With The Patrick Kane Deal, The Rangers Join The Devils And Islanders As All-In In The New York Area

Might someone from the NHL’s Metropolitan Division be the team that finally ends the longest championship drought for the metropolitan New York area in a century?

The two-month grind of the Stanley Cup Playoffs — as well as the fact that only two of the teams appear likely to even qualify for the postseason — suggests picking the field against the Devils, Rangers and Islanders is probably the safer bet than expecting someone amongst the trio to win it all come late June.

But at the very least, the Devils, Rangers and Islanders are all-in all at the same time for the first time since, well, maybe ever.

The Rangers — who entered Tuesday in third place in the Metropolitan Division and 11 points clear of the ninth-place Buffalo Sabres — continued a flurry of trade deadline activity by the three teams by pushing their remaining chips to the center and finally completing a long-anticipated three-way trade with the Blackhawks for three-time Stanley Cup winner Patrick Kane.

In exchange for Kane and minor leaguer Cooper Zech, the Rangers sent a conditional 2023 second-round pick, a 2025 fourth-round pick and minor leaguer Andy Welinski to Chicago. The Coyotes did Coyotes things by jumping in and absorbing 50 percent of Kane’s cap hit for the remainder of the season.

It was the second blockbuster win-now trade of the month by the Rangers, who acquired right winger Vladimir Tarasenko and defenseman Niko Mikkola from the Blues for left winger Sammy Blais, minor leaguer Hunter Skinner and conditional draft picks in 2023 (a first-rounder) and 2024 (a fourth-rounder).

Kane and Tarasenko are both due to hit free agency this summer, but overhauling the top two lines for the playoff sprint was imperative for the Rangers, who reached the Eastern Conference finals last season and are still seeking their first Cup since the drought-busting title in 1994.

“There probably wasn’t another situation where we would push the limits, so to speak,” Rangers general manager Chris Drury said Tuesday. “But to get a Patrick Kane, you don’t get an opportunity like that very often.”

The Rangers traded for Kane two days after the Devils acquired five players from the Sharks — including right winger Timo Meier — in exchange for four players and three draft picks.

Meier, who had 31 goals for San Jose, provides even more firepower for New Jersey, which entered Tuesday with the sixth-most goals in the NHL, as well as 35 games of playoff experience from 2017 through 2019. While the Devils are in second place in the Metro, six points ahead of the Rangers, only four players were with the team the last time it reached the playoffs in the spring of 2018.

“Everyone around here is aware of what Timo can bring to the table,” Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald said.

The Islanders, who lead the Eastern Conference wild card race with 70 points but have played an NHL-high 64 games, are in the most precarious position of the three area rivals — just as they were upon joining the Rangers and Devils in the playoffs in 1990, 1994 and 2007.

The Islanders reached the playoffs with the fewest points of any tournament team in 1990 and 2007, when they were eliminated in five games by the Rangers and Sabres, and had the second-fewest points of any postseason participant in 1994, when the Rangers swept their rivals on the way to their lone Stanley Cup since 1940.

But with an aging core that includes 15 players from the teams that made back-to-back NHL semifinals in 2020 and 2021, the Islanders acted with Lou Lamoriello’s usual mix of stealthy aggressiveness by pulling off the first big trade of the season back on Jan. 30, when they acquired Bo Horvat from the Canucks.

The Islanders made a minor move Tuesday, when they sent a 2024 draft pick to the maple Leafs for left winger Pierre Engvall. Only Lamoriello knows what he’s got in mind between now and the trade deadline on Friday, but there’s little doubt he and his cohorts have created a three-way sprint to the playoffs unlike any seen in the metropolitan New York area since the Devils relocated to New Jersey for the 1982-83 season.