By ANTHONY PUCIK
ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

When the news broke that Rangers (now former) defenseman Michael Del Zotto was traded to the Nashville Predators for defenseman Kevin Klein, my phone was off. Initially, I didn’t know, but when my phone turned on I had over 10 different notifications. People were tweeting and texting me, wondering if I had jumped for joy. I had no idea what they were talking about until I read an ESPN alert that said Del Zotto was gone. For people that don’t know me, Del Zotto was never a player that I liked very much. In fact, I have been on board for him to be traded as early as last year, when rumors that other teams were interested in him began.

This wasn’t a blind hatred, though. I had my reasons for disliking the 23-year-old defenseman. If you watch Del Zotto play, he has way too many defensive lapses. He lets forwards get by him, doesn’t pick up assignments while crashing the net and makes very questionable decisions in his own defensive end. Most of the time, these miscues resulted in good scoring opportunities for the opposing team and sometimes lead to game-tying or game-winning goals. As a defenseman, it’s important to limit your miscues as much as possible, and Del Zotto fails to do this numerous times throughout a game.

Many tried to defend Del Zotto, saying he is an offensive defenseman, or a defenseman who is also a threat to score. Supposedly, Del Zotto’s scoring ability makes up for his defensive lapses. In his four years in the league, though, Del Zotto has rarely shown signs that he is like Duncan Keith, Kris Letang or many of the other offensive defenseman in the NHL. He scored nine goals in his first season with the Rangers in 2009, his career best being 10 during the 2011 season. Aside from that, he has only six goals in his other three seasons, in which he has played a total of 138 games. Those aren’t exactly wowing numbers for an “offensive defenseman” and the fact that he struggles so much defensively without putting up great offensive numbers makes him, to me, more of a liability than an asset on the ice.

Another argument for Del Zotto is that he’s young, which means he can grow out of his defensive struggles and improve his offense even more, meaning that critics like me who bashed him for his play just need to be patient. My response to these people is this: How patient do I have to be? Del Zotto, leading up to this season, had three years of experience in the league under head coach John Tortorella who prided himself on defense. Yet, Del Zotto still seemed to make the same mistakes he made as a rookie. Now, he is under coach Alain Vigneault who prides himself on offense, yet Del Zotto’s offensive numbers didn’t improve and his defensive lapses continued, forcing Vigneault to bench Del Zotto from time to time and even scratch him from his lineup. If Del Zotto couldn’t improve defensively under Tortorella, or offensively under Vigneault, who would he improve under?

It was clear that Vigneault’s patience with Del Zotto was thin, as was the patience of many of his fans. They had seen enough of his miscues and mistakes, and many were asking for him to be traded, joining the ranks of those, like myself, who had been asking for a year already. And finally, it happened. In Del Zotto’s place, the Rangers acquired Kevin Klein, who, up to this point, has been an extremely sound defensiveman. At 29 years old, Klein is a known stay at home defenseman in the NHL. While he is not known for his scoring, he is great in his own end and limits his defensive mistakes, the exact opposite of Del Zotto. I thought this was a very good deal, one which will help the Rangers going forward.

This situation reminded me of defenseman Michal Rozsival, who was traded from the Rangers to the Coyotes because he constantly made defensive errors. It reached a point where you would go to a game in the Garden and fans would scream “I want Rozsival traded for Christmas!” While the bashing of Del Zotto never reached that point, it felt like it was imminent. Perhaps Del Zotto is another Rozsival: someone who just couldn’t take the pressure of playing in New York. Perhaps he will find success elsewhere like Rozsival did with the Blackhawks. If this is the case, I would be happy for him, but while I wish Del Zotto the best of luck in his career, I’m not upset to see him go.