The Greatest Escape in franchise history was perpetrated by Glen Sather, when the general manager extricated himself and the Rangers from the final five years of Scott Gomez’s contract by moving the $7,357,143 per center to Montreal on June 30, 2009 after two years in New York.
The Blueshirts not only obtained the rights to the Habs’ unsigned 2007, 12th-overall Ryan McDonagh, who would become the club’s Defenseman of the Decade but cleared enough space to accommodate the free agent signing of Marian Gaborik for five years at $7.5M per.
Jeff Gorton, the GM who succeeded Sather in 2015, pulled off a Great Escape of his own that has become the second most notable for the organization and is resonating now by getting out from under Lias Andersson, the seventh-overall 2017 selection, in a 2020 draft-day deal with the Kings that yielded Will Cuylle.
This was the draft conducted on Zoom in October following the lockdown summer of COVID. The Kings owned the 29th selection in the second round; 60th overall. LA had interest in Andersson, who just never meshed on Broadway. The Rangers had a targeted interest in Cuylle, the power winger who was on the board following an impressive season for OHL Windsor.
