Gretzky Planned to Return Despite Slow Start

Even during the darkest days of a lamentable opening to the New York Rangers’ season, Wayne Gretzky never contemplated retiring after this year, he said.

He blamed himself for scoring only once in the team’s first 12 games. He blamed himself for the myriad changes coach John Muckler made trying to generate offense on his line.

He hoped that General Manager Neil Smith would obtain a powerful second-line center to replace Pat LaFontaine, who retired, and Mark Messier, who left as a free agent before the arrival of LaFontaine.

“If I start thinking about next year, it’s a sign of giving up or quitting,” said Gretzky, who is making $6 million this season and has the option to come back again next season. “And I can’t think that way. If you do, you let your guard down. You don’t practice as hard, you don’t play as hard. There have been times when I’ve left the rink that I’ve been down. I’m only human.”

With the arrival last week of center Petr Nedved in a trade with Pittsburgh, Gretzky’s patience seems to have been rewarded.

Nedved, playing the right point, has rejuvenated a moribund Rangers power play which scored three times in five attempts Tuesday night in a come-from-behind 5-4 overtime victory over the Florida Panthers in Madison Square Garden.

Nedved, now the second-line center, had two assists against the Panthers and a goal Wednesday night in a 3-2 victory over the New York Islanders, giving him two goals and five assists in his first five games for the Rangers. Not coincidentally, the Rangers have now won three in a row for the first time in more than a year, and after an 0-4 start, are 8-9-7.

“Petr is going to be a tremendous fit here for a long time,” Gretzky said. “He’s been outstanding in the locker room. He’s worked hard. He’s only going to continue to get better.”

Gretzky has scored four times in the past 12 games and leads the team with 25 points. He scored what turned out to be the winning goal off his back hand in the third period at the Nassau Coliseum, a night after he had a goal and two assists against the Panthers.

Even back in the days when his teams dominated, when he won four Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers, Gretzky wasn’t the whole show. Messier was the second-line center.

“The biggest scare for other teams was that we could go a 1-2 combination with Mark and myself. They couldn’t try to check just one line,” Gretzky said. “Now we’re getting the same thing with Petr and I.”

Last season, after Messier left for Vancouver, the Rangers missed the playoffs. There are only five players left on the roster from a team that won the Stanley Cup in 1994, when Gretzky was still playing for the Los Angeles Kings.

“Last year was a tough year, but we had to battle through it,” Gretzky said. “I think management did a great job of making the team younger over five months. We had to get younger, faster and bigger without trading away the kitchen sink. We’re in a much better situation now than we were last April.”

That’s energizing to Gretzky, who’s in his third season with the team. At almost 38, he’s running out of time to win another championship.

Gretzky is the National Hockey League’s all-time leader with 890 goals and 2,820 points. He hasn’t won the Stanley Cup, though, since 1988 in Edmonton.

This season’s Rangers may not be serious cup contenders yet.

“But you see guys battling for each other. You can’t win unless you do that,” he said. “I don’t care how good you are. The better your team is, the better you look as individuals.”