COMMENTARY : Sweet Smell of Ranger Victory Turns Into Odor From Keenan

Mike Keenan will get what is coming to him eventually, because his kind of grasping hustler always does.

Keenan hated working for Neil Smith, New York Ranger president, and so came up with this outrageous scam to make a score somewhere else. And when the court cases and the arbitrations are over, Keenan will end up with the St. Louis Blues.

And Coach Keenan will end up working for one of the lousy guys in his business: General Manager Keenan.

Gary Bettman, who will be the best sports commissioner of all before he is through, will decide this one. He will decide it the only way he can: Keenan is the one in default of a contract here, not the Rangers. But Keenan goes to St. Louis anyway, because you cannot send him back to the Rangers.

So the Rangers will end up compensated by the Blues with players and maybe even some money. You cannot blame the Rangers if they use the money to have Keenan’s office fumigated.

Bettman has seen the Rangers embarrassed within a month of one of the most dramatic and appealing and emotional nights in the history of the NHL. He has seen the league, riding an unprecedented wave of popularity and spectacular publicity, embarrassed by Keenan, who really has told the Rangers and the Blues and the world that he is in charge of everything.

At a time when Bettman should still hear the echoes of Game 7, he will have to listen to Keenan instead.

And when this is all over, the Rangers will win. Bettman cannot have coaches or players declaring themselves free agents. Bettman will find that, if there was a breach by the Rangers in making a late bonus payment, it was an immaterial one. He will find what everybody already knows: that Keenan is a fraud, incapable of telling the truth about his motives or intentions.

Bettman will be left to settle one more issue, the one of tampering. That is another investigation, involving Keenan, the Detroit Red Wings and the Blues. That one could end up costing Keenan some money, or a suspension, either of which would be wonderful.

“Mike Keenan is obsessed with two things before he ever gets to winning hockey games,” one of his former NHL bosses said. “He is obsessed with Mike Keenan, and he is obsessed with money.”

Keenan will get out of New York, of course. But he was not forced out by anyone or anything. The idea that Smith had the juice to force out the coach of the first Ranger team to win the Stanley Cup since 1940 is preposterous. It is just another lie, in the form of amateur spin-doctoring from Keenan and his agent. Smith had a better chance to pick up Madison Square Garden and move it four blocks than he did to move Keenan if Keenan did not want to go anywhere.

I have a question about all these power plays that were supposed to be going on behind the scenes: power plays with whom? Once Madison Square Garden President Bob Gutkowski told Keenan and Smith to shut up and work it out, where else was Smith going with this? Over Gutkowski’s head? That means Sumner Redstone of Viacom. That would be some conversation to listen in on, believe me.

Smith: Mr. Redstone, I’m Neil Smith.

Redstone: Who?

Smith: The president of your hockey team.

Redstone: Of course you are.

Smith: I want you to fire our coach.

Redstone: The squirrelly fellow who gave us such a nice evening with the big Cup and so forth?

Smith: That one. I’m sorry, I can’t work with him any more.

Redstone: Try harder, son.

There is not a chance in this world that Smith was going to get his coach, even if he wanted to. Gutkowski wasn’t going to let it happen. Maybe Smith didn’t like it, but he accepted it. Keenan already was looking around, despite all denials to the contrary. He already was moving toward the door.

He couldn’t work with Bobby Clarke in Philadelphia, and he couldn’t work with Bob Pulford in Chicago and he couldn’t work with Smith. Now he is general manager in St. Louis, and will find a way to sabotage himself.

Keenan is one of those people who will always sabotage himself. I love reading and hearing about what a brilliant play this was on Keenan’s part. Because it was so much more than that.

He is a terrific coach in the short run. We also thought he had turned into Captain Queeg halfway through the series against the New Jersey Devils when he started pulling his goalie and his stars and conducting bizarre off-the-record news conferences. Then Mark Messier saved him and everybody else, and the Rangers were able to beat the Vancouver Canucks by one goal in the seventh game. It does not mean Keenan is Al Arbour.

One month after his greatest triumph, he has been marked lousy. No one believes him. No one believes this prattle about how miserable his life was at the Garden. They paid him a ton of money there, even if it was a day late occasionally. When he wanted all those new players before the playoffs began, he got them.

He took those players and delivered the Stanley Cup. He already was looking around, even if he wouldn’t admit that; even if he won’t admit that now. This has nothing to do with his family, and it has nothing to do with a bonus. And never did.

So Keenan will lose in front of Bettman but end up in St. Louis anyway. The Blues will pay with players, maybe even star players. Keenan will pay with his good name, if he hasn’t already sold it.