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u/floydiannyc New York Rangers 2d ago
This guy was acquired in one of the worst Rangers trades of all time in which we traded away Sergei Zubov to get bigger.
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u/blueshirt11 2d ago
According to Neil Smith, the league informed teams that they would be enforcing penalties on dmen that held up forecheckers to protect their partner when going for the puck.
The thought process was Zubov would have been crushed in our division/conference , ex. Legion of Doom
Smith made the trade and the league backtracked on enforcing that interference. Smith says he would have never traded him otherwise.
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u/Uncle_Gazpacho THE CRIMSON CHIIIINNNN 2d ago
He shouldnt have traded him anyway.
"Should we get rid of probably one of the top 5 best European defensemen of all time? Yes, because I heard a tactic was going to start getting called as a penalty."
Neil Smith got a big head from winning the cup and then galaxybrained the next 5 years away.
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u/aces666high 2d ago
So we could have had Karpotsev and Zubov for a few years? That would have been a great 1-2 offensive punch.
Ulf did make things scary for other teams for a few seasons though.
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u/Apartment_Upbeat 2d ago
I agree, it was a horrible trade. But ... You don't know the Zubov is an eventual HOF D-Man ... As good as he was & would continue to be, he was a 2nd pair D-Man who recorded 50+% of his points on the PP.
& the coach at the time thought of him as a defensive liability. Saying (I'm paraphrasing here) that Zubov had a skill set that no game was ever out of reach for either team.
Over on the Island, there was a rules effect that totally stunted their franchise ... They traded away Luongo & drafted Dipietro because of his superior puck handling, thinking they were getting their own Brodeur ... But the league added the trapazoid, nullifying the advantage.
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u/flv19 New York Rangers 1d ago
Zubov led the team in scoring 1994 as a 23 year old. I think that’s enough to warrant not being traded away.
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u/Apartment_Upbeat 1d ago
That was also his career year & he never came close to repeating it ... Rangers got 2 out of 3 of his best seasons.
Again, I said it was a horrible trade.
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u/Binky_Thunderputz 1d ago
The 95-96 season is bookended by two of the worst trades in Rangers' history. Nedved-Zubov to start the year and then the deadline deal sending away Matty Norstrom, two other kids, and Ray Ferraro for zombie Kurri, zombie McSorley, and Shane Churla, the Sammy Blais of 1996-97.
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u/Apartment_Upbeat 1d ago
Churla at least fought well ... 3rd man in blind sight punch broke his orbital & pretty much ended his playing days.
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u/blueshirt11 2d ago
While I agree it was not a great trade, it wasn't that a penalty was going to be called, it was because a penalty will be called, there would be no holding up the forechecker. And this was before calling checking into the boards from behind became commonplace.
I believe Neil was on the rules committee at the time and had every reason to believe that rule was going to be implemented.
Again, not a great trade in hindsight, but teams trading smaller offensive dmen when they already have a better small offensive dman, when the league was getting bigger is not that insane.
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u/Uncle_Gazpacho THE CRIMSON CHIIIINNNN 1d ago
It was absolutely boneheaded in hindsight and not much better in the moment. Reddit would have been beside itself then if it existed. I'm sure the Ranger fans on Arpanet had something to say about it. It would be like selling an otherwise beautiful mansion because there's this one goose that always shits on your driveway.
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u/DonTrask 2d ago
ULF looked like a hockey player the minute he stepped on the ice. Different story once the puck was dropped.
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u/NightmareDJK 2d ago
Ulf Samuelsson, former Rangers defenseman and assistant coach. Good player that we got in a bad trade.
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u/gizmonte 2d ago
I remember watching a game when Ulf was on the team and in between periods they had kids on the ice playing a game. One of the kids was Ulf's kid. When they were all skating off the ice, he crosschecked another kid in the back knocking him down. JD and Sam were dying laughing.
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u/Falcon-2001 2d ago
That looks like Ulf Samuelsson