That's not really the point. The problem I have with this deal is that it comes on the heels of several other deals just like it.
In today's NHL, teams need young, cheap players to replace older, more expensive players. Without that steady influx of youth, we end up signing players like Girardi and Staal to albatross contracts, or letting players like Yandle walk.
With this deal, we now have 3 less assets that might become a player for us, that might replace a vet whom we can then trade for more assets.
Yes, winning is important. It's the most important thing. But I don't think Eric Staal is the difference between us winning and losing the cup. If our farm system was overflowing with talent, I wouldn't have a problem with spending some of it on a win now proposition. But the truth is, we didn't have that much in the pipeline, and now we have even less. If we don't reverse the trend, this team is going to crash hard and be left with a bunch of immovable contracts.
I don't want to see another 7 years like we had from 1998-2004. People like to say that the Rangers are always going to go for it, and I guess that's true, but they also say that when it goes bad, they'll just blow it up and rebuild, but when have we ever done that? In 2004, I guess, but honestly we didn't really net much from that purge, and that was after 7 years of failing to make the playoffs. I think the only reason we blew it up then is because Sather knew there would be a cap.
I hope I'm wrong about Staal and this team. I hope we do win the cup and I'll be first in line to say I was wrong about this deal. Maybe Gorton has something up his sleeve in the offseason to fix our cap issues and get more youth into the organization. But right now I don't have a lot of confidence that they'll get it right.