Staal is going to be an unrestricted free agent after this season, but Gorton said he was not granted permission to start negotiating prior to the trade. Although Gorton added he thinks Staal “is still a young player, in our mind has some years left,” this is being viewed as a rental that hopefully yields the franchise’s first championship since 1994.
“We’re acquiring him to make our team better today and see where it takes us,” Gorton said on a conference call. “Then going forward, we hope it works out real well for both and we’ll talk then. For now, he’s a Ranger today and we’ll see what happens.” ...
“We’re looking at a player that we think could be energized by this trade,” Gorton said. “We see the numbers, we scouted him a lot, I think we know the player as well as anybody. We think, we put him into our team, surrounded by some of the pieces we have, we’re going to get a lot out of him and he’s going to be energized to come to New York and play for the Rangers.”