Yea pretty much sums it up. If we had gotten Jagr instead of Lindros the team would have been better. Jagr was a monster. Lindros was one NYC bumpy cab ride away from retirement. When the Rangers finally gor Jagr Messier and Jagr were developing chemistry. Not saying they would have been full time line mates but from what I saw they looked pretty good together.That was the problem certain fans on the Internet had with him, the vast majority of Ranger fans had little problem with him. Personally, I find that those two groups are not necessarily one and the same.
With that said, I didn't and still don't think Messier was the problem during those years. The problem was that those teams just weren't very good.
The holes on defense were pretty noteworthy, the forwards who were supposed to be assuming the leadership roles on the team were in their last days as impact NHL performers (and their impact was all over the map), the goaltending became a game of roulette and there wasn't a lot of help on the horizon. Not sure a prime Messier was going to magically turn that around.
I never got that Messier still desired to be the offensive centerpiece on those teams. In 2001, he was the second line center behind Petr Nedved. In 2002, he was slotted behind Lindrtos and Nedved (who fell off considerably). In 2003, he was was still slotted behind those guys, neither of whom had great seasons and then the Rangers tried throwing Bobby Holik into the mix. By 2004, everything was even more of a mess --- Nedved was essentially done as a top six forward, Lindros was a shell of his former self and Holik was terribly miscast on the team.
Messier supposedly had all this power and yet his closest friends were shipped out including Graves and Leetch. He supposedly "hated" Nedved and was going to run him out of town, and yet the two played together for four years.
Frankly, the organization was DOA during those years, from top to bottom. That was due to poor management, not because of some weird Illuminati like influence that Messier had.
After all the superstars the Rangers dragged through here Flurey, Bure, Lindros etc... they did a whole lot of nothing because two of three where on their last legs and Theo never should have been here in the first place. Most nights Messier out played all of them or, at least gave them a chance to put up numbers. Jagr comes here in 2001 and it's a completely different era.