Free-Spending Rangers Stirring the Money Pot

By JIM HODGES

Oct. 2, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

NEW YORK —

No, Neil Smith wasn’t shopping with a blank check, but while everybody else was watching and rattling loose change, Smith finished off NHL Free Agency ’99 in a couple of weeks in July.

Theoren Fleury, Valeri Kamensky, Stephane Quintal, Sylvain Lefebvre, Tim Taylor and Kirk McLean became New York Rangers and, more to the point, became $67.1 million richer, with the option of becoming $83.6 million richer, give or take a buck.

The NHL, if you buy the logic of some of its owners and team presidents, became poorer.

Again.

“This summer was the first time that there was stability in the league in a long time,” says Tim Leiweke, the Kings’ president. “After problems in Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, with the Islanders and St. Louis, we were stable . . . except for the Rangers. To see what they’re doing, I can’t believe it.”

Believe it. In a New York minute, believe it. This isn’t Calgary.

“It’s not as if we started this,” says Smith, the Ranger president and general manager who is trying to stay president and general manager in a town that offers people in those jobs as human sacrifices on the altar of success. “The Yankees bought Babe Ruth.”

It’s a New York thing. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, but if you can’t make it here, gedouddatown.

And it’s done by a Toronto native who knows a U.S. dollar goes a lot further than a Canadian one.

“People have asked, ‘Do you think this is fair, being a Canadian kid, when Ottawa or Edmonton can’t do it?’ ” says Smith. “I said, ‘No, I don’t think it’s fair, but life’s not fair. My parents can’t come here on vacation because the Canadian dollar is only worth 65 cents. . . . But the one thing I can say to the people who say it isn’t fair is that we have our own set of problems that they don’t face either.”

The Rangers also have a simple solution to complex problems.

It’s money, and Cablevision Systems Corp. has plenty. In the second quarter of this year, Cablevision revenues were $941.3 million, which makes Fleury’s three-year, $21-million contract chump change.

The operative word here is “synergy,” it means that not only does Cablevision own the Rangers, it also owns the Knicks, Madison Square Garden, revenue from the signs on the ice and dasher boards, the TV network and the cable system. Everything feeds off everything else, and there was a feeding frenzy back in June, when the Knicks were in the NBA finals.

Wayne Gretzky had retired and the Rangers were at home, still charging more for tickets and advertising than anyone in hockey.

The Rangers, Stanley Cup champions in 1994, had missed the playoffs two consecutive seasons while telling fans they were still on a rebuilding program.

Patience in New York lasts until the next traffic light.

“Our owners and us said we’d better expedite things because our fans’ patience is running out,” says Smith. “Whereas in San Jose, they might have long patience--they cheer on a good icing call--here in New York they say, ‘Yeah, we’re behind you on this rebuilding program. Just have it done by January.’

“So our owners said, ‘Make this team as good as you can make it, now that you’ve got a young base. Now that you think you’ve got a future, give us some present.’ ”

The presents were bought during a spree that began a minute after midnight on June 30, when players became unrestricted free agents. It was only three weeks after the Kings had outbid the Rangers to trade for New York Islander Ziggy Palffy. Had Palffy moved his game across town rather than across country, a lot of the Ranger blitzkrieg might not have happened and millions of dollars might have been saved.

The key became Fleury, once coveted by the Kings, who set the market with a three-year, $19-million offer built around a trade with Calgary last season. Fleury turned the Kings down, preferring to try his lot at free agency at season’s end. The Flames traded him to Colorado, which in effect rented him for the stretch run and playoffs.

The smart money said he would re-sign with Colorado.

But the smart money wasn’t in Denver or New York.

“We really didn’t negotiate with him,” says Pierre Lacroix, the Avalanche general manager and a three-time loser because he also had Kamensky and Lefebvre. “He wanted a no-trade clause, and we don’t give anybody a no-trade clause.”

The belief also was that Fleury, a country boy, wouldn’t play in New York.

Wrong again.

The Rangers signed Fleury, and then Quintal, a defenseman who is being paired with Brian Leetch. That was worth $11.4 million over four years, with a club option for a fifth at $3 million.

Kamensky, a second-line winger, signed for four years at $17 million, with a club option for a fifth at $4 million.

Soon backup goalie McLean was picked up for two years and $1.95 million, followed by Taylor, a third-line center (four years, $5.8 million), and Lefebvre, a defenseman, for four years and $10 million, plus an option for a fifth at $2.5 million.

Other NHL GMs watched from afar, powerless and in some cases envious.

“There’s no doubt about it,” says Smith. “There’s no one else this summer who got the opportunity I got.”

Owners groused, reminding that nobody has ever bought a Stanley Cup and also reminding that the Rangers have to play in the same league with Canadian teams with special restrictions because of their country’s financial problems.

“Look, it was no secret that we were going to be heavily into Group III [unrestricted] free agency,” says Smith. “We said we were going to have to replace Wayne Gretzky. We were going to have to improve our defense. We were going to have to get better offensive players. If Fleury is on the market on July 1, we were going to try to get him. We didn’t sneak up on anybody.

“And the second thing is, and this is most important, nothing we did affects anything anybody else does. . . . These salaries, none of them were matchable and none of them are usable in an arbitration situation as comparables. . . . Nothing we did affects anyone except us, from a business standpoint. From a competitive standpoint on ice, that’s a different situation.”

Even with the league’s highest payroll at about $55 million, Smith doesn’t pretend the Rangers are a Stanley Cup team, only more respectable. With all of their free-agent pick-ups, they are going to struggle to make up the 13 points that separated them from the playoffs last season.

One thing is certain: Smith has provided fodder for sports writers’ stories over the next seven months.

“It will be torture if it doesn’t work out,” he says. “You know that every time we lose a game, it’s going to be mentioned how much we spent and how we didn’t win against so and so. It’s going to be mentioned that we didn’t win against a team with half the payroll.”

And if it does work out, then the Rangers bought it.

So what?

“I remember that in 1994 people wrote that we bought the Cup and it wasn’t even possible to buy it back then,” says Smith. “No matter what you do, there are going to be your detractors who say you bought it. But when you’ve got 2 million people down in that canyon cheering when you’re riding by on your floats, who cares about anyone saying you bought it?”

It beats a president and general manager with a one-way ticket riding out of town any day.

The Rich Rangers

Off-season moves by the New York Rangers:

* THEOREN FLEURY

3 years, $21 million plus option for fourth year at $7 million

* VALERI KAMENSKY

4 years, $17 million, plus option for fifth year at $4 million

* STEPHANE QUINTAL

4 years, $11.4 million, plus option for fifth year at $3 million

* KIRK McLEAN

2 years, $1.95 million

* TIM TAYLOR