Gaborik vanishes, signs with Rangers

And just like that, the last remaining original Wild and team's career leader in virtually every offensive category is in fact ... history.

Marian Gaborik's Wild career officially ended Wednesday night when the gamebreaker signed a five-year, $37.5 million deal with the New York Rangers.

Now he'll get to play the wide-open hockey he has long coveted, and on Broadway to boot.

Here in the Twin Cities, there will be no more stories about Gaborik overtime winners and hat tricks, and there will be no more stories about the most famous groin in hockey.

Maybe that's why I don't get the sense there's a whole lot of mourning today -- at least not by the majority of sentiment on the Star Tribune's Wild blog.

No question Gaborik provided wonderful memories in Minnesota.

There were the nine goals in the first two rounds of the 2003 playoffs. There was the legendary five-goal game against those very Rangers. There were the franchise-best 219 goals and 437 points.

There was the way Gaborik's sweater fluffed up his back like a sail when he rocketed up the ice, or the way he could make a goalie look silly with one flick of his lethal wrists.

But because of those injuries, the contract disputes, the difference in philosophy with the coaches and the level of aloofness about him, Gaborik just never became one of the celebrated sports figures in the Twin Cities the way, say, Kirby Puckett or Kevin Garnett were.

With the goal-scoring prowess to be a perennial 50-goal scorer, Gaborik always left you wanting more -- and it had nothing to do with Jacques Lemaire's defensive system and everything to do with chronic abdominal problems.

In the four years since the lockout, Gaborik played 207 games. He missed 121, which amounts to almost exactly a season-and-a-half on the shelf.

Every time Gaborik did something magical, he'd soon execute the perfect disappearing act.

There's no better example than this past season, when he returned in December after missing 27 consecutive games. He played four games, including a pair of one-goal, one-assist performances.

The Wild was mired in a pitiful month, but confidence rose with Gaborik's return.

Gaborik wasn't heard from again until March 22 because a torn labrum caused him to have hip surgery, much to the front office's chagrin.

Gaborik returned just in time to resurrect his own league status as a goal-scoring machine (fourth-best goals per game since 2005-06), scoring an astonishing 10 goals and 18 points in 11 games. But it was not enough to save the Wild's season.

The biggest tragedy here from a Wild standpoint is that Gaborik walked out the door for nothing.

Not even a draft pick, which is destructive for a franchise not exactly burgeoning with assets.

That mistake was made last summer when the Wild somehow didn't pick up on the alarm bell those of us who talked to Gaborik on a daily basis were hearing: He wanted out of Minnesota.

The Wild didn't speak with him about an extension until August. By the time Gaborik made clear his intentions by rejecting a 10-year, $78.5 million offer, he was untradeable because most teams were capped out. To make matters worse, Gaborik was injured the first day of training camp, then after the second game of the season.

What the Wild should have done is courted Gaborik immediately in July (as Tampa Bay did with Vincent Lecavalier last summer and Vancouver is doing with Roberto Luongo now), and when it became clear he wasn't going to re-sign, tried then to trade him.

Would the Wild have been able to deal him? Who knows?

But it would have had a much better chance rather than taking the risk of allowing an injury-prone star to play in the final year of his contract.

Even sadder for the Wild is that Gaborik is confident he has finally solved those groin problems by diagnosing the cause and having it repaired, meaning his best trick might be yet to come: staying in the lineup.

Gaborik is undeniably the best player the Wild has ever known.

But as was his M.O. in Minnesota, Gaborik vaporizes yet again.

Michael Russo • mrusso@startribune.com