We can agree by acclamation that there has never been more of a heart-and-soul Ranger than Adam Graves.

Yet neither that nor his unique contribution to the 1994 Stanley Cup championship could stop the incessant chatter that No. 9 would be available at the 2001 trade deadline as the team was fraying at the seams.

That did not stop Glen Sather, the GM at the time, from summoning Graves on the eve of the deadline to a postgame meeting at the Garden from which the winger exited ashen-faced and near tears.

That did not stop Sather, after a potential deadline deal with Washington in which Jan Bulis would have been a primary part coming to New York fell through, from sending Graves to San Jose after the season for Mikael Samuelsson.