The greatest Rangers defenseman, still bitter about being traded, decides to call it quits after 18 seasons and 1,028 points
The greatest defenseman in Rangers history officially announced his retirement yesterday via a statement issued through agent Jay Grossman. Then, he made personal calls to several reporters to confirm his decision.
“You can't play forever,” Leetch said to Newsday. “I'm very happy to have a young family to be able to spend time with. It's a different ending for everybody, but this was my time.”
Referring to his past season on the sidelines, Leetch added, “I was interested to see whether I was going to have regrets, and I didn't. I was a person who brought the game home with me. It was with me 24 hours a day, especially at the end when we had teams that weren't winning and had the expectations. So, it was nice to be released of that burden and enjoy my time at home.”
Leetch, 39, played 18 mostly brilliant seasons, set 29 Rangers records, earned 11 All-Star selections, twice won the Norris Trophy as the NHL's top defenseman, won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in 1988-89 and became the only American ever to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 1994. Chosen ninth overall in the 1986 draft, Leetch is one of seven defensemen with 1000 points (247 goals, 781 assists, 1,028 points).
And, oh yeah, it was Leetch, along with the likes of Mark Messier, Mike Richter and Adam Graves, who ended 54 years of franchise futility by defeating Vancouver for the '94 Stanley Cup by scoring the first goal in Game 7 at the Garden.
Current Rangers coach Tom Renney offered Leetch a chance to sign as a free agent last July and finish his career with the Blueshirts. But lingering bitterness toward team president and general manager Glen Sather for the 2004 trade that sent him to Toronto and his own flagging desire to train caused him to say no to the Rangers and a host of other teams, including the Islanders.
“I was excited, but I had a lot of mixed emotions,” Leetch said. “It was a new team. There were really only one or two guys that I had played with there before. I didn't want to go back unless I felt I was going to be the same type of player and have the same impact.”
When Sather unceremoniously dealt Leetch to the Maple Leafs on March 3, 2004, the defenseman's 36th birthday, it opened a wound that still remains tender. “I had felt I was going to be with the Rangers for my career and thought he felt the same way,” Leetch said of Sather. “He didn't say, ‘This is the situation we're in, and we're going to see what we can get for you in a trade.' We were on the road in Boston, and it happened to be my birthday. It was just a phone call to say, ‘You've been traded.' So, yeah, I still have bitterness about that.”
But Leetch's personal differences with Sather, he emphasized, have no bearing on his abiding love for the Rangers and their fans. Leetch and his wife and three children are settled in Boston now, but whenever he's in New York, Rangers fans thank him for winning the 1994 Cup.
“It makes you feel so good because you forget how important that was to a lot of people whose families had followed the organization for years and years,” Leetch said.
Leetch returned to the Garden just once after the trade while with Boston in his final season, and he recalls it as a supremely uncomfortable feeling despite the outpouring of love and affection.
“I'll always appreciate the effort the fans put into making [their appreciation] known and for cheering me and chanting my name,” Leetch said, “but it was just so strange to be on the other side.”
Never one to hog the spotlight, Leetch can count on being honored one night in the future when his No. 2 is raised to the Garden rafters.
“You just have to remember, regardless of how uncomfortable it might be to be singled out, there's a lot of people that get enjoyment out of things like that,” Leetch said. “That's the biggest thing I'm looking forward to.”