Consensus Is, He Got What He Deserved

Wayne Gretzky was traded for the second time in his NHL career Tuesday, and this time, there was no disbelief around the league, only relief.

“It’s about time they did it,” said Detroit defenseman Paul Coffey, Gretzky’s close friend and teammate from the Edmonton dynasty days. “We’ve been talking the last couple of months about this.”

“I think it was about time that problem was solved,” said Montreal Coach Mario Tremblay, whose team will play the newly Gretzky-less Kings at the Forum on Saturday.

“I would say it’s a good thing for the Kings and for Wayne himself. Wayne can now go to St. Louis and be a big asset to that team. He’s been our star for so many years. The league needs to see Wayne Gretzky happy.”

The Mighty Ducks’ Paul Kariya was barely a teenager when Gretzky was traded from Edmonton to the Kings in 1988. Now, their local rivalry is over.

“I remember I was driving in the car with my mom and she said Gretzky had been traded,” said Kariya, now 21. “She was afraid I’d be crushed. I didn’t really believe it. I emphatically didn’t believe it.

“But then I went home and turned on the news and there it was. You thought he’d stay there [in Edmonton] forever, after what he’d done for the city. But it proved everyone is dealable.”

This time, of course, the only thing that stretched credulity was the number of times the deal was denied. But as soon as it was finally final, the NHL began assessing the impact of Gretzky’s latest move.

“St. Louis went from a good team to a very good hockey team,” Coffey told the Detroit News. “Wayne’s the type of player who can make everybody better, but Wayne will be the first one to tell you that him going to St. Louis doesn’t automatically make them a Stanley Cup contender. It takes a whole team to do that.”

The Red Wings, who are dominating the Western Conference, are the team the Blues would figure to have to go through to reach their goal of challenging for the Stanley Cup. But some of the Red Wings weren’t exactly quaking in their skates.

“I like it for us,” Detroit’s Vladimir Konstantinov said. “We scored a lot of goals against Los Angeles. Now it could be just like that against St. Louis.

“The last time we played the Kings [a 9-4 Detroit victory Feb. 13], we scored five goals against Gretzky’s line. We had three-on-twos, two-on-ones. The other guys [traded St. Louis players Craig Johnson and Patrice Tardif], they played a hard-checking game against us. That made it tough for us. No, I think this is good for us.”

The way the trade played out turned it into a circus. St. Louis was the early front-runner and the winner at the wire, leaving behind such suitors as the New York Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks, and garnering a little sympathy for much-criticized Kings’ General Manager Sam McMaster.

“With Wayne holding all the cards, it wasn’t that easy to make a deal,” Vancouver General Manager and President Pat Quinn told the Vancouver Province. “All the cards were with Wayne. He held up the process, and LA was pretty well at his mercy.”

Anaheim General Manager Jack Ferreira never put in a bid for Gretzky, saying it would be “a wasted call,” since the Kings would never trade to their local rivals.

“I think Sam under the circumstances did a great job,” Ferreira said. “The [three St. Louis players] all can play. They’re good players and 1997 is a great year in the draft. Now maybe Sam can concentrate on doing his job. I know what he was going through, and now it’s finally over.”

Ranger defenseman Kevin Lowe, another ex-Oiler, considered the trade Gretzky’s due.

“I think this is what Wayne wanted, and he deserves to be happy,” Lowe said. “No one deserves it more than him. After what he has done for the league, he should get what he wants. Now it is over. There were rumors that he was going to everyone except the Soviet Red Army team.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.