The weird time Eric Staal was a New York Ranger

It’s still strange to think about how the New York Rangers once had both Eric Staal and Marc Staal on their roster. At the time, it felt like a move to elevate the team to the next level. The Rangers had a history of trading future assets for immediate gains, and while some moves, like those for Martin St. Louis and Keith Yandle, paid off handsomely, this particular trade felt like a desperate attempt to salvage a team whose foundation was clearly starting to crack.

In the trade for Eric Staal, the Hurricanes received center Aleksi Saarela, who is currently playing in Finland, along with the Rangers’ second-round picks in the next two drafts.

Staal had spent his entire 12-year career with the Hurricanes and was set to become an unrestricted free agent that summer. By then, he had scored 30-plus goals five times in his career.

At the time of the trade, Staal had 10 goals and 23 assists in 63 games that season. He was the Hurricanes’ active career leader in nearly every category, including 909 games played, 332 goals, and 775 points. For a Rangers team in desperate need of a boost, acquiring Staal seemed like a gem of a move, one that could help bolster the offense alongside Derrick Brassard, Rick Nash, and others.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go as expected. Staal managed just three goals and three assists in 20 regular-season games for the Rangers and went scoreless as they bowed out in the first round to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Penguins in five games.

It appeared that then-coach Alain Vigneault didn’t know how to utilize Staal effectively. Primarily deployed as a third-line left wing with limited power play time, Staal’s skills were underutilized. It also seemed that Staal might have been nearing the end of his career.

The frustration was compounded by what happened afterward. Staal signed a three-year, $10.5 million deal with the Wild and quickly found chemistry with ex-Devil Zach Parise, thriving as the top-line center. Staal proved he still had plenty left in the tank, making the Rangers’ experiment with him look like a missed opportunity due to a coach’s unwillingness to take a risk.

Eric Staal as a Ranger was an odd chapter that could have turned out better with the right deployment. Instead, it remains a minor footnote in Rangers history, marked with a lingering “what if.”