The Rangers’ Emerson Etem experiment is over.
The 23-year-old forward was traded to the Canucks on Friday in exchange for 22-year-old winger Nicklas Jensen and a sixth-round pick in 2017. Jensen was the Canucks’ first-round pick (29th overall) from 2011 — when current Rangers coach Alain Vigneault was behind the Vancouver bench. The 6-foot-3, 202-pound Jensen has played 24 career NHL games, but none this season. He had four goals and eight assists in 27 games with AHL Utica, and will report directly to AHL Hartford.
Etem was a bust on Broadway, agreeing on Friday to be sent to AHL Hartford for a conditioning stint that never happened.
“I would say it’s clear that Emerson got off to a tough start here and it didn’t seem to gain any traction,” general manager Jeff Gorton said on a conference call Friday night. “It goes back to training camp, really, where it didn’t seem to be working and a fit. So, that’s why at this point, we just thought it was best for us to give him another spot to go to, and for us, find a player we liked and thought had some future.”
Etem came to the Rangers this past summer from the Ducks in an exchange of restricted free agents, with the Blueshirts sending Carl Hagelin to Anaheim. It was never meant as a talent swap, with the Rangers needing salary-cap space and Hagelin signing a four-year, $16 million deal, while Etem inked a one-year, $850,500 contract.
The deal also included a swap of draft picks, and the Rangers used their acquired 41st pick on forward Ryan Gropp, who last week they signed to an entry-level deal.
“We wanted Ryan Gropp and he’s done well,” Gorton said. “We’re happy where he’s at. With Emerson, for whatever reason, it wasn’t working out.”
Etem got into 19 games with the Rangers and had zero goals and three assists. His final appearance was this past Saturday in Florida, when he had a horrible turnover and committed a bad penalty that both ended in goals against en route to a 3-0 loss.
He now goes to play for coach Willie Desjardins, who was his coach as a junior in the WHL.
As for Jensen, the early reviews seem pretty favorable.
“He’s got a nice skill package, he can skate, he’s got good hands, he’s got hockey sense,” Gorton said. “Our scouts that have seen him recently thought he might benefit from another organization and another opportunity. We see that a lot in hockey. We’re going to put him into Hartford and see how he does and hopefully he can help us.”
Forward Chris Kreider will not play Saturday, missing a second straight game as he recovers from the gash still not closed on the top of his right hand, suffered in a fight last Saturday in Florida.
Kreider participated fully for the second straight practice, and afterward he said: “If it was up to me, I’d play. But it’s up to the discretion of the trainers at this point.”
Vigneault was expecting Kreider to be ready for this game, but now instead thinks he’ll be ready for the Garden match against the Bruins on Monday. Yet with the team coming off an impressive 6-2 win over the then-NHL-leading Stars on Tuesday, it wasn’t a guarantee that if Kreider was ready, he would play.
“We’ll have to see how we play,” Vigneault said. “The team played a pretty good game last game. We’re on a game-to-game basis. He’s definitely, when he’s playing up to his potential, a top-six forward. He will be the first to tell you that his game can be better. So we’ll see how we do [Saturday] and we’ll go from there.”
Henrik Lundqvist will be debuting a new set of pads, with a little more blue around the edges. He also has two new masks to go with them, and will be wearing the one that matches the heritage jerseys the team will be wearing.