The New York Rangers were only one win away from their second Stanley Cup Finals appearance in as many seasons. The Buffalo Sabres managed to bumble and stumble their way to the worst record in the NHL and the best statistical chance at the top pick in the 2015 NHL Draft.
While the two teams seem to share little in the way of similarities at this point, there could be common ground to be found between the Rangers and Sabres in the way of an offseason deal.
Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman appeared on Calgary's Sportsnet 960 on Monday and indicated that the Sabres could be a "team to watch" when it comes to Rangers forward Rick Nash.
"The team I think to watch in something like this is a team like Buffalo. They already went out and they got Evander Kane. I could see them being interested in a player like Nash too. Tim's a bit aggressive that way. But again, I'm not 100 percent convinced that one's going to happen," Friedman said, via TodaysSlapShot.com.
"I think his name is out there because they want to teams to call them and say, 'Okay, if we want to do Nash, what's it going to take?'"
As Friedman noted earlier in the interview, Nash is both expensive - he's about to enter the sixth year of an eight-year, $62.4 million contract which carries a $7.8 million cap hit - and prone to disappearing in the playoffs - he managed just five goals and nine assists in 19 playoff games - but he also scored 42 regular season goals in 2014 - something which certainly helped propel the Rangers to the season's second act in the first place and may have been more crucial to the organization's success than even Rangers fans would like to admit.
Nash's name has already come up in trade rumors this offseason - it's difficult to justify paying a player so much money only to watch them disappear in the season's biggest moment.
Of course, the likely impediments to a deal don't just start and end with Nash's contract - there's also compensation to consider. The Sabres have a lot of picks in the looming 2015 NHL Draft - two in the first-round, two in the second, one each in the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh.
The question, as it always seems to be, is what Rangers GM Glen Sather would be looking for in return for a player of Nash's ilk.
An article from Larry Brooks of the NY Post earlier this month posited that a hypothetical Nash trade with a team like the St. Louis Blues would require at least a top young player going back to New York - Brooks suggested a player like T.J. Oshie, Jaden Schwartz or Alexander Steen for the Blues - and likely more.
Would Sabres GM Tim Murray be willing to part ways with any of his rising young talents for a playmaking, but clearly flawed, forward like Nash?
It's not likely, but it's certainly an interesting possibility to consider.
