New Jersey Devils Players That Flamed Out With New York Rangers
The New Jersey Devils have a long history with the New York Rangers. That rivalry has plenty of characters, including those who spurned Jersey’s team to sign with the Hudson River rivals. Here are five who left the red and black and it just didn’t work out.
This season marks the 35th anniversary of the New Jersey Devils. Looking back, it’s been a crazy 35 years. There have been some of the most memorable runs to the Stanley Cup in recent memory. This team boasted some of the best players of the past two generations. The Devils, for all the heck they get from the national media, boast some of the most interesting plays in hockey history.
When looking at that history, a lot of it is directly tied to their Hudson River rivals, the New York Rangers.
Recent history includes overtime winners to send a team to the Stanley Cup Finals or full line brawls where the coaches are yelling at each other across the glass. The past includes the teams going through each other in epic fashion on the way to championships to players leaving one team to another.
Let’s focus on the latter there. There are dozens of players that played for both the Devils and Rangers over the years. There are some very specific cases where Devils players took big money in New York and flamed out. Here are five that stick out.
Pat Verbeek
Alright, admittedly I’m cheating with this one. Verbeek spent a stint with the Hartford Whalers between his time with the Devils and Rangers, but he was the first really good player in this franchise’s history.
Verbeek spent a few games in the team’s inaugural season in New Jersey, then became a force for the red and green Devils in the 80s. He scored a career high 46 goals in the 1987-88 season with New Jersey.
After spending six seasons with the Whalers, he went back to the New York area, signing with the Rangers in 1994.
He faced an injury-riddled season in the first year, playing only 19 games. However, he was very good in the playoffs, scoring a point per game in the 10 games he was active.
He only signed for $2.3 million for two seasons, but when Mario Lemieux was making about double that it shows what that salary means. He did play well in his second season, but was sent home by the Devils in the playoffs.
Verbeek is probably the worst example on this list, but trust me it gets much better.
Scott Gomez
On July 1, 2007, Scott Gomez left the Devils to sign a $51 million contract with the Rangers.
That deal didn’t look terrible in the first season, where he put up 70 points, but it got so bad by the end of his tenure fans were willing to pay for his ticket out of town. The Rangers didn’t pay him $10 million in 2007-08 to have him score 16 goals. Sure, he was getting assists, but that wasn’t enough.
As his contract continued, his play seemingly got worse.
He never broke 16 goals in a Rangers uniform, despite them having dreams he could once again be a 30 goals scorer.
The Rangers ended up shipping Gomez’s monster contract in the 2009 offseason. The deal did get them Ryan McDonagh, which is annoying, but it’s safe to say Gomez was never going to get recognized for his time playing above Penn Station.
Bruce Driver
Bruce Driver was a fan favorite on some of those early Devils team. He was a hard-nosed player who gave it his all on every shift, and played a crucial role in an NHL that still had a checking line.
Driver finished his career with the Devils raising Lord Stanley’s Cup in 1995. Who knew he was going to bolt the first-time champions for their rivals?
In three years for the Rangers, he scored 13 goals. That’s not per year, that’s total. That also includes zero goals throughout the playoffs. Driver just didn’t fit into the Rangers system like he did with the Devils.
For his troubles, he was paid $4.675 million. That was a lot of money in the mid-90s for a player who wasn’t scoring up a storm. Sure, the Rangers didn’t expect for than 10-15 goals from Driver, but the fact he couldn’t even give them that says something.
Bobby Holik
Some may say Bobby Holik’s contract is the catalyst as to why the NHL needed a lockout in 2004. Here are the players today who made less than Holik did in his first season with the Rangers: Evgeni Malkin, Steven Stamkos, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Parise, Henrik Lundqvist, Patrice Bergeron and Aaron Ekblad. I purposely left out the players who are on rookie contracts to make a point.
Holik made a preposterous $9.6 million in 2002-03. The Rangers celebrated the move as two-fold. They were adding a 31-year-old center who could play both ends of the ice while taking that away from their cross-river rival.
The full contract would pay him five years and $45 million. He would never see the end of that contract because the Rangers were forced to buy him out following the 2004 lockout.
For his career with the Rangers, he scored 41 goals and 50 assists. That includes no playoff appearances and more pain for the fans of the red, white and blue.
John MacLean
This ones a little weird, as the Devils did trade John MacLean right before he bolted for the Rangers, but this one felt personal. He signed for three years, and $7.5 million. When he was traded in December after making a public plea to leave New Jersey. It was a weird time for the Devils, as they were still well in the playoff spot. He went to the San Jose Sharks, one of the worst teams in the league.
That vitriol definitely helped push him towards the Devils rival. It was hard to believe he would be welcomed there, after a nasty two-handed slash that broke the arm of Niklas Sundstrom in the 1997 playoffs.
Next: New Jersey Devils: Individual Grades At The Halfway Point
His numbers regressed heavily each season with the Rangers, ending with a trade for a conditional draft pick in 2001. MacLean may be the worst signing of an ex-Devils player, even though there were a few games with the Sharks in between.
All salary information comes from Hockey Zone Plus.