Much to the chagrin of the NY sportswriters covering the Ranger beat, Glen Sather, who has refused to speak to the NY media this season, broke news (sort of) to a paper on the other side of the continent. The Rangers GM told the Edomonton Sun that he has not had any discussions with Right Wing Jaromir Jagr about the Rangers’ captain waiving his no-trade clause.

At trade deadline time, everybody’s name gets tossed out there. It’s the nature of the beast.

But the silliest one making the rounds has been Jaromir Jagr to (pick a team).

He’s not going anywhere, even if his stats this year are pedestrian by his Hall of Fame standards. Unless he goes crazy, he’s not going to get his 84 points this year to automatically kick in another year on his New York Rangers’ contract, which means he’ll be an unrestricted free-agent in July. But, no way would they consider moving him by Tuesday.

They have to make the playoffs.

“If I was to ask him to leave, he might say yes. But I don’t plan on talking to him about that (trade),” said Ranger GM Glen Sather. “Trade Jagr? Nobody’s called me on him. Why would I want to do that?”

Sather goes on to say that not only is Jagr not being traded by Tuesday’s trade deadline, he intends to talk to Jagr about extending his current deal, which expires at midnight on July 1.

“Jagr is still the best player on our team. He’s got two guys all over him most nights and he still draws lots of attention. I absolutely want him back next year,” said Sather, who’s paying him $4.9 million this year, with Washington still on the hook for $3.5M from his days there. If he hadn’t narrowly lost to Joe Thornton in the 2006 MVP voting, after getting 123 points, the extra year on his contract would have automatically kicked in, but Thornton got the Hart nod.

Jagr was robbed of the Hart Trophy two years ago, because of an indefensible bias against European players. Instead, hockey writers rewarded Joe Thornton for tanking the first month of the season in Boston to force his way out of town, before trying again, after he was dealt to San Jose.

Unfortunately, this same anti-European bias, spewed on a weekly basis by Mike Milbury (and, what has he done as a coach or executive to merit any credibility?), has led some of the Garden faithful to the insane conclusion that the Rangers would be better off without their Captain.

It is undeniable that Jagr’s scoring is down, but for years, Jagr was criticized for being a guy who was only interested in scoring. This year, he’s been doing everything, but scoring, and he’s getting killed for that.

Look, I wish he was going to put up 54 goals this year, but that’s not the reason the team is struggling. Two year ago, Jagr should have been the MVP, but, while that was great, they were a one-line team. If the Straka-Nylander-Jagr line didn’t score, they didn’t win. The whole point of signing Shanahan, Gomez and Drury and developing the young scorers was to give the team scoring depth, so that they didn’t solely have to rely on Jagr.

Obviously, other teams still believe he is the biggest threat in the lineup, because no matter who they put on his line, he still draws the attention of the opponents’ best defensive players. Even if he doesn’t score, he’s allowing the big players on other lines to get more favorable matchups.

And, despite the fact that he isn’t personally scoring, it’s been obvious that he is creating tons of space and scoring chances for Avery and Dubinsky, since they’ve joined his line.