Rangers mishandling Ryan McDonagh trade has been Lightning boon

As if the Rangers’ light return from the Lightning for Ryan McDonagh (and J.T. Miller) hadn’t been analyzed enough, along comes No. 27 with a Conn Smythe-worthy performance.

But more than three years later, the most intriguing part of the 2018 deadline trade in which the Blueshirts sent McDonagh and Miller to the Lightning isn’t so much that the Rangers, under then-general manager Jeff Gorton, whiffed on their evaluation of Libor Hajek as a must-have, difference-making, top-four defenseman, but that there was comparatively little interest in McDonagh when the Rangers placed him on the auction block. This was no bidding war. Only a handful of teams were in on McDonagh, who was coming off a couple of down years, had been battered by injuries over the preceding four seasons and was a year away from unrestricted free agency. The two-playoffs rental at a club-friendly $4.7 million per did not hold much sway.