Wennberg, family took long strange trip to New York after trade to Rangers

GREENBURGH, N.Y. -- Imagine being Alex Wennberg last month, dealing with the stress of all of this:

Packing up your house in Seattle, not knowing if you're getting traded.

Knowing your wife, Felicia, could go into labor at any moment.

Getting traded to the New York Rangers and taking a cross-country red-eye flight as a family, including 2-year-old son Rio and the dog, to quickly get to your new team that needs you.

Having only days to find a new home so you're not bringing the baby from the hospital back to a hotel room.

Finding a new doctor for Felicia, 37 weeks pregnant, in a place you've never lived or worked.

Oh, and finding out your car has been stolen.

"As you can see, there's a lot of things going on behind the scenes that are a little more stressful," Wennberg said. "It all worked out and all we can do now is just laugh about it, but me and my wife will sometimes look at each other and go, 'What a roller-coaster this has been.' "

Wennberg is breathing easier now as he prepares to face the New York Islanders at Madison Square Garden on Saturday (12:30 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, SN360, TVAS), the penultimate game in a potentially historic regular season for the Rangers.

Wennberg has become a fixture with the Rangers, the third line center they needed before the 2024 NHL Trade Deadline, acquired from the Seattle Kraken on March 6. He's ready for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which begin April 20.

The Rangers can set their record for wins in a season with their 54th if they defeat the Islanders. They also can move close to securing first place in the Metropolitan Division and first in the Eastern Conference; they lead the Carolina Hurricanes by one point for both with two games remaining for each.

Wennberg has five points (one goal, four assists) in 17 games since the trade. The 29-year-old missed one game, March 26, for the birth of his daughter, Ivy.

"Everything went really well and right now the baby is doing great as well, so we couldn't be happier," Wennberg said. "For us now to kind of get into our bubble with the family and at the same time play hockey with the New York Rangers, I mean, life couldn't get any better."

He wasn't saying that a month ago.

It started when Wennberg told the Kraken he wasn't ready to re-sign, not with a baby on the way and the potential to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.

"They sent a bunch of offers and I wasn't ready to sign because there were just a lot of things going on," Wennberg said. "I wanted to wait until the summer."

He knew there was a possibility he could be traded, so he and Felicia started packing up the house. He was pulled off a road trip in Calgary on March 4 because of a pending trade.

Two days later, the Rangers sent two draft picks to the Kraken for Wennberg.

"Obviously, they made the decision to trade me and there's no hard feelings with that," Wennberg said. "I understand there's a business side of it. All you can do is just handle it as professional as possible."

Immediately after learning he was going to New York, Wennberg was on the phone with Rangers forward Artemi Panarin. They played together with the Columbus Blue Jackets, so there was a history. Panarin and his wife had also recently had a baby, so they could recommend a doctor.

"An hour later we had an appointment with a doctor in Greenwich (Connecticut)," Wennberg said. "There's no point in going in blind. I give full credit to my wife because I'm the worst planner of all time and she's always on top of it. If it weren't for her we'd probably still be figuring that one out."

They all got on a red-eye to New York that night. Upon landing on March 7, Wennberg went straight to practice; Felicia, Rio and the dog to the hotel set up by the Rangers.

"I know I'm going to be fine," Wennberg said. "You come into a new team, a collective group and they take care of you. That's the easy part. What I was worried about was the travel there and getting new doctors. I love hockey and it's great, but at the end of the day my family is what is most important to me so that's where all my worries and nerves were."

They went on Zillow and within three days of arriving moved into a fully furnished home in Greenwich.

That something was available that quickly was luck.

"It's not like you can just move all your stuff from Seattle," Wennberg said. "To get here was one project but we didn't want to have a baby at the hotel. We wanted to get settled in."

They did, and Wennberg did with the Rangers, quickly learning his role would give him more freedom to play with the puck, to provide some offense with Kaapo Kakko on his right wing and Will Cuylle on his left.

In Seattle, Wennberg was strictly a shutdown center, regularly matched up against the opponent's top lines. In New York, he is still a defensive-minded, penalty-killing center, but he's getting some time on the power play and his line is supposed to drive offense too.

"He can create," Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. "He can slice through areas with his speed and keep possession and then distribute the puck. He's a pass-first guy and he puts the puck on other people's tape."

Kakko has six goals in 17 games he's played with Wennberg.

"It's been good," Kakko said. "Great passer. He sees the game very well and that's one reason I really like to play with him. I feel our game has been better and better. I think we do a good job down low in the corners behind the net. I feel that's my game and I think he knows right now I'm waiting over there. He finds me."

Things were flowing well. Felicia was healthy, preparing to give birth. They were settling in as a family. The Rangers were winning. But something was missing.

"Did you hear about our car being stolen when it was being shipped here?" Wennberg said.

The story is crazy.

"I shipped the car from Seattle because I packed it with all the baby stuff, like everything we needed," Wennberg said. "But then we're like, 'We haven't heard anything from the driver or anything.' A few days went by and we reached out to the company saying we hadn't heard from the driver.

"We got the police in New York involved and they found the guy in Indiana. He tried to take off with the carrier and steal the car. The car was in evidence at the police station in Indiana. It was stuck there for a few days and that's with all the baby stuff. It was a nightmare."

The car was returned to Wennberg on March 24. Ivy was born two days later.

"It's been a lot," Wennberg said. "Hey, it's good. It's entertaining. It all worked out."