied a club record for road wins (22) in a season while pulling within two points of Boston for the East's best record.
Post Game Notes: Rangers versus Philadelphia
Eric Desjardins and Keith Primeau notched a goal and an assist apiece and Brian Boucher turned aside 25 of 27 shots as the Philadelphia Flyers skated past the Rangers, 4-2, on Wednesday at MSG. Justin Williams and John LeClair added Philly's other pair on the night.
Slip-Sliding Furthur Away
There are no big goals for the Rangers any more, only blown scoring chances and incredulous looks. There are no forgivable mistakes any more, just miscues that end up as goals for the opposition.
Game Preview: Rangers versus Panthers
Rangers (31-36-4-4) at Florida Panthers (21-41-7-5)
March 30, 2002 - National Car Rental Center (7:30 PM ET)
The Rangers begin a four-game road trip as they visit the Florida Panthers on Saturday at National Car Rental Center in the fourth and final meeting between the two teams this season. The Rangers lead the season series 2-1-0-0 with wins on November 3 (5-3 at Florida) and December 17 (4-2 at MSG). The Panthers skated past New York, 3-1, on October 31 at MSG. The Blueshirts are 3-3-0-0 in their last six matches in Florida.
LIFETIME SERIES: The two teams have met 40 times, with the Rangers holding a 19-16-5-0 edge. New York has posted a 10-9-1-0 mark in 20 career matches in Florida.
Bure returns to Florida for first time as a Ranger
Pavel Bure had plenty of personal achievements but not much team success in his time with the Florida Panthers. So far, nothing has changed since he joined the New York Rangers.
Pavel Gets Shot At Critical Ex-Teammates
Pavel Bure was hardly surprised when he learned what two of his former Panther teammates said about him after he was traded to the Rangers.
Rangers: Parting shots didn't hurt Bure
Pavel Bure is not expecting a parade in his honor when he returns to Florida this weekend, but neither is he expecting a repeat of the character assassination that took place after the Panthers traded him to the Rangers last week.
Bure brushes off his Florida critics
To paraphrase Pavel Bure, with regards to two former Florida teammates who made disparaging remarks about him as soon as he was traded to the Rangers: Consider the source.
Sun Spot Suits Bure
Pavel Bure's impending return to Florida is not cause for alarm.
Bure not surprised by Panthers' comments
Pavel Bure was not surprised -- or particularly upset -- when he found out that a pair of ex-teammates were critical of him.
Bure Returns To Sunshine State
Saturday's game marks the return of Pavel Bure to the 'Sunshine State' where he starred for parts of four seasons. Bure tallied 152 goals and 99 assists for 251 points in 223 games with the Panthers. The winger was traded to the Rangers on March 18.
Rangers - Panthers Preview
Pavel Bure returns to the National Car Rental Center on Saturday night to face the Florida Panthers for the first time since he was acquired by the New York Rangers five days ago.
Rangers 4, Panthers 2
The New York Rangers were happy to unleash Pavel Bure on his former team. Eric Lindros wasn't too bad, either.
Game Recap: NY RANGERS 4, FLORIDA 2
Eric Lindros scored two third-period goals and Pavel Bure added a goal and two assists against his old team as the New York Rangers defeated the Florida Panthers 4-2 Saturday night.
Post-Game Notes: Rangers 4, Florida Panthers 2
Pavel Bure's return to South Florida was a victorious one as the Rangers skated past the Florida Panthers, 4-2 on Saturday. Notes
Bure's second period tally marked his first-ever goal vs. Florida ... The winger had collected five assists in five previous matches vs. the Panthers. Quotes
PAVEL BURE
"I know there was some (negative) reaction, but the most important thing is that you're getting reaction. I had a great time here in those 3« years. I have lots of fans here, and it was a great experience."
Rangers Win, but Door to Playoffs Swinging Shut
James L. Dolan is quick to admit he is not a hockey expert. Perhaps that is why Dolan, the chairman of Madison Square Garden, said he still thought the Rangers had a great shot to make the playoffs this season.
A post-trade showdown
This isn't the way things were supposed to go between the NHL trade deadline and tonight's Rangers-Panthers game.
NHL Game Summary - NY Rangers at Florida Eric Lindros scored two goals in the third period to lift New York over Florida, 4-2, as the Rangers kept their slim playoff hopes alive at the National Car Rental Center. Pavel Bure added one goal and two assists for the Rangers, who remain five points out of the eighth and final playoff position shared by the Washington Capitals and Montreal Canadiens, who both won earlier Saturday night. Bure returned to south Florida for the first time since the Panthers traded him to the Blueshirts on March 18 in exchange for defenseman Igor Ulanov, prospect Filip Novak and New York's first round pick in the 2002 NHL Entry Draft. Pierre Dagenais and Robert Svehla each lit the lamp for the Panthers, who had a two-game winning streak snapped and lost for the sixth time in their last eight games. At 11:20 of the third period, Lindros gave the Rangers their first lead of the game and they never looked back. His 32nd of the campaign came on a one-timer from the top of the left circle after he hit the post a few seconds earlier. Lindros then increased the Ranger advantage to 4-2 with a redirection just under three minutes later. Brian Leetch, who finished with three assists, fired a shot that would have gone wide, but Lindros poked it in as he was skating in from the right wing. Wade Flaherty made 35 saves for the Panthers, but suffered his first loss in three career games as the Florida netminder. Daniel Blackburn stopped 31 shots for the Rangers, who snapped a three-game losing streak and won for only the second time in their last nine (2-7-0). The Panthers got on the board first at 5:41 of the opening period with Dagenais' sixth of the season. On the power play, Dagenais received a pass from Jason Wiemer in front of the net and made one move before beating Blackburn to the short side. But just 18 seconds later the Rangers got even. Martin Rucinsky posted his ninth of the campaign from close range on a pass from Bure, who fed the puck from behind the net. At 2:37 of the second period, the Panthers regained the lead on a 4-on-3 advantage. Svehla, who received a cross-ice pass from Sandis Ozolinsh, collected his seventh goal of the season with a shot from the left circle that beat a sliding Blackburn But once again the Rangers came back and knotted the game at 2-2 on Bure's 27th of the season and his fifth in a Ranger jersey. On the power play at 15:53 Bure blasted a low hard shot from the bottom of the right circle for his seventh point since joining his new club. The Rangers were 1-of-4 on the power play, while the Panthers were 2-of-6 with the man advantage.
Lindros has 24 career goals against the Panthers...Former Miami Dolphins
quarterback Dan Marino was in the crowd...Rangers are 25-16-2-1 when Lindros
registers a point...The Rangers won the season series 3-1...New York's
Vladimir Malakhov posted his 300th career point with two assists...The Rangers
are 2-4 with Bure...Lindros has seven points in his last seven games.
Panthers preparing for 'Rocket's glare
Pavel Bure had some parting shots taken at him 12 days ago by a few former teammates. Tonight, the Russian Rocket plans to take a few shots himself when he returns to play the Panthers.
Other Bure is staying away
Since his brother Pavel's trade March 18, Valeri Bure hasn't been seen or heard from by teammates.
Happy 31st birthday, PAVEL ! 
Hanging by a Thread
They're hanging on by a thread, but at least they're hanging on.
For at least one final night, the Panthers mattered again
The Panthers mattered. For one night. One game. One chance.
Bure's goal, two assists combined with Lindros' two goals lift Rangers to 4-2 victory
The question of how badly will Pavel Bure scorch the Panthers in his return wasn't as relevant Saturday as how long before Eric Lindros does it to the Panthers again?
Keenan: Keep criticism in locker room
Panthers coach Mike Keenan addressed comments Panthers goalie Trevor Kidd and former Panther Bill Lindsay made about ex-Panther Pavel Bure after the trade to the Rangers.
In a wink, Bure takes charge
In the middle of it all, at the center of the night, in the game he returned from the cold to find a colder shoulder, the first snapshot you'll want to see is this one:
Low-key Bure gets goal, 2 assists
SUNRISE · After scoring, Pavel Bure didn't remind fans of his greatness by pumping his fists or giving his signature right-leg lift. He just turned, looked at the crowd with almost no expression and lifted one arm straight into the air, the top of his stick about 11 feet off the ice.
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NOW PLAYING BROADWAY:
Pavel Bure was formally introduced to the New York media on Tuesday prior to the Rangers-Canucks game at Madison Square Garden. MSG Chairman and Cablevision President and Ceo James Dolan joined Rangers President and General Manager Glen Sather and Head Coach Ron Low in welcoming the 'Russian Rocket' to Broadway.
Pavel Bure (9) scores first goal as a Ranger during second period at Madison Square Garden. New teammate Eric Lindros (88) gets the assist.
Sun Files