It is sad to see his career end this way.  He is not a Hall of Fame player by any means, but he was definitely under appreciated during his stay in New York.

Update 11:30: I don’t think his buyout cap hit is removed from the books, but Suit says it is.  We are waiting for clarification from CapGeek.

Update 11:33: Suit has clarified that he forgot about the buyout. I think he deserves to be flogged.

In his 18 year career with Winnipeg/Phoenix and St. Louis, Tkachuk was the premier power forward. He skated, he scored, he passed, he hit, he fought, he played defense, he led. He did it all. In 1,200 career games played, he has amassed Hall of Fame numbers: 538 goals, 525 assists, 1,063 points, and a whopping 2,219 PIMs. Tkachuk had a stellar four year run from 1993-1997, where he put together the ridiculous line of 165-151-316 with PIMS in 289 games, including two 50-goal seasons. But it was more than his career stats for Tkachuk. He played the game the way it was always meant to be played. He played hard every night, driving to the net, getting rebounds, getting dirty goals. He put forth an effort that made every blue collar American smile.

Tkachuk represented the United States on six separate occasions; the 1992, 1998, 2002 and 2006 Olympics, and the 1996 and 2004 World Cup. The five time All Star, 1996 World Cup Gold Medal winner, and Olympics Silver Medal winner in 2002 has never won a Stanley Cup. That is one truly unfortunate thing in his great career, and it really illustrates how incredibly difficult it is to win Lord Stanley’s Cup. He also does not have any “major” individual awards, but that should not matter. A great majority of those awards are for single season greatness, not career consistency and longevity. In the end, his numbers and leadership speak on their own.

Tkachuk will play his final game tomorrow, Friday, against the Anaheim Ducks. He will retire in front of a St. Louis crowd that has loved him for years. The first and only time I saw him play was this year at MSG. He only played for 9:13, but he made each one of those seconds count. That was the game that teammate Paul Kariya scored his 400th goal. Kariya, another skater who may wind up in the Hall, is 135 goals behind Tkachuk. That really puts things in perspective. One thing is for sure, Tkachuk will be enshrined when the Hall comes calling in five years.

He will go to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, there’s no doubt about it. This is also one less name that the rumormongorers can link the Rangers to at the trade deadline too.

Jeremy Roenick retired, and I fear that his notorious loud mouth will blind people into thinking that he is not a Hall of Famer. In his career, he is 513-703-1216. That’s Hall of Fame stats. The only thing missing is a Cup, and it is truly unfortunate that he didn’t get one. Presumably, that’s why he signed on with the Sharks, because they were a Cup contending team.

Him and Sakic will lead their class to the Hall.

This is nothing short of great news for the Rangers, who needed his $4 million off the books quite badly. For more on the impact of his retirement, refer to our previous post.

Update 5:10pm: The Depth Chart has been updated to reflect Naslund’s retirement.

Personally, I won’t believe it until a press conference is called, or Naslund confirms it to the media. I find it very hard to believe that someone who put up 24 goals last season, someone who is guaranteed $3 million next year, is going to hang them up. But that’s just my two cents.

If Naslund does retire, he retires with career totals of 395-474-869 in 15 NHL seasons (1117 games). While that’s not Hall of Fame, that’s a pretty solid career.

In Naslund’s defense, while he may not have been worth the $4 million cap hit (2 years – $8 million, cap hit is yearly average of the deal), he, for the most part, brought exactly what I thought he would, a 20-30 goal season, decent leadership, and a fading ability to keep up with the younger talent. I thought he would help the anemic powerplay, I was wrong there, but you can’t really blame Naslund for that one.

So what does this do for the Rangers? First, and most importantly, this saves them $4 million in cap room. It may not seem like much, but when Sather must resign Ryan Callahan, Brandon Dubinsky, and Lauri Korpikoski this offseason, and Dan Girardi and Marc Staal next offseason, that $4 million is going to come in handy (especially with the cap headed to an estimated $48-$50 million for the 2010-2011 season). That $4 million can also be used to help resign Blair Betts and Fred Sjostrom this offseason. These are 7 players that the Rangers can ill afford to lose if they want to get younger and faster.

Second, this opens up a winger spot on a top line for the aforementioned Korpikoski, who for a while was toiling on the 4th line. He will finally have a consistent chance to show he is better than the 6-8-14 he put up this season. He will need that chance, and I am happy he finally gets it.

Third, and this part scares me a bit, it opens Sather up to resign both of the Niks. Personally, I would just want Zherdev back, for the RIGHT deal. But with the added flexibility, and Sather’s track record, I wouldn’t really be all that surprised if both of them wind up back in Blue for next season, and a few seasons down the road. (Side note: I think his best option would be to cut both Niks loose and steal Alexander Radulov back from Russia, who has a $1 million cap hit for one season, and puts up the same numbers as the Niks.)

This is all speculative, as these are unconfirmed reports that he will retire.

Also, Ranger backup Steve Valliquette will be back next season. Apparently his deal was for two years, not one. He is a solid backup, and comes at a cheap price. Nothing wrong with this one.

Update 4:00pm I guess me and Stas need to work on our communication skills. We posted on the Naslund retirement at the exact same time. Creepy.

Even though he only played one season for the Rangers, I came to respect Naslund for the effort and class he put forth this season.  His 24 goals were exactly what you expected from him at this point in his career.  It was foolish to believe that he would step in for the departed Jaromir Jagr and as the season dragged on, so did Naslund.  Rather than draw out his career at a relatively ineffective level of play, the winger saw best to skate off at this point.