TORONTO -- Glen Sather traded Peter Nedved to the Pittsburgh Penquins in exchange for Steve McKenna and Alex Kovalev

	Peter played with the Penquins until he was traded to the rangers for Alex Kovalev.

Lemieux and Sather got together and swapped two of their star players. Lemieux was very excited about the possibility of playing with Nedved again.

"We've had him No. 1 all year,'' Lemieux said. "It's very rare you get a chance to get a player of that caliber. We just felt it was the right thing to do.''

For Lemieux, it didn't even matter that in exchange, Pittsburgh dealt Rangers the rights to Alex Kovalev, who emerged as a superstar while playing for the pens.

"I didn't want to miss out on him now,'' Lemieux said. "I'll take the chance of missing out on Kovy versus him.''

Nedved, who has drawn comparisons to Detroit's Brendan Shanahan, has struggled since returning to the Rangers. But is looking forward to a fresh start and a reunion with Super Mario.

"I'm very excited,'' Nedved said. "I knew last night they were pretty high on me, but I had no idea.''

"We got the guy we wanted, and that's all we cared about,'' Mario said. "We wanted Neddie.''

Also on the hot stove front, Mario has shown interest in former Pittsburgh backstop Tom Barrasso.