The New York Effect?

GlitchMarner

Typical malevolent, devious & vile Maple Leafs fan
Jul 21, 2017
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Several players have had their careers suddenly and perhaps unexpectedly go downhill after signing with the New York Rangers. Is there an underlying reason for this?

Examples:

Valeri Kamensky: He scored between 66 and 85 points and 26 and 38 goals three seasons in a row with the Avalanche from '96 to '98. His last season with Colorado wasn't as good as he scored at only a 56 point clip (44 points in 65 games). His offense continued declining with the Rangers: he scored 14 and 13 goals and 43 and 34 points in two full seasons with the Rangers (in 58 and 65 games).

Wade Redden: He was out of the NHL entirely after his second season with the Rangers.

Eric Lindros: The 1995 Hart winner had a respectable first season in Broadway (by his standards), scoring 73 points in 72 games. However, he scored only 19 goals and 53 points in 81 games the following season (very uncharacteristic for him compared to his career up to that point) and then only had ten goals in 39 games in '03-'04.

Brad Richards: The former Conn Smythe winner was coming off a couple of seasons in which he had finished in the top ten in NHL scoring when he signed with the Rangers in 2011. After a solid first season on Broadway in which he put up 66 points and helped the Rangers finish first in the Eastern Conference and a 15 point playoffs, he seemed to struggle after the latest lockout, potting only 11 goals in 46 games and being a healthy scratch in the 2013 playoffs. He rebounded with a decent 51 point season in '14 and scored nine points in the first two rounds of the playoffs to help the Rangers reach the ECF before cooling down and not being very productive in the last two rounds of the playoffs. He was bought out in 2014.

Chris Drury: The former Calder winner saw his numbers decline after joining the Rangers, but he still put up more than 55 points in each of his first two seasons on Broadway. However, he scored only 14 goals and 32 points in 77 games in '10 and then one goal and five points in 24 games in '11 and was bought out and never played in the NHL again.


What happened to these players?
 
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Big Phil

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Nov 2, 2003
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Someone mentioned age already, and another mentioned just flat out poor signings. It is both of them, but there is a bit more to it.

Lindros was almost certainly going to sign with the Leafs - we thought - after 2000-'01. But even if he did, it wouldn't have mattered, he was never the same player after the Stevens hit anyways and Rangers or not it wouldn't have mattered what team.

Redden was one of those bizarre signings that didn't make sense. Here is a clearly declining defenseman who never came close to living up to expectations and who had an awful season in 2008 and he gets a contract that would make Chris Gratton blush.

Did Drury really drop like a stone though? He peaked at 67 points in his career, nothing special, and he had 58 and 56 points his first two years in New York.

Kamensky was getting older too, plus the time he spent under the Soviets may have had a toll on him earlier in his career. It did for other Russians who came to the NHL. Just a hunch.

Richards was never the type of player I felt should be your team's #1 center to begin with, or at least your best forward. Maybe part of it was age. For example, he was on the 2006 Olympic team but quite far off the radar even by the time 2010 hit, let alone a couple years later going to the Rangers. He had a good year in 2010, but a poor one in 2009, so that may have factored in. I think things were passing him by at this time. I know I never thought of him on the team.
 
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Sadekuuro

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Tempted to make a joke about the gravity at the center of the universe...

They did indeed have a tendency to pick up aging or damaged big name players--most of the above were doomed to failure the moment they signed on the dotted line. I actually did find Drury's decline in particular to be surprisingly fast, albeit as pointed out it wasn't the moment he signed in New York but a couple of years later. (I also didn't watch the Rangers much at the time, was there more to that story?)

They had bad luck with Bure, who was filling the net and looked like he would have worked out great had his knee held up.
 

Ishdul

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Jan 20, 2007
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Redden was visibly going downhill for 2 years with the Senators before the Rangers signed him. Richards had the big free agent scramble, and I remember every internet person correctly joked that 20 teams were giving elaborate presentations to a guy that was inevitably going to be bought out in a few years. And yeah, you could see the pattern with all these guys, 30 year olds signing extra long contracts that were unlikely to work out well. You didn't mention him but Scott Gomez was pretty well the exact same deal, as well as Holik and Kasparaitis.
 

SealsFan

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May 3, 2009
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I think I started a thread about it once, or else I've brought it up in the "What Are You Doing in That Uniform?" threads, but those 70's Ranger teams were a dumping ground for so many name players who were past their prime.

That's what I've always considered the New York affect.

"Give me your tired, your old, your hobbled veterans yearning to skate free, the wretched refuse of your teams galore. Send these, the over-the-hill, to me. I lift my stick beside the penalty box door!"
 

Troubadour

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Feb 23, 2018
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It was just careless management and infinite resources thrown on has-beens. I used to follow attendance numbers in the late nineties and early noughties, and MSG was the only NHL arena that was always full no matter how terrible the team played.

New York makes or breaks you it seems. Jagr was supposed to be yet another overpaid dinosaur, but him and the Big Apple clicked.
 
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shadow1

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Nov 29, 2008
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As other have said, most cases are simply mismanagement by the Rangers, always paying for a player's best years 2-3 years after they took place. The one I always wonder about is Eric Lindros.

  • Lindros definitely wasn't the player he was with the Flyers, but he was really good that first year with the Rangers - 37 goals, 73 points in 72 games; the 37 goals was only (4) behind Bill Guerin, who was second in the NHL with 41.
  • Meanwhile, in his 53 point season, his best teammates were Petr Nedved (58 points), 41 year old Mark Messier (40 points), 39 games of Pavel Bure (30 points), and Matthew Barnaby (36 points). Woof.
  • In his third and final year with the Rangers, he had 32 points in 39 games. That was the year the Rangers acquired Jaromir Jagr. IIRC, Lindros assisted on Jagr's first goal with the Blueshirts; then, in classic Lindros fashion, sustained a concussion in Jagr's second game, and missed the rest of the season.
Though there was probably no happy ending in the Eric Lindros story regardless of where he signed, I've always wondered if he could have put a better team over the top around the 2001-2003 time frame.
 

Big Phil

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Redden was visibly going downhill for 2 years with the Senators before the Rangers signed him. Richards had the big free agent scramble, and I remember every internet person correctly joked that 20 teams were giving elaborate presentations to a guy that was inevitably going to be bought out in a few years. And yeah, you could see the pattern with all these guys, 30 year olds signing extra long contracts that were unlikely to work out well. You didn't mention him but Scott Gomez was pretty well the exact same deal, as well as Holik and Kasparaitis.

Forgot about Holik............yeah he was among the names of insane contracts handed out to players prior to the lockout, not that GMs have been better since though.

Richards if I remember correctly had the media attention that year because he was the best player in a weak, weak summer of free agents.
 

GlitchMarner

Typical malevolent, devious & vile Maple Leafs fan
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Forgot about Holik............yeah he was among the names of insane contracts handed out to players prior to the lockout, not that GMs have been better since though.

Richards if I remember correctly had the media attention that year because he was the best player in a weak, weak summer of free agents.

Richards was coming off a couple of seasons in which he was a top ten scorer as well. In 2011 he finished tenth in scoring despite missing ten games. He was 31 when he hit free agency and obviously wasn't going to be good for the duration of the contract, but I'm sure many thought he would be good for at least three to five more seasons instead of solid for one and meh to decent for two.

Plus once you've won a playoff MVP award, you kind of get a reputation for having intangibles and leadership qualities, and to be fair they did win some playoff rounds with him.
 

Newsworthy

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I see a trend here. But hey you forgot to mention Messier, Gretzky, Nash, LaFontaine, Nichols and Jägr.
And how about Bure, RobitaillE, St Louis, Stevens and Fluery?
 
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VanIslander

A 19-year ATDer on HfBoards
Sep 4, 2004
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Gretzky was another aging veteran who the Rags threw money at, only he was worth every penny.

1st in NHL assists his first two seasons at MSG and the third, last one he led the team easily in scoring despite missing 12 games.

This is not how a star's career usually ends in NY.
 

brachyrynchos

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Apr 10, 2017
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I think impatience and lack of chemistry could be reasons. Neil Smith just couldn't sit still with the roster, way too much turnover. Every year was pretty much a new team with just a few guys remaining from '94: Leetch, Richter, and Graves.
Some of the new faces:
'95-96: Robitaille, Samuelsson, Driver, Berg, Momesso, Presley. Ray Ferraro and Ian Laperriere were new faces that were shipped out (along with Lafayette and Norstrom) for Kurri, Churla, and Mcsorley.
'96-97: Gretzky, Flatley, Courtnall, Eastwood, and the return of Tikkanen.
'97-98: Errey, Finley, Keane, Skrudland, T. Sweeney, and H. York and P. Sevigny.
'98-99: Fedyk, S. Fraser, Harvey, Knuble, J. Maclean, Schneider, Nedved, Ndur, Neckar, Tamer, E. Lacroix
'99-00: Fleury, Daigle,, J. Dawe, Kamensky, Dimaio, T. Taylor, Pilon, Quintal, Hatcher, Lefebvre, K. Mclean.
'00-01: Neil Smith is gone, but the madness continues.Grosek, S. McCarthy, J. Toms, Messier returns. Gusarov, Malakhov,
Bannister, and Guy Hebert.
'01-02: Barnaby, Berard, Bure, Ciger, Rucinsky, Lindros, R. Murray, M. Samuelsson, Fata, Johansson, Mckenna, Poti, karpa.

Most of those guys didn't stick around for too long, and the few that did had revolving linemates or defensive partners. There wasn't enough time it seemed to build team chemistry and take it from there. Buy buy buy! Sell sell, sell!
Another thing, maybe some of those vets were given roles/minutes that they weren't suited for at that point of their career,
 

Spirit of McMullen

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Apr 19, 2018
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Summer of 2002 in the pre-cap era they gave a 3rd line checking Center Bobby Holik an insane $9 million per year, 5-year, $45 million contract. Heck, even Crosby makes less than that now.

Holik missed a lot of games his first year and was productive the 2nd year, but the team was just terrible. They ended up buying him out after the 2004-2005 lockout.

On any other team (like the NJD) he would be an extremely valuable, feisty, edgy 2nd or 3rd line Center that will chip in 25-30 goals and give you about 50 points. But the fact that he was paid to be a 3rd line checking Center for the NYR, making $9 million per year kind of made it a joke, irregardless of whether he was productive or not

$9 million per year for Bobby Holik in 2002 money is definitely the "New York Effect"
 

The Panther

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Mar 25, 2014
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I started a thread a couple years (?) ago about how so many veterans go to New York to die, and we had quite a laundry list of them there. But I can't find the thread now.
$9 million per year for Bobby Holik in 2002 money is definitely the "New York Effect"
I also had a thread about this recently, as I remembered it as the stupidest contract I've ever heard of!:
Bobby Holik's $9 million/year salary
 

Jim MacDonald

Registered User
Oct 7, 2017
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I feel bad that I cant remember the fan's name....but it was the funniest thing! In one of my posts/topics the fan said a player's career goes to New York/the Rangers to die....and it was so true/funny! It was seriously a "drop the mic" moment!
 

Stephen

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Feb 28, 2002
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For a long time, going to the New York Rangers was kind of a victory lap/pension plan for a lot of NHL stars and superstars: Esposito, Lafleur, Dionne, Gretzky, Messier, Larmer, Robitaille, Verbeek, Kurri, Lafontaine, Bure, Lindros, Jagr, Shanahan, Holik, Drury, Gomez, Fleury, St. Louis, Nash, Richards, etc.
 

FerrisRox

"Wanna go, Prettyboy?"
Sep 17, 2003
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For a long time, going to the New York Rangers was kind of a victory lap/pension plan for a lot of NHL stars and superstars: Esposito, Lafleur, Dionne, Gretzky, Messier, Larmer, Robitaille, Verbeek, Kurri, Lafontaine, Bure, Lindros, Jagr, Shanahan, Holik, Drury, Gomez, Fleury, St. Louis, Nash, Richards, etc.

Robitialle actually played eight more seasons after his final year in New York, and three of those seasons saw him score over 35 goals, so he doesn't belong on this list.
 
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Uncle Rotter

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May 11, 2010
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I think I started a thread about it once, or else I've brought it up in the "What Are You Doing in That Uniform?" threads, but those 70's Ranger teams were a dumping ground for so many name players who were past their prime.

That's what I've always considered the New York affect.

"Give me your tired, your old, your hobbled veterans yearning to skate free, the wretched refuse of your teams galore. Send these, the over-the-hill, to me. I lift my stick beside the penalty box door!"
Ken Hodge, Bill Goldsworthy...
 

Voight

#winning
Feb 8, 2012
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Sather was incapable of giving out a reasonable deal.

Lets not forget

Theo Fleury 21 million/3 years - scored 70+ points once, while his stats weren't too too bad, there weren't close to what was expected.

Gomez - self explanatory
 

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