Broadway Burnaby: What If Joe Sakic Had Signed with the New York Rangers?

Joe Sakic re-signed with the Colorado Avalanche yesterday with a one-year contract worth $6 million that will bring him back for his 20th NHL season.

It is scary to think that Sakic was thiiiiiiisss close to being a Ranger 11 years ago. Unfortunately, the Avs matched the Rangers' offer sheet, and New York was doomed to seven years without the playoffs.

Had Sakic headed for Broadway, who knows what would have happened? At the least, New York would have remained competitive against the stifling Devils system. Sakic would have been the crown jewel in a rebuilt Ranger roster and found immediate comfort thanks to the signings of his Colorado teammates Mike Keane and Brian Skrudland.

Sakic could have also helped keep Theo Fleury on a leash, and perhaps Valeri Kamensky wouldn't have been as big of a bust.

And the Rangers wouldn't really have missed the five first-round draft picks that would have gone Colorado's way, as they pissed them away by drafting Manny Malhotra (1998), Pavel Brendl (1999), Jamie Lundmark (also '99), Dan Blackburn (2001), and Hugh Jessiman (2003). They didn't have first rounders in 2000 and 2002.

Now, I am not about to say that the signing would have brought Lord Stanley back to Broadway, but I am sure that the Avs would not have won the 2001 Cup. Sakic had 118 regular season points and 26 more in that magical runfFor Ray Bourque.

Bourque left Boston to take one last run at a championship. If Sakic was in New York, maybe he would have chosen the Rangers. Could you imagine a Blueshirt blueline with Bourque and Leetch? And think about a one-two punch down the middle with Sakic and Messier, who had returned from Vancouver by then. How scary would that have been?

But I have to say, even scarier is the thought that the Rangers' offer of three years and $21 million was extravagant at that time. Let's say that it would have beem worth it, and take the dream of Sakic as a Ranger a step forward and say that his addition would indeed have brought another Cup to New York.

Now, there is nothing that can replicate the boom in popularity that breaking the curse at 54 years brought to the NHL, but another Ranger Cup would have served the league much better than the wins in Colorado, Dallas, and even Detroit.

If the Rangers won at the turn of the century, would we still have lost the 2004-05 season to a lockout? Would the lockout have come even earlier or would it have not happened at all?

Something to ponder.