The New York Rangers have struggled offensively all season. That fact has been driven home of late, where the Rangers have scored more than two goals in only two of their last nine games. Today, they got some help on that front as GM Glen Sather made a serious deadline push to get his team into the playoffs.
The Rangers have acquired Nik Antropov from the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for a second round pick and a conditional pick, both from this year's draft. In a separate trade, they also acquired Derek Morris from the Phoenix Coyotes for Dmitri Kalinin, Nigel Dawes and Petr Prucha.
In both of these deals, the Rangers gave up quite a bit. Overall, three NHL-caliber players and two draft picks this summer. Sather is clearly making a major push for this season, where the Rangers currently reside in seventh place in the Eastern Conference, tied with Pittsburgh and only one point ahead of ninth place Carolina. Now, they're almost an instant lock for the post-season, assuming they can put it all together.
Nik Antropov adds an instant scoring presence to a team that desperately needs one. In 63 games with Toronto this year, he went 21-25-46. As for Morris, he had requested a trade from the Coyotes and has now got his wish. Morris had 12 points in 57 games for the Coyotes. Both players should also be a big help to the Rangers' powerplay unit.
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Rangers Acquire Antropov, Morris originally appeared on NHL FanHouse on Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:20:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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