It wasn’t necessarily a leading question, but Emerson Etem interrupted before a reporter could finish asking whether the newest Canuck had any bitterness towards the Rangers, who traded him Jan. 8 after a failed run on Broadway and whom he will face Tuesday night at the Garden.
“No,” Etem told The Post emphatically on Sunday afternoon at Barclays Center. “Not at all.”
Etem — in his fourth game for his new team, under old junior coach Willie Desjardins — went out and played an entirely unspectacular game against the Islanders, something the Rangers became accustomed to seeing in his 19-game audition.
Etem says he received a fair shake from Blueshirts coach Alain Vigneault, and seems at peace with the fact he didn’t perform up to expectations.
“What, I played 19 games there? In 19 games you have to do more, not only offensive production,” Etem said. “It started right from preseason. I didn’t have great production. I was inconsistent [in] just overall play. I think it just bled to the regular season, then you’re trying to play catch-up. That’s what happened.”
In trying to explain the zero goals and three assists during his span with the Blueshirts, along with the inability to make a difference in the game away from the puck, Etem pointed to a couple other areas where he thinks the experiment failed.
“Sometimes it’s just not a good fit,” he said. “Whether it’s they had me with a lot of guys with similar attributes that just were playing better than me, that might be one thing. Or maybe they just didn’t know how to use me in a way. To be honest, it didn’t work out for probably a couple different reasons. It’s something that I’m not too worried about here.”
Enough time has elapsed for the trade to sink in for the 23-year-old Etem, dealt twice in in the past seven months. He was an unsigned restricted free agent when the Ducks had shipped him to the Rangers over the summer in exchange for their own unsigned restricted free agent, Carl Hagelin. The trade also included a swap of draft picks, which general manager Jeff Gorton said was important in the deal, enabling him to get into the second round to select forward Ryan Gropp (41st overall).
Gorton, along with Vigneault, also agreed Etem struggled since the beginning of training camp. Vigneault made it clear Etem likely would have been sent to the AHL if he could have gone without clearing waivers — instead he stayed with the big club and struggled to find any traction.
Hagelin, who signed a four-year, $16 million deal with Anaheim, has since been shipped to the Penguins; and Etem, who signed a one-year, $850,500 deal with the Rangers, has been shipped to the Canucks. Etem has tuned out the continued shuffling.
“I was never worried about was going on with [Hagelin] and Anaheim,” Etem said. “I’m still just focused on myself and trying to start fresh with my career here and get a good run.”
Vancouver was a natural landing place. The history with Desjardins goes back to the 2009-10 season when the two were together as coach and player with the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers. After that season, Etem, a native of Long Beach, Calif., was drafted by the Ducks in the first round (29th overall). He made his NHL debut in 2012-13.
Yet Desjardins didn’t want to focus too much on his role in reuniting with Etem as part of a swap in which the Canucks sent their own mercurial young talent, forward Nicklas Jensen, along with a sixth-round pick in 2017, to the Blueshirts.
“I think it’s just more you’re trying to find a player,” Desjardins said. “We were looking for a young player with speed, and he happened to be one of those guys that came available. So he’s a natural fit.”
So now Etem is trying to pick up the pieces of his career. There have been many stops and starts, and he was adamant in repeatedly calling the Rangers “a first-class organization.” But he has moved on, as have the Rangers.
“You just have to switch gears in a way, change your mindset,” Etem said. “At the same time, New York, the guys in that locker room treated me with open arms. They were really good to me. So that was the sad part of it. It’s obviously a business, and that happens.”