Three years later, here is Marc Staal, about to play in the Stanley Cup final as a Panthers fixture, and here are the Rangers, still searching for a third-pair left defenseman to fill the hole that No. 18 left when he was traded to the Red Wings on Sept. 26, 2020.
It was a salary-cap move; everyone remembers that. It was a deal the Rangers and then-GM Jeff Gorton were so eager to make that they added a 2021 second-rounder to the mix so that Detroit would take Staal’s contract, which had one year to go at a $5.7 million cap hit.
In essence, the Blueshirts got nothing in return.
Staal, then 33 and a Blueblood of 13 seasons after having been selected 12th overall in the 2005 entry draft, had had a pretty decent 2019-20 season playing as Tony DeAngelo’s left side partner. It had been kind of a bounce-back season for the player with the sixth-most games (892) in franchise history.