Paul Vernon/AP
Brandon Dubinsky (r.) faces his old team for the first time Thursday in Columbus.
COLUMBUS — The Rangers’ major moves since advancing to the 2012 Eastern Conference finals have been to trade for Rick Nash, trade away Marian Gaborik, and fire coach John Tortorella.
Only one of them didn’t surprise Brandon Dubinsky, the longtime fan-favorite the Rangers dealt away in a package for Nash in July 2012.
“I think my relationship with Torts fell apart the last year that I was there (in New York),” Dubinsky — now an alternate captain for the Columbus Blue Jackets — said Thursday afternoon at Nationwide Arena before facing his old team for the first time. “I just felt like his relationship with some of the other players could be doing the same thing. So I guess that pretty much sums it up. I wasn’t completely surprised that it happened.”
The precursor to Tortorella’s final season in New York, however, was general manager Glen Sather’s decision the preceding summer to send Dubinsky, Artem Anisimov, Tim Erixon and a first-round pick to Columbus for Nash, breaking up the core of a Rangers team that had been building something great.
Dubinsky, who grew up with the Rangers after they drafted him 60th overall in 2004, had a difficult time grasping the desire to shake things up after such a successful season.
“The hardest part for me was that we went from growing up together and taking a team — and I wasn’t there the first year of the lockout, but after that I was there every other year — we went from taking a team that hadn’t made the playoffs in forever to a team that was in the conference finals,” Dubinsky said. “And I guess when you look at it — not only my trade and sending Artie and Timmy here, but I guess all of the moves as a whole — I didn’t understand it quite that you would want to bring so many new guys in after you’ve had such a successful season and such a successful playoff run.
“Sometimes that’s just the way New York is,” Dubinsky continued. “They like the flash and the dash and they want a new toy, I guess. And that’s no disrespect to the organization or anybody, of course, because they were so great to me. But that was the hardest part.”
Dubinsky admitted at least that he understood he was being trade for Nash, “one of the elite players of the league, so I understand you have to give up some assets, and I feel like they wouldn’t have just given me away for nothing.”
He is now comfortable in Ohio and expecting a baby boy with wife Brenna in December.
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