Written by Joe Fortunado at BlueShirtBannermen.com
The New York Rangers traded Keith Yandle to the Florida Panthers for a 6th round pick and a conditional 4th round pick Monday afternoon.
The Rangers didn’t make a mistake moving Yandle’s rights, especially since the two sides reportedly had a discussion and Jeff Gorton didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. The meager return was to be expected, since Yandle is a UFA in July.
The problem is the Rangers’ decision making from the start of the Yandle saga. It was trading for Yandle despite extending Marc Staal, not utilizing Yandle properly when the Rangers did have him and then not moving him at the deadline.
I tweeted this last night, but it’s worth mentioning again. Gorton has made three major moves as Rangers general manager: Didn’t trade Yandle at the deadline, did trade for Eric Staal at the deadline and then traded Yandle this summer. You can make the argument Gorton was forced into all three moves, but no matter how you look at it all three were bad.
The Yandle trade will fall somewhere between “regret it a lot” and “catastrophic” depending on Anthony Duclair’s continued rise. With the opportunity to get real assets for Yandle, Gorton shied away and wanted to go all in one more year with this team. It earned him one more playoff win and Yandle ended up getting traded before Arizona could even use the first round pick they got from the Rangers. Think about that for a minute.
It’s a disaster of epic proportions no matter how you slice it. For Duclair, John Moore and a 1st round pick the Rangers got Chris Summers and a 6th round draft pick (maybe a 4th rounder, too, if Yandle and the Panthers agree to a new deal). People will say “you have to give to get” when it comes to going all in, but the Rangers never had a backup plan for the reality if they didn’t win outside of the fact it was a mistake to go all in for another year. It’s like being on a crashing plane only to realize you traded all the parachutes for an extra gallon of gas; you have to ride it out to the finish.
To continue reading this article, click here.
