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#Mark Messier trade got Rangers the right player at right time

#Mark Messier trade got Rangers the right player at right time

This week The Post takes a fresh look at the “best of” New York sports history — areas that are just as worthy of debate, but that haven’t been argued incessantly starting with the best free-agent signing.

It is one year more than a quarter-century ago, yet the power of 1994 continues to resonate.

For though Butch Goring’s trade was the key to creating the Dynasty on the Island, Dave DeBusschere’s acquisition by the Knicks enabled the only two NBA titles in franchise history and obtaining Eli Manning set up the Giants for a pair of Super Bowl victories, not one of these deals was voted by The Post sports staff as the best trade in New York sports history.

Rather, it was the trade that brought Mark Messier to New York from Edmonton on Oct. 4, 1991, that won the balloting. The trade in which — as if you actually care — Bernie Nicholls, Steven Rice and Louie DeBrusk went the other way. The trade that spawned 1994 and the Rangers’ first and only Stanley Cup championship since that sing-song year of 1940.

“I think that [winning a vote like this] shows the impression we made on the city and the connection we made with people,” The Captain told The Post on Tuesday from Hilton Head, S.C., where he has spent most of the past three months. “It was bigger than hockey and I think that people who didn’t even follow the sport or our team got caught up in the bigger narrative.

“I know it’s not easy to win in New York, I know the challenges, but even now, one Cup in the last [80] years is hard to believe. On top of the type of team we were, the way we competed, the guys making the city our home, it’s the championship that sets us apart. It’s very flattering to know with this kind of a vote, how much that still means to people.”

Mark Messier won the 1990 Stanley Cup with the Oilers.AP

You’d think it would have been a slam dunk, right? You’d think that when Messier, then 30, demanded a trade out of Edmonton when it became apparent that the franchise’s financially challenged glory days were in the rearview mirror, that there’d have been at least a dozen teams driving up the bidding. But you’d be wrong. There were concerns about Messier’s age, concerns the knee injury he’d sustained the previous season was a harbinger. Even the Rangers might have needed a little convincing.

“I asked Glen [Sather, then the Oilers’ president and GM] to trade me to the Rangers. I wanted to come to New York. I wanted to live in the city and take advantage personally of everything New York could offer,” Messier said. “I wanted to play for an Original Six team. … Well, actually, not just any Original Six, but this Original Six team, specifically because it had been so long since they’d won. I embraced that. I never wavered in my commitment to ending that drought.

“But if it hadn’t worked out, I would have gone somewhere else. For sure. I needed to reinvigorate myself personally and professionally. But New York was always where I wanted to go.”

Messier joined a talented group upon reporting to the Rangers in Boston for the second game of the 1991-92 season. The Blueshirts had Brian Leetch on the blue line; Adam Graves, Mike Gartner, Tony Amonte, Doug Weight, Darren Turcotte, John Ogrodnick and Sergei Nemchinov up front; both Mike Richter and John Vanbiesbrouck in goal.

And the team coached by Roger Neilson finished with the best record in the league for the first time since 1941-42. Messier won the Hart Trophy off a 35-72-107 season and Leetch won the Norris, but the Blueshirts were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs by the Penguins. Cracks in the foundation may not have been obvious to neutral parties, but they were to No. 11.

Mark Messier celebrates his second period goal against the Canucks in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals at Madison Square Garden in June 1994.AP

“I don’t want to criticize anything or anyone that came before me, but coming from an organization that had won five Cups in nine years to the Rangers, I could detect differences in the approach, in expectations, and just the way things were done,” Messier said. “When you’re winning championships, more is demanded of you and you demand more of yourselves. There were glaring differences in the way some things were done.

“The biggest challenge for me in being a leader in New York was to learn not to refer to my personal experiences in Edmonton or to how we did things on the Oilers. I didn’t anticipate that. So I had to develop different ways to draw on the lessons I learned in order to bring guys together and create a winning atmosphere.”

The Captain became a pied piper, though the road to the Canyon of Heroes took a detour in 1992-93 when Messier’s strategic and philosophical disagreements with Neilson flared into public view, the coach was fired at midseason, Leetch broke his ankle, the Blueshirts missed the playoffs after going 1-11 their final 12 games. And Messier was booed at the Garden.

“It really was a roller-coaster ride those first three years,” Messier said. “We went from riding high to the depths of despair and experiencing everything that comes with being professional athletes in New York. There are highs, but there are lows if you lose.

“You know, people like to think that winning is nice and rosy and warm and cuddly. But it isn’t. It’s brutally tough. It’s not for everyone. Changes needed to be made. There was no doubt in my mind. I was willing to live with all of that and withstand the criticism I took in order so we could get where we wanted to go.”

They went where no other Rangers team had gone since 1940, and now again since 1994. They won the Stanley Cup that Messier hoisted maniacally on June 14, 1994.

“I had self-belief and self-confidence before I came,” Messier said. “But I grew massively in every way in New York. It was the right place for me. And at the right time.”

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