Analysis: Rangers not shy to pay price for success

The New York Rangers were close enough to a Stanley Cup championship last season to experience what it feels like to be at the pinnacle of the hockey world in mid-June.

It is a heady experience, no doubt; a validation of all the hard work a franchise puts into building a roster that can win in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and instituting a system that allows that roster to function to the best of its ability.

Once experienced, the siren call to return for another round of June hockey is nearly impossible to ignore.

New York Rangers general manager Glen Sather couldn't.

Sunday afternoon, he pushed his trade chips all-in, sending a second-round pick in the 2015 NHL Draft; a first-round pick in the 2016 draft; a top prospect, forward Anthony Duclair; and depth defenseman John Moore to the Arizona Coyotes for Keith Yandle, an offense-first defenseman who excels in power-play situations, and a mid-round pick.

The Rangers, it should be noted, have two defenseman with more than 20 points. Dan Boyle, a heralded import this season, has not delivered the punch expected from the blue line with 15 points. The power play, ranked No. 11 in the League, needs to be better in the postseason when goals are at more of a premium.

Last postseason, the Rangers' power play struggled at 12.6 percent efficiency and was one of the reasons they lost to the Los Angeles Kings, going 2-for-22 in the five-game Stanley Cup Final.

Sather, who won the Stanley Cup four times as a coach with the Edmonton Oilers more than two decades ago, knows better than most how hard and unforgiving the road to a championship can be. The close call last spring merely reinforced that belief. He also knows how rewarding it is to overcome the hardships and obstacles placed in the path to 16 postseason wins.

As a general manager, the goal has to be to fortify your team to make it as stout as possible for the arduous task ahead of it. Assets must be sacrificed in this quest, that's how it works. Sather has done it in the past. Last year, he gave up his captain, forward Ryan Callahan, and what became two first-round picks to land forward  Martin St. Louis from the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Rangers have not held onto a first-round pick since 2012. They don't own another one until 2017. Sather, clearly, is not shy about paying for what he wants.

Sather paid again Sunday, striking a full 24 hours before the 2015 NHL Trade Deadline window closes at 3 p.m. (ET) Monday. He did it with the bold and unexpected move to grab Yandle. After that trade, the Rangers made two others, bringing in two-way forward James Sheppard, a first-round pick in 2006, from the San Jose Sharks and minor-league forward Carl Klingberg from the Winnipeg Jets.

Despite being one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference and perhaps the most battle-tested of those contenders, Sather never could shake the feeling his Rangers were incomplete. They may have the League's best goalie, Henrik Lundqvist if, and when, he regains his form after a long layoff with a vascular injury. Plus, the Rangers have an elite goal-scorer, Rick Nash, who is second in the League in that category. It is deep and fast and, under coach Alain Vigneault, plays a system that makes it competitive every game. But the Rangers could be better.

Yandle, Sather believes, makes them better. He might be right.

"I think Keith could be the final piece of a Stanley Cup-winning team," said Don Maloney, the Arizona general manager who traded Yandle.

That's why the price paid by the Rangers is irrelevant. Was it steep? Yes. Was it excessive? Maybe. But every trade deadline market is different. The 2015 edition is a seller's market and the prices have already been exorbitant for mid-level rentals who have moved.

Prying Yandle away from the rebuilding Coyotes was going to take some creativity and some pain from the buying team.

Keith Yandle

Defense - NYR

GOALS: 4 | ASST: 37 | PTS: 41
SOG: 185 | +/-: -32

When the Rangers introduced Duclair into the talks, the dynamic changed for each team.

The Rangers were serious, willing to part with one of the crown jewels of their development system, a player who showed early this season he can handle the NHL game and then dominated at the 2015 IIHF World Junior Championship.

The Coyotes, meanwhile, were intrigued, sensing a not-to-be-missed opportunity to accelerate a rebuild engendered by a nightmarish season which has them third-from-last in the League three years after reaching the Western Conference Final.

Maloney knew he could get a couple of high-round picks from the Rangers, but that wouldn't be enough to further gut his team and move a top-end player with term remaining on his contract like Yandle.

Duclair took the deal to another level, a young, seemingly can't-miss prospect familiar with several of Arizona's other prospects, including playing on a dominant line with top Coyotes prospect Max Domi for Canada at the WJC.

Suddenly, the return exceeded the asset being moved and Maloney pulled the trigger secure in the knowledge he did what was best for his organization.

The Arizona general manager has the luxury of an extended honeymoon before he will be judged on this deal. The assets will need time to mature before they can be fully judged.

Sather has no such luxury and that is part of the deal when answering the siren song.

He will be judged in full by mid-June. He will either be validated with a parade down the Canyon of Heroes in New York City or he will be vilified for squandering more assets in an attempt to end a Stanley Cup drought which dates to 1994.

It can be no other way when the stakes are this high.