Everyone could see that the Rangers and general manager Glen Sather were trading the future for the present with the March 5 deadline deal with Tampa Bay.
But what a present Martin St. Louis has been for the Blueshirts.
Two first-round draft choices plus rental property Ryan Callahan went to the Lightning in exchange for the 38-year-old winger who only had eyes for New York once he decided that his time had run out with general manager Steve Yzerman in Tampa Bay.
The future is now on Broadway.
Again, as it has been so often through this dash to within a single victory of the Stanley Cup final, St. Louis was the man of the moment for the Rangers, ripping home the winner at 6:02 of overtime in the Rangers' 3-2 Game 4 victory at the Garden on Sunday that sets up Tuesday's Game 5 of the Eastern final in Montreal as the first potential clincher.
"Everybody wants to be the guy," St. Louis said after converting Carl Hagelin's eye-opening feed with a whippet of a shot from low in the right circle that flew into the net over Dustin Tokarski's left shoulder. "When you're playing as a kid in the streets, you picture this.
"Everybody wants to be the guy."
St. Louis has been the man throughout a 14-year career that features a Hart Trophy, a pair of Art Ross Trophies and a Stanley Cup championship. It is a career that also includes four playoff overtime winners. Brad Richards, who got the second assist on the winner, has been there for a few.
"I've jumped on him a couple of times in overtime," said Richards, the Butch to St. Louis' Sundance. "It never gets old."
Look, the Rangers weren't especially good in this one. They were shorthanded eight times more than in any game since Alain Vigneault took over behind the bench at the start of the season. What's more, they went down a man seven times — because of offensive-zone infractions.
The discipline for which the Blueshirts rightfully pride themselves was almost nonexistent. But the Rangers not only killed seven Montreal power plays — including one 30 seconds into OT on Benoit Pouliot's offensive-zone infraction, and maybe that's where Pouliot was, in the o-zone layer — they took a 1-0 lead in the match on Hagelin's shorthanded breakaway.
Large swatches of the match passed in which the Rangers couldn't make a pass, couldn't make a play. When they did, they somehow found solving the rookie replacement Tokarski an all but impossible task. St. Louis, robbed by Tokarski from the right circle in Thursday's 3-2 Game 3 OT defeat and then beaten again by the kid goalie's glove with 3:10 to go in the second, had as much trouble as anybody.
But then in overtime, it was a case of practice making it all perfect for the winger and his teammates. No one stays out on the ice longer at practice or a game-day skate than St. Louis. No one works harder at perfecting his shot than this slam-dunk Hall of Famer.
"The goal he scored tonight is exactly what you see him practice every time he's on the ice, like [with] 100 pucks," Vigneault said. "He's trying to put it right there. Made obviously a great shot on that goal."
The goal was St. Louis' team-leading sixth of the tournament. Maybe people foresaw something like this at the time of the deal, but no one could have foreseen it after St. Louis finished the season with one goal — one, and a shorthanded one, at that — in 19 games wearing the Blueshirt, and no one could have foreseen it after the Rangers fell behind Pittsburgh 3-1 with a defeat in Game 4 that St. Louis called, "probably the worst playoff game I've played as long as I can remember playing. … I was awful."
Then, the very next day, in fact, tragedy struck with the passing of his mom, France St. Louis. Then St. Louis and the Rangers became one of those Lifetime Network movies. The inclination to link tragedy with triumph is always there.
Doing so trivializes life and death. St. Louis has not done that. The Rangers have not done that.
"I get that it's a story; I'm a friend of his," said Richards. "But I think he'd like just to be part of the New York Rangers and part of the team. If that didn't happen he'd still be here scoring big goals.
"He's a great hockey player no matter what, but it's been impressive to go through what he's gone through," No. 19 said. "It's also a get-away for him and he's using it. He knows there'll be a time to settle down and grieve, but he's doing this on good emotion from his mom, and he obviously wants big things for that situation. He's just riding it."
There is still one more victory to go before the Rangers get to the Final and get to play for the Cup. There are still big goals to be scored.
"When we got him, I said that we were getting a player who, I don't want to say would score easy goals, but a player who with one or two good chances, would get one," said Richards. "I don't know if that's what we were missing, but it's sure nice to have."
Because for the Rangers, there is no time like the present, and no present like St. Louis.
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