CAMILLE HENRY

BORN: Quebec City, Quebec, Canada; January 31, 1933

DIED: September 11, 1997

POSITION: Left Wing

NHL TEAMS: New York Rangers, 1953-64, 1967-68; Chicago Blackhawks, 1964-65; St. Louis Blues, 1968-70

AWARDS/HONORS: Calder Memorial Trophy, 1954; Lady Byng Trophy, 1958; NHL Second Team All-Star 1958; NHL All-Star Game, 1958, 1963-64

Soon after, Henry suffered some hardship as well. During the athlete’s sophomore year, general manager Frank Boucher sent Henry down to the minors because of sub-par play. The Rangers placed him on waivers more than once that year, but no team would budge because of his hefty $15,000 contract.

It wasn’t until Phil Watson became coach of the Blueshirts in the mid-1950s that Henry hit his stride with the New Yorkers. In the 1956-57 season, Camille proved that he could take a regular turn as well as work the power play and finished with 29 points in 36 games.

The Rangers’ high command believed the skinny sharpshooter would be even more effective if he fattened up considerably. Management sent him home with specific orders that he add as many thick malted milks to every one of his meals possible.

Dutifully, Camille obliged, and when he returned to training camp in September, the New York staff eagerly awaited the moment when Henry would step on the scale. They expected him to have added a minimum of at least 10 pounds to his physique.

Alas, the “Eel” didn’t add one ounce, and that was the end of that grand plan.

Like many of his teammates, including Andy Bathgate, Gump Worsley, and Dean Prentice, Henry feuded with Coach Watson from time to time.

Regardless, Camille became an integral part of the Rangers team that gained a playoff berth in each of the 1955-56, 1956-57, and 1957-58 seasons.

Often battered by the bigger, tougher opposition, Henry managed to prevail because of his superior savvy and goal-scoring skills. But by the early 1960s, the physical toll had worn him down, and during the 1964-65 season, he was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks.

The deal was denounced by Rangers fans who had taken the thin man to their hearts, and the Blueshirts briefly reclaimed him before trading him again, this time to the St. Louis Blues.

The player who many critics claimed was too frail for big-league hockey certainly proved them wrong. He finished his career with 279 goals and 249 assists while competing for the Rangers, Blackhawks, and Blues.

During his most productive years, Henry totaled more than 50 points five times and even reached 60 in 1962-63. He also earned All-Star honors in three of his 11 seasons on the Blueshirts’ roster.

After his playing career ended, the Eel had a short-lived stint as head coach of the World Hockey Association’s New York Raiders.

From that point on, Camille’s life was a disaster.

Many of the players on the Raiders—some of whom were NHL rejects—took advantage of Henry’s good nature, breaking curfews and otherwise ignoring the coach’s requests. The demoralized “Eel” finally decided to give up the job and move back to Canada, where he was an occasional TV analyst.

Meanwhile, his health deteriorated severely, and in 1997, Camille died at the age of 64.

A hero to the Garden’s gallery gods, Camille Henry will always be revered for defying the odds to become not only one of the most productive Rangers in a short time but also one of the most beloved.

BRYAN

HEXTALL

1936-1948

Had the advent of World War II not intruded on his playing career, there’s no telling what heights Bryan Hextall might have achieved as a National Hockey League right wing. While he will always be remembered as the person who scored the game-winning goal during the Rangers’ 1940 Stanley Cup championship run, Hextall is also known as a dominating physical force who has blood lines in hockey circles.

As it was, the man his teammates called “Hex” proved a valiant attacker and contributed to one of the most important goals in New York’s franchise history.

Hextall did not know it at the time, but the goal he scored to win the Rangers the Stanley Cup grew in stature to become a veritable legend in Manhattan with each passing season, simply because the Rangers did not win another championship for 54 years after “Hex” beat pudgy Toronto goalie Walter “Turk” Broda.

Hextall recalled his sparkling moment as a Ranger: “I received a pass from Dutch Hiller and Phil Watson. The puck came out from behind the net, and I took a backhand shot to put it past Broda.”

The 1939-40 season preceded the advent of television and widespread media coverage. As a result, Hextall’s stunning overtime goal was only momentarily acknowledged on radio and for one day in the newspapers. There were no video replays or Sportscenter television shows, and as a result, Hextall’s melodramatic moment essentially became a footnote in Rangers history.

Bryan Hextall played 11 strong years with the New York Rangers. From the Stan Fischler Collection

The goal clearly signaled that “Hex” was a right wing to be reckoned with, a galvanizing force playing alongside left wing Lynn Patrick and either Phil Watson or Wilfred “Dutch” Hiller at center. Hextall would spearhead the Rangers through the 1941-42 season, when the Blueshirts finished first in the seven-team league—the seventh team being the New York Americans, who shared the Garden with the Rangers.

Hextall was more than just a member of the championship squad and the person who provided the Cup for native New Yorkers. “He was,” said Herb Goren, who covered the Rangers for the New York Sun, “the hardest bodychecking forward I have seen in more than 40 years of watching hockey.”

While he was never the captain of the Rangers, he led the National Hockey League in scoring in 1942, was a First Team All-Star in 1940, 1941, and 1942, and made the Second Team in 1943.

Like so many Rangers, Hextall joined the Canadian Armed Forces during World War II at the very height of his career. By the time he returned to the team at war’s end, he was a shade of his former self. He played a few more less than spectacular years before retiring.

Bryan Aldwyn Hextall was born July 31, 1913, in Grenfell, Saskatchewan. He commanded attention during the early 1930s while playing for the Vancouver Lions of the Western Hockey League, a league originally established by Lester Patrick. The Rangers noticed Bryan after he led the Lions to a first-place finish. Two years later, he appeared on Broadway not for a show, but to succeed as a Blueshirt whose patriarch was Patrick, the Western Hockey League innovator himself.

At the time Hextall arrived, Patrick was in the process of dismantling an aging club and rebuilding it with youth. Patrick eventually inserted Bryan alongside the likes of newcomers Alf Pike and Alex Shibicky.

When Frank Boucher became head coach in the fall of 1939, he created a line that included Hextall, Lynn Patrick, and Watson, who alternated with Hiller. It would become one of the hottest units in the league.

To his credit, Bryan continued to play hard hockey after World War II and managed to crack the 20-goal mark during the 1946-47 season—one of seven occasions he achieved that feat.

BRYAN HEXTALL

BORN: Grenfell, Saskatchewan, Canada; July 31, 1913

DIED: July 25, 1984

POSITION: Center

NHL TEAMS: New York Rangers, 1936-48

AWARDS/HONORS: Art Ross Trophy, 1942; NHL First Team All-Star, 1940-42; NHL Second Team All-Star, 1943; Hockey Hall of Fame, 1969

“Hex” amassed 187 goals and 362 points in 449 games during his 11-year tenure with Broadway’s Blueshirts. “I scored 20 goals for seven straight years,” Hextall recalled proudly. “Twenty goals was a big thing then.”

In reviewing Bryan’s career, one must keep in mind that seasons comprised 48 games during most of his playing days. One year he participated in 50, and when the NHL continued to develop after World War II, he joined in 60 games.

The three-time All-Star won the scoring title in the 1941-42 season with 24 goals and 56 points in 48 games. He was among the top 10 in scoring on four other occasions.

After his retirement, Bryan started a lumber yard and hardware business, but his love for hunting inspired him to open a commercial shooting lodge near his home in Poplar Point, Manitoba.

He proudly watched his sons, Bryan Jr. and Dennis, make their way to the NHL. Each of them had an adequate, albeit brief, stint with the Rangers.

In 1969, Hextall was enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame for his excellence and contributions to the sport. He died on July 25, 1984, just six days before he would have turned 81.

HARRY

HOWELL

1952-1969

Over the years, the Rangers developed several successful developmental teams. These include the New York Rovers, Winnipeg (Junior) Rangers, New Haven Ramblers, and the Springfield Indians. But none could top the Junior A team playing out of the small hat-manufacturing city of Guelph, Ontario, a short drive from the metropolis of Toronto.

Created in the post-World War II years, the Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters were coached by Alf Pike, a former Rangers star from the 1940 Stanley Cup-winning team. By the start of the 1950s, the Biltmores had become a major force in Canadian Junior Hockey circles. In 1951-52 they reached their peak, winning the Memorial Cup emblematic of Canadian Junior Hockey supremacy.

The Biltmores were led by forwards Andy Bathgate, Dean Prentice, Lou Fontinato, and Ron Murphy, but arguably the best player of all was defenseman Harry Howell, who played a versatile game blending hard hitting with an occasional offensive foray.

Howell was so good that he averaged 45 to 50 minutes a game with the Biltmores. He was so precocious that the Rangers gave him a one-game tryout in the American Hockey League before promoting him to the big club in the fall of 1952.

In his early NHL years on Broadway, Howell was clearly rough around the edges, skating for a struggling Rangers team that failed to make the playoffs from his debut in 1952 until the 1955-56 season, when many of his Guelph teammates had matured into NHL aces under coach Phil Watson.

Howell’s evolution as a Ranger was met with peculiar irony. The better he played, the less fans liked him. In a sense, Harry was following the same unfortunate saga of Allen Stanley, a Rangers defenseman who was traded to Chicago in 1954 when Howell was just learning the ropes.

Although each defenseman eventually made it to the Hockey Hall of Fame, both were unappreciated because Garden fans demanded a more energetic, robust style that simply was not part of the Howell or Stanley persona.

Objectively speaking, Harry did all the Rangers management wanted of him. He was intelligent, courageous, and a thorough team man and quietly responsible for some of the club’s major triumphs.

Howell spent 22 years in the NHL. Seventeen of those years were spent with the Rangers, for whom Howell played 1,160 games, a team record. For his 1,000th game, the Rangers honored him with a memorable Harry Howell Night at Madison square Garden.

How did Howell become a Ranger?

Having played organized hockey since the age of 12, Howell had already been scouted as a player before entering the Junior ranks.

Said Howell, “The NHL had the reserve list, and I remember when it came time to play Junior hockey, I got a call from New York and they said, ‘We understand you want to play Junior hockey. You’re going to play in Guelph.’ I said, ‘Now why would I want to play Junior hockey in Guelph?’ It wasn’t bad because it wasn’t very far from home [in Hamilton], but Frank Boucher, the general manager of the New York Rangers, said, You have to play in Guelph because you’ve been on our reserve list since you were 14.’”

HARRY HOWELL

BORN: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; December 28, 1932

POSITION: Defenseman

NHL TEAMS: New York Rangers, 1952-69; Oakland Seals, 1969-70; Los Angeles Kings, 1970-73

AWARDS/HONORS: James Norris Memorial Trophy, 1967; NHL First Team All-Star, 1967; NHL All-Star Game, 1954, 1963-65, 1967-68, 1970; Hockey Hall of Fame 1979

With Guelph, Howell was part of the 1951-52 Memorial Cup–winning squad. The next season, a 19-year-old Howell, who had only played one game in the AHL in his career, was called up to the Rangers three games into the season.

“Actually, I was still playing Junior in Guelph,” Howell remembered. “After five games [into the OHL season], I got a call from New York. ‘We’ve got a couple of defensemen injured,’ I was told, and of course, they started the season with a five-game road trip as usual because of the rodeo at Madison Square Garden. They were going to Toronto, and Boucher said, ‘You can come down and fill in for us in Toronto and then you go back to Guelph.’

“I went to Toronto and played with Leo Reise, who was a big help to me. Leo was a great veteran and taught me an awful lot. During that [first] game, we played every second shift. After the game, Boucher said, ‘Well, you’ve never been to New York. I think you’d better come down and just spend the week with us practicing with the team, and then you can go back to Guelph.’”

As it turned out, Howell never did go back to Guelph. Instead, he finished the 1952-53 season with the team as well as the next 16 campaigns, during which the “Iron Man” defenseman missed only 40 of the Rangers’ 1,200 regular-season games.

Howell quickly established himself as one of the game’s best defensive defensemen with his subtle—some deprecatingly called it dainty—style of play.

Although he actually managed to accumulate 101 minutes of penalty time one year, his play was so habitually void of vengefulness that the Madison Square Garden fans took to mocking him with names such as “Harriet” and “Sonja.” Fans overlooked the fact that his bodychecks were effective, timely, and often lowered opposing players’ morale.

Howell remembered one of his solid performances: “We were playing the Canadiens,” he recalled, “At the time, they had big ‘Spider’ Mazur up front. Well, one night he comes down my side, thrown a deke, but I get him good with my shoulder—-clipped him right in the teeth—and half his molars fall on the ice. I had a notion he might be going.” Asked how Mazur reacted to the hit, Howell said, “He looked up at me with the sorriest look you can imagine and said, ‘Geez, Harry, I wish you hadn’t done that.’”

Howell posted his best offensive year in 1966-67 with 12 goals and 28 assists for 40 points. This accomplishment along with his strong defensive play garnered him a nomination to the NHL All-Star squad in 1967 as well as the Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman—and this was the year that Bobby Orr made his debut with the Bruins.

“I’m glad I won it this year,” Howell said prophetically when he earned the Norris. “I think some other guy is going to win it for the next decade.”

And while eight years is not a decade, Orr did take home the award the next eight seasons.

Howell was the youngest Blueshirt ever to be given captaincy. At age 23, he was given the “C” for the 1955-56 season. However, Howell gave up the position to Red Sullivan after the 1956-57 campaign, saying, “I was just too young for it. I know that after Sully took over, I had a good year with that off my mind. We finished second that year, too.”

During the 1968-69 season, Harry was afflicted with back problems, and the Rangers began to move in a new and younger direction.

“My back went bad on me in my 17th and last year in New York,” he explained. “It was determined that I needed to have a spinal fusion. I had my choice—either have the spinal fusion and feel better or don’t have it and don’t play anymore. I did have the fusion. [Rangers GM] Emile Francis came in to see me at the hospital. He said, ‘We’re going to make a move. We don’t think you should be playing because of your back and we’ll get you a job in the front office or coaching.’ I said, ‘I didn’t go through this operation to sit in an office or coach.’ Emile asked me where I’d like to go, and I said, ‘How about the West Coast?’ He made a deal with Oakland and there I was.”

Howell was sent to the Oakland Seals for an undisclosed amount of cash believed to be over $30,000 by a New York Times article that ran one day after he was traded.

He played two years with in Oakland and was then traded to the Los Angeles Kings, with whom he played three more years before moving around the World Hockey Association for a few seasons. In 1977, Harry became general manager of the Cleveland Barons, and when the club merged with the North Stars in 1978, he was named coach of the team. But coaching wasn’t for Harry, and his health began to suffer shortly after the start of the 1978-79 season. He resigned to become a scout with the North Stars and, more recently, with the Rangers.

Howell was voted to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1979 and continued as an NHL scout. He also won the Rangers Fan Club’s Frank Boucher trophy for being the most popular player on and off the ice three straight times from 1965 to 1967. This feat has been accomplished by only three other Rangers: Andy Bathgate, Rod Gilbert, and Mark Messier.

And yet fans who were not members of the fan club took issue to that with their booing.

CHING

JOHNSON

1926-1937

Before the Rangers were created prior to the 1926-27 season, they were preceded in New York by another NHL team called the Americans. Because the Rangers arrived a season later, it was important for the new, upstart club to make inroads into the New York fan base.

Since the Americans had a number of colorful players such as “Shorty” Green and Roy “Shrimp” Worters, Rangers manager Lester Patrick pursued as many attractive youngsters as possible.

One such defenseman was a rugged backliner from Winnipeg named Ivan Wilfred Johnson, better known to his compatriots as Ching.

He proved just the colorful competitor the Rangers needed in the late 1920s when they were trying to establish a following in the Big Apple.

His robust play was a perfect metaphor for hard hockey. A swashbuckling defenseman if ever there was one, Ching helped sell the still foreign game of hockey to New Yorkers during the Roaring Twenties with his gregarious personality.

Ching Johnson was one of many colorful characters on the Rangers’ first teams. From the Stan Fischler Collection

CHING JOHNSON

BORN: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; December 7, 1897

DIED: June 16, 1979

POSITION: Defenseman

NHL TEAMS: New York Rangers, 1926-37; New York Americans, 1937-38

AWARDS/HONORS: NHL First Second Team All-Star, 1931, 1934; Hockey Hall of Fame, 1958

He was 28 years old when he made his debut on Broadway with the Rangers. It was also the debut for the Blueshirts, who were launching their National Hockey League franchise in the 1926-27 season against the powerful Montreal Maroons.

Before the game, Ching suffered doubts about the Rangers’ ability to withstand the mighty men from the North. The game itself was billed as the best against the worst. Johnson was teamed on the blue line with his sidekick, Taffy Abel. Their names—Taffy and Ching—would soon become household words to New York’s hockey fans.

Johnson was a big, rawboned hunk of man with a bald head and an extremely positive view of life. “He always wore a grin,” said teammate Frank Boucher, “even when heaving some pour soul six feet in the air. He was one of those rare warm people who would break into a smile just saying hello or telling you the time.”

Abel was heavier and rounder than Johnson. It was said that when Taffy hit a foe, it was like being swatted with a fat pillow. When Ching connected, it was like being hit by a train. Ching hit often, but he was also the recipient of many hits, and that opening game against the Maroons was a good example of what was to come.

In the first period, the Maroons chose to intimidate the Rangers; hard-nosed Nels Stewart went after Johnson, hooking him over the eye with his stick when they clashed along the boards behind the Rangers’ net. Referee Lou Marsh gave them both penalties, and Ching went to the dressing room, where five stitches were placed in the wound. He soon returned to the fray wearing a white patch over the eye. Ching played more effervescently than ever, and the Rangers scored an upset victory over the Maroons.

Johnson gave New York fans a million bucks worth of entertainment during his career. He was a First All-Star Team member in 1932 and 1933 and made the Second Team in 1931 and 1934. With Ching starring on defense, the Rangers finished first in the American Division and a season later won their first Stanley Cup.

Johnson helped the Rangers to a second Stanley Cup in 1933.

“Ching,” said Boucher, “loved to deliver a good hoist early in a game because he knew his victim would likely retaliate, and Ching loved body contact. I remember once against the Maroons, Ching caught Hooley Smith with a terrific check right at the start of the game. Hooley’s stick flew from his hands and disappeared above the rink lights.

“He was lifted clean off the ice and seemed to stay suspended five or six feet above the surface for seconds before finally crashing down on his back. No one could accuse Hooley of lacking guts. From then on, whenever he got the puck, he drove for Ching, trying to outmatch him, but each time, Ching flattened poor Hooley. Afterwards, grinning in the shower, Ching said he couldn’t remember a game he’d enjoyed more.”

Johnson was not counted on as an offensive threat, though he did add the occasional goal. The numbers that tell the most about his style of play are his penalty minutes: 798 in 403 games. Johnson led the team in penalty minutes in eight of his 11 seasons with the Blueshirts, including seven of the first eight—in 1934-35, he had only 34 penalty minutes, but they came in just 26 games as he missed most of the season with injuries.

Ivan Wilfred Johnson was born on December 7, 1897, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He was nicknamed Ching because he wore a wide grin on his face whenever he bodychecked the enemy. In those pre-politically correct days, friends believed that his eyes gave him an Oriental look when he smiled; therefore, they called him Ching, as in “Ching-a-ling-Chinaman.”

Johnson was discovered by Conn Smythe when the hockey entrepreneur was scouting for the Rangers prior to their entry into the NHL. Both Ching and his buddy, Taffy Abel, were playing semipro hockey in Minneapolis. Smythe liked them both, but found Johnson a hard bargainer.

“I must have reached an agreement with Ching 40 times,” Smythe recalled. “Each time, when I gave him my pen to sign, he’d say, ‘I just want to phone my wife.’ Then there’d be a hitch, and he wouldn’t sign. In my final meeting with him, I said before we started, ‘Ching, I want you to promise that if we make a deal, you will sign, and then you’ll phone your wife.’ He promised. We made a deal. He said, ‘I’ve got to phone my wife.’ I said, ‘You promised!’ He said, ‘Okay, Connie,’ and signed.”

Smythe was unloaded by the Rangers before the opening season had begun and was replaced by Lester Patrick.

Johnson played for the Rangers until 1937, when he was ironically dealt to the rival New York Americans. He completed his NHL career in 1938 and briefly coached in the minors before he turned to officiating. While calling a game in Washington, D.C., he committed a memorable gaffe.

“I was calling this game,” Ching recalled, “when some young forwards broke out and raced solo against the goalie. Instinctively, I took this player down with a jarring bodycheck. Following the game, I apologized to his team. I don’t know what made me do it, but I did it I guess it was just the old defenseman’s instinct.”

Johnson eventually went into the construction business and remained in Washington, where he occasionally attended games played by the NHL’s Washington Capitals. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1958. Johnson died on June 16, 1979.

DAVEY

KERR

1934-1941

If ever there was a Mike Richter before Mike Richter became the Rangers’ goalie, it would be Davey Kerr. Like Richter, Kerr was a primary reason why the Rangers won a Stanley Cup. And like Richter, Kerr was small in stature but big between the pipes.

Unfortunately, his major-league career was relatively short, and as such, he is often overlooked when historians consider the legendary Rangers.

The Rangers acquired the rights to Davey Kerr from the Montreal Maroons on December 14, 1934, and he immediately filled in as the Blueshirts’ starting goaltender. The nimble netminder played only 37 contests in the 1934-35 season, but went on to miss only one more game—substitute Bert Gardiner was called on to replace Kerr in Kerr’s sophomore season—throughout the rest of his career.

Before he retired following the 1940-41 season, Davey played 324 regular-season games for the Rangers, posting a record of 157-110-57 with 40 shutouts and a goals-against average of 2.07. He also played a significant role in taking the Rangers to two Stanley Cup finals appearances, including a quite memorable one in his finest season, 1939-40.

“Davey was tremendously important to the 1940 team,” recalled former coach Frank Boucher. “He was always in fantastic shape and was really an inspiration for the other fellows to stay in shape. We relied on him a lot, and the fans really liked him.”

During that season, the Rangers set a franchise-high 19-game unbeaten streak behind Kerr’s solid netminding. The streak began when the Rangers played a 1-1 tie with the Canadiens on November 23, 1939, and ended when Kerr became the first goalie pulled from the net on the fly. Coach Frank Boucher believed the streak could have been extended to 25, but those Rangers were too smart for their own good.

“We were playing Chicago in the 20th game of the streak,” said Boucher, “and playing rings around them. It was the kind of game we should have won hands down, but for some strange reason, we couldn’t score a goal and were down 1-0 going into the third period.”

During the intermission, Boucher came up with a revolutionary idea. If the Rangers hadn’t tied the score by the final minutes, New York would pull Kerr, but not in the usual way. In those days, a team waited for a whistle and a face-off before replacing the goaltender with a sixth skater. This, of course, enabled the opposition to prepare for the extra man.

“We decided,” said Boucher, “that it would be better to pull the goalie without making it obvious—to do it on the fly.”

Chances are it would have worked, but Boucher neglected to inform general manager Lester Patrick of the plan.

Normally this wouldn’t have mattered, since Lester rarely occupied the bench. But on this night in Chicago, he was rinkside with the players. Lester was mistrustful of the Chicago timekeeper, who was located between the two teams’ benches.

Netminder Davey Kerr helped lead the New York Rangers to the Stanley Cup, From the Stan Fischier Collection

“By this time,” said Boucher, “we had the puck in their end. The signal was given for Kerr to come off the ice and the extra forward to go on. And that’s exactly what happened. Nobody in the rink realized what happened but my players—and then Lester, except he didn’t know that Kerr was removed.”

Believing that Boucher had made the mistake of allowing too many men on the ice, the frantic Lester beseeched Boucher to remove the sixth skater before the referee saw him.

“Paul Thompson, the Chicago coach, heard him,” Boucher recalled, “and when he saw six men in his zone, he started screaming. We were about to put the puck in the net when the referee blew his whistle to give us a penalty. Then he turned around and saw Kerr was out and there shouldn’t be a penalty at all. But it was too late. The attack was stopped and we lost the game 1-0.”

In the 1940 playoffs, Kerr reached his peak. During the Rangers’ semifinal series with Boston, he posted three shutouts, including two consecutive 1-0 victories when the Rangers were behind in the series two games to one.

“He was our leader,” recalled stalwart defenseman Ott Heller. “It was as simple as that.”

In the finals, the Blueshirts took on the Maple Leafs and won 4-2, allowing Kerr to lift the Stanley Cup in his hometown, Toronto. It was the Rangers’ third Stanley Cup in franchise history, Kerr was awarded the Vezina Trophy for his work throughout the championship season.

Kerr also led the team to the finals during the 1937 Stanley Cup playoffs. The Rangers posted 2-0 series victories against both the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Maroons before falling to the Detroit Red Wings three games to two. During the run, Kerr set a Rangers record for most shutouts (four) in one playoff year. Mike Richter eventually tied this record during the 1994 playoffs.

The first NHL player to appear on the cover of TIME magazine, Kerr was as agile as a ballet dancer. He could do splits with one skate firmly anchored against one goal post and the other skate stretching across the goalmouth to the other post.

During practice, Davey would also lay his stick across the goalmouth in front of the goal line and prop his left skate against the right post, thus extending his body across much of the net. This would leave his two hands free to catch the puck and his stick to deflect pucks along the ice. Kerr would then dare his teammates to beat him. According to Frank Boucher, they never did.

DAVEY KERR

BORN: Toronto, Ontario, Canada; January 11, 1910

DIED: May 12, 1978

POSITION: Goaltender

NHL TEAMS: Montreal Maroons, 1930-31, 1932-34; New York Americans, 1931-32; New York Rangers, 1934-41

AWARDS/HONORS: Vezina Trophy, 1940; NHL First Team All-Star, 1940; NHL Second Team All-Star, 1938

Boucher studied the goalie’s style carefully on the ice and once offered this analysis of the NHL ace: “Kerr was gifted with an excellent right hand that picked off shots like Bill Terry playing first base for the Giants. He was deliberate and methodical in everything he did. Davey retired long before his time, when he was at his peak and only 30 years old. In a commanding way, Davey was able to shout at his defensemen, giving them guidance without offending them and getting them to do the job he wanted done in front of him, talking continually when the pick was in our end. I don’t even remember Dave accusing a defense player for a mistake when a goal was scored against him. He always assumed the blame.”

EDGAR

LAPRADE

1945-1955

One of the great pleasures when watching the Rangers during the Post–World War II years was the sight of Edgar Laprade stickhandling through and around enemy defenses before skimming an accurate pass to one of his linemates.

A clean player with amazing puck control, Laprade’s career actually began a couple of years later than it should have because of Edgar’s affection for his hometown of Port Arthur, Ontario.

He had been a top-drawer hero in the amateur set and star of the Port Arthur Bear Cats. He led the Cats to the Allan Cup in 1939 and to the Western Canada, or Allan Cup, finals in each of the next four seasons. Newsmen referred to him as “a bearcat on the prowl.”

Rangers manager Frank Boucher spent a couple of summers working on Laprade and finally persuaded him to turn pro in time for the 1945-46 season. Edgar was an instant hit, and for good reason. As noted in the yearbook, Inside the Blueshirt, Laprade was the hockey player’s hockey player.

The yearbook put it this way: “Popular and respected in every rink in the league, he’s one of the most skilled stickhandlers in the business, exceedingly proficient at breaking up an enemy offense.”

Laprade was one of those rare athletes with a plan. He knew at an early age just how he wanted his hockey career to go, and he set out to achieve his goals. While playing for the Bear Cats, Laprade was awarded the Gerry Trophy as the league’s top athlete in 1939 and 1941.

Laprade refused to turn pro until he served a two-year stint in the Canadian Air Force, where he played on the Montreal Royal Canadian Air Force team. When he was discharged in 1945, Laprade finally signed a contract with the Blueshirts, and three weeks after his 26th birthday, Laprade made his NHL debut.

Laprade’s Rangers teammates quickly discovered that their new center was worth waiting for. Impressing his coaches and peers with his dogged work ethic, Edgar earned the nicknamed “Beaver” from his colleagues. At the end of his first season, he had 34 points in 49 games and earned Calder Trophy honors as the league’s best rookie.

Over the next three seasons, Laprade continued to impress, anchoring the Rangers’ front line during a series of lean years. Edgar had finished third in team scoring in his first season and would finish in the top three in each of the next four years. In the 1948-49 campaign, Laprade took his place among the Rangers greats of the past when he shared the team MVP award with goalie Chuck Rayner.

“IT WAS THE BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT OF MY CAREER.”

But Laprade had even more in store for New York. His most memorable season came in 1949-50, when he tallied 22 goals and added 22 assists to lead the team in scoring while winning the Lady Byng Trophy. Laprade also had three goals and eight points in the Rangers’ near-championship playoff run to the seventh game of the finals.

A smooth skater and an expert stickhandler, Laprade possessed only one shortcoming: a terribly weak shot. Equally impressive was Laprade’s ability to avoid confrontations with the opposition and stay out of trouble with the refs.

Over his entire NHL career, Edgar amassed just 46 penalty minutes including playoffs. On three separate occasions, he tallied zero penalty minutes in a season, a remarkable achievement for an everyday player.

But by no means was Laprade a weak competitor; his back-checking and penalty-killing abilities were superior. Although he would frequently find himself in scoring position only to shoot ineffectively, either weakly or wide of the mark, Laprade’s playmaking emerged as one of the jewels of a relatively lackluster New York team.

“I’ve always felt that he missed the general acclaim he deserved,” said Boucher, “because it was his misfortune never to be cast with a winner.”

Laprade starred for the Rangers during their vain effort to win the Stanley Cup in 1950. The Blueshirts fought hard to send the Stanley Cup finals series with the Red Wings to a Game 7, but fell when Detroit left wing Pete Babando buried the puck in the second overtime.

“It was the biggest disappointment of my career,” said Laprade, whose only other playoff appearance came in 1948 when the Red Wings ousted the Rangers in six games in the semifinals.

EDGAR LAPRADE

BORN: Mine Center, Ontario, Canada; October 10, 1919

DIED: April 28, 2014

POSITION: Center

NHL TEAMS: New York Rangers, 1945-55

AWARDS/HONORS: Calder Trophy, 1946; Lady Byng Trophy, 1950

Laprade retired following the 1951-52 season at the relatively young age of 32. He compared his decision to that of boxer Joe Louis, since Louis also left the game while he was on top. Laprade, whose family owned a sporting goods business in Port Arthur, also wanted to go out on his own terms. His motives were strictly to spend more time with his business and family.

Edgar, however, was too good for the Rangers to let go without a fight. When the Rangers suffered a slump in 1953-54, Boucher went up to Port Arthur and, though it took over two months of cajoling, finally convinced Laprade to come back to Broadway. He played on a line with the aging Max Bentley. The two veterans meshed well together, and Laprade played a key role in one of the most poignant moments in Rangers history: the reuniting of Max and Doug Bentley.

Edgar Laprade excelled at stickhandling for the New York Rangers. From the Stan Fischler Collection

That night, Laprade was shifted to right wing, and fans were skeptical of his ability to blend with the sometimes unpredictable Bentley brothers. The fans’ fears were groundless, as the line of Laprade and the Bentleys accounted for a whopping four goals in the first two periods. In the third period, Edgar was part of one of the most beautiful goals in Rangers history.

The shot was chronicled in Metro Ice in these words: “Flanked by the brothers, Laprade swiftly crossed the center red line, then skimmed a pass to Doug on the left, who just as quickly sent it back to Laprade as he crossed the Boston blue line. By now only one Bruins defenseman was back, trying to intercept the anticipated center slot pass from Laprade to Max speeding along the right side. Laprade tantalized the Boston player, almost handed him the puck, and when he lunged for it, Edgar flipped it to Max, who was moving on a direct line for the right goalpost. Laprade meanwhile had burst ahead on a direct line for the left goalpost, ready for a return pass. Both goalie Jim Henry and the defenseman—and possibly even Laprade—expected Max to relay the puck back to Edgar. So Henry began edging toward the other side of the net as Max faked and faked and faked the pass, but continued to move toward the goal until, without even shooting the rubber, he calmly eased it into the right comer.”

Laprade retired at the end of the 1954-55 season after playing his 500th game, a milestone that only four previous Rangers had reached. Edgar returned to Thunder Bay, Ontario, where he became a sporting goods dealer and village alderman.

He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1993.

In retrospect, if this wonderful performer could be described in one word, that word would be elegant.

BRIAN

LEETCH

1988-2004

Some have called Brian Leetch “the greatest Rangers defenseman of all time.” While that issue is debatable, there’s no question that the Connecticut-reared backliner ranks, at the very least, near the top of the list. Brian Leetch was the New York Rangers’ primary defenseman for well over a decade.

The two-time Norris Trophy–winner was the linchpin of the Blueshirts’ lineup following his arrival after the 1988 Olympics and remained so until he left Broadway in 2004.

Smooth, clean, and calm in both zones, Leetch metamorphosed into a perennial All-Star, frequently appearing at the top of scoring races among defensemen with contemporaries Ray Bourque, Paul Coffey, and Larry Murphy.

The Rangers had been waiting more than a decade, since the trade of Brad Park in 1975, to acquire or draft a quality defenseman in the Park mold. However, in 1986, they drafted Leetch (ninth overall). Leetch spent one year at Boston College before leaving behind his amateur career for the bright lights of midtown Manhattan.

In his first full season, 1988-89, Leetch took the NHL by storm with 23 goals and 48 assists and won the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie. He markedly improved in his own zone as the Rangers built their franchise around the dynamic Leetch, young goaltender Mike Richter, and, beginning in 1991-92, the game’s premier leader, Mark Messier. Messier’s arrival that year lifted Leetch to a career-high 102-point season and a Norris Trophy as he played a key role in the Blueshirts’ division title.

A broken ankle would hinder Brian’s progress during the next season and prevent the Rangers from earning a spot in the playoffs. However, he would prove durable afterward. He experienced just one abbreviated season through the end of the century, playing only 50 games in 1999-2000 as the Rangers again failed to make the playoffs.

During the Rangers’ magical postseason of 1993-94, Leetch led all players with 11 goals and 23 assists in 23 playoff matches en route to becoming the first American to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the Stanley Cup playoffs. His finest moment may have been the goal he scored in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals against the Vancouver Canucks. Leetch took a pass from the point and lifted the puck top-shelf as goalie Kirk McLean sprawled on his front side, helping the Blueshirts to win their first Stanley Cup in 54 years.

Leetch was regarded as one of the key pieces in the championship puzzle. “Brian is not only one of the best players to ever play for the New York Rangers, he’s a classy individual,” said Rangers president and general manager Glen Sather, expressing his appreciation of the team’s star defenseman.

How does one make a case for Leetch as the best Rangers defenseman of all time?

For starters, his numbers are staggering, outpointing every other Rangers backliner, including Brad Park.

For another, unlike Park, Leetch played on a Stanley Cup–winning team.

Although outstanding Rangers defensemen such as Ching Johnson, Art Coulter, and Harry Howell were significantly stronger in their own end of the rink, it is clear looking back that they did not come close to matching Leetch’s offensive stats.

Few could ever match Leetch’s offensive style, let alone his ability to orchestrate the tempo of the game to suit his team. In that sense, Brian emulated the inimitable Doug Harvey, who won the Norris Trophy in 1961-62 as Rangers player-coach.

Then there was his power-play work. Teaming with Sergei Zubov, Leetch provided the Rangers with their best-ever double-dip power-play combination.

Likewise, Leetch made a better player out of his even-strength defensemate Jeff Beukeboom, who achieved his finest moments working alongside No. 2.

But Brian was far from perfect behind his own blue line.

BRIAN LEETCH

BORN: March 3, 1968

POSITION: Defenseman

NHL TEAMS: New York Rangers, 1988-2004; Toronto Maple Leafs, 2004; Boston Bruins, 2005-06

AWARDS/HONORS: Calder Memorial Trophy, 1989; James Norris Memorial Trophy, 1992, 1997; Conn Smythe Trophy, 1994; NHL All-Rookie Team, 1989; NHL First Team All-Star, 1992, 1997; NHL Second Team All-Star 1991, 1994, 1996; NHL All-Star Game, 1990-92, 1994, 1996-98, 2001-02

Because he was not a hard hitter and lacked the size of a heavyweight defenseman, he could be knocked off the puck, but he was quickly able to rebound from mistakes.

It was also Brian’s good fortune to play with some of the finest Rangers, including Mike Richter, Mark Messier, Adam Graves, and “The Great One” himself, Wayne Gretzky.

The 1996-97 campaign featured the addition of Gretzky, an appearance in the Eastern Conference finals, and a second Norris Trophy for Brian. Messier abruptly departed to Vancouver that summer, and Leetch assumed the captaincy. Sadly, Brian never appeared comfortable in the role, often overcompensating for his underachieving team, and the drop from a plus-31 rating to a minus-36 proved the point. But when Messier returned in 2000-01, Leetch was rejuvenated and turned in a vintage 79-point performance.

Despite being teamed up with several veteran players and continuing to play in the most skilled fashion, Leetch was unable to lead his team to the playoffs in his final seven years on the Rangers.

The decline and fall of Brian as a New York Ranger was not pretty. A player who loved Manhattan—he had a Broadway apartment on the Upper West Side—Leetch felt losses as intensely as any athlete. There was no doubt that by the year 2003, he was no longer the dominant figure he had been in the 1990s.

This presented a most difficult decision for general manager Glen Sather, particularly since most experts had forecast a labor work stoppage for the 2004-05 season.

Sather wrestled with the issue and finally decided that the time had come to trade the high-priced defenseman. He found a partner in the Toronto Maple Leafs.

On March 3, Sather dealt Leetch to Toronto for Maxim Kondratiev, Jarkko Immonen, and a 2004 NHL entry draft first-round selection, giving the Blueshirts a second pick that year, the best of which was goalie Al Montoya, followed by Lauri Korpikoski. The Rangers also received an additional 2005 NHL entry draft selection in which they selected Michael Sauer and Marc-Andre Cliche.

In answer to critics, Sather explained why he made the move.

“As we proceeded down the path, we feel we did very well with the players we got and the draft choices we got. We felt that going as far as we did go with Toronto was as good as we could get,” said Sather.

As for the Maple Leafs, general manager John Ferguson Jr. believed that he had received an amazing player with tremendous potential who could lead the team to the Stanley Cup playoffs and beyond. “Brian has been a premier defenseman in this league since first coming into the league. We look forward to having a player with his great credentials joining our group,” said Ferguson of his acquisition.

But the Maple Leafs were unable to win the Cup, although Leetch and Bryan McCabe proved to be an excellent power-play combination, not unlike the Zubov-Leetch pairing during the Rangers’ glory years.

One of the worst things to happen to Brian’s career was the NHL lockout, which stopped play for the entire 2004-05 season. The last thing a player his age needed at that time was to be deprived of work when he still had his legs left.

Once the new collective bargaining agreement was signed, Brian accepted an offer from the Boston Bruins and played reasonably fair hockey for them, but not good enough to lead them into the playoffs. During the summer of 2006, he wrestled with the idea of playing one more season—possibly even with his favorite team, the Rangers—but ultimately decided that, at 39, he’d rather spend more time with his family, and that’s precisely what he did.

How will historians regard Leetch among hockey’s greatest stars?

Some have labeled him as the foremost American-born defenseman.

This much is certain: he scored 247 goals and had 781 assists over 1,205 career-games, mostly in his 17 seasons as a Ranger. He was also responsible for 97 points in 95 postseason appearances.

The numbers speak volumes as to why those who saw Leetch in action have no problem comparing him with New York’s very best, a list that includes Park, Howell, Coulter, and, on Brian’s best nights, even the legendary Doug Harvey.

MARK

MESSIER

1991-1997; 2000-2004

In a city filled with legendary characters, only a precious few hockey players can be counted as genuine Big Apple icons. Without question, Mark Messier emerged as just such a hero of heroes.

All things considered, it’s hard to believe in retrospect that Messier spent only a decade—over two different periods—in a Rangers uniform.

Messier eventually departed from the Big Apple as one of the city’s most revered sports heroes, right up there with Joe Namath, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio, and Willis Reed.

Many reasons exist for this extraordinary turn of events, not the least of which is the fact that Messier—as captain—spearheaded the Rangers’ march to their last Stanley Cup in 1994.

Not only did he wear the “C” with distinction, but Messier, in one of those extraordinarily rare moments of leadership, actually “guaranteed” a victory at a time when many Rangers fans thought it impossible.

Even more noteworthy, Messier captivated New Yorkers during the twilight of a glorious professional career that actually began in the World Hockey Association when the WHA was still a rival of the NHL.

As was the case with many future Hall of Famers, Messier was the beneficiary of a second “major league.” The WHA was born in 1972 and managed to steal such legendary performers as Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, and Gerry Cheevers from the NHL.

By the 1978-79 season, the upstart league was staggering but still alive and quite willing to gamble on young talents who had been overlooked by the NHL. One reason for this was that the senior league hesitated to sign any player under 20. This meant that future aces such as Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier filled a rich talent pool from which NHL birddogs could feast.

Although he was extremely raw talent-wise, Messier enjoyed stints with two teams—the Indianapolis Racers and Cincinnati Stingers—during the 1978-79 season.

Since the Edmonton Oilers were also members of the WHA at the time, scouts and boss Glen Sather were able to appreciate Mark’s potential.

A year later, the Oilers—but not Cincinnati or Indianapolis—entered into the NHL as part of a marriage between the elder circuit and the WHA. Thus, Messier had reached the top rung on his professional ladder, and despite a modest start point-wise, he hit the NHL running.

Mark was in good company. Not only was Wayne Gretzky a teammate, but such young stallions as Kevin Lowe, Glenn Anderson, and Grant Fuhr also graced the Edmonton roster.

“Winner” would be the most appropriate word to describe Mark Messier. He was the ultimate power forward of his era and retained that reputation until his retirement in 2004. Known in New York as “The Messiah,” and “The Captain,” Mark bore striking similarities to Gordie Howe and many go so far as to say that Messier was a better all-around player than his former Edmonton teammate, Gretzky.

“Numbers don’t tell you everything you have to know about hockey players,” said Lou Vairo, author of an in-depth hockey manual and assistant coach of the 2002 U.S. Olympic Team. “There are intangibles that can be seen and felt but can’t be calculated with a computer.”

The intangibles are vital elements that can never truly be measured by statistics. These include energy, toughness, checking, fighting ability, and desire.

With Messier and Gretzky a part of the squad, Edmonton conquered four Stanley Cups. It is significant that while Gretzky never won another Cup after he left Messier’s side, Mark captured the Mug again as an Oiler in 1990 and still one more in 1994 as a Ranger. Thus, Messier totaled six championships in his career.

In his prime, Messier tore down a rink like a speeding locomotive. Shadowing him was virtually a waste of time and manpower.

“When Mark got going, it was impossible to stop that man,” said former Montreal Canadiens coach Jacques Demers, now a television and newspaper analyst.

MARK MESSIER

BORN: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; January 18, 1961

POSITION: Center

NHL TEAMS: Edmonton Oilers, 1979-1991; New York Rangers, 1991-97, 2000-04; Vancouver Canucks, 1997-2000

AWARDS/HONORS: Conn Smythe Trophy, 1984; Hart Trophy, 1990, 1992; Lester Pearson Trophy, 1990, 1992; NHL First Team All-Star, 1982-83, 1990, 1992; NHL Second Team All-Star, 1984

The transformation of Messier from foot soldier to superstar did not come overnight, nor did the evolution of the Oilers as a major-league hockey dynasty.

After playoff setbacks in the early 1980s, the gears meshed during the 1982-83 season, during which Edmonton reached the Stanley Cup finals against the New York Islanders, who had already won three consecutive championships.

Although the Oilers went out in four straight games, they fought hard and well at times and seemed capable of winning any one of the matches.

“One of our greatest lessons,” Mark remembered, “was after the final game as we headed out of Nassau Coliseum.

“To get out of the building, we first had to walk past the Islanders’ dressing room. We could hear all the celebrating, and we knew how hard they had worked to get to the top. Right then and there, we knew that we had to work harder and improve our game a bit more.”

It didn’t take very long for that to happen. Just a year later, the Oilers and Islanders again collided in the finals. It was then that Messier took over as a leader and dynamite scorer.

The finals moved from Long Island to Edmonton when the series was tied at one game apiece. With future Hall of Famer Bill Smith in goal, New York took the lead in Game 3 and appeared Cup-bound again.

Then came the goal that would ultimately determine the game and the eventual outcome of the series.

Messier snared the puck at center ice and barreled over the enemy blue line, going one-on-one with defenseman Gord Dineen. As the bromide goes, Mark left Dineen standing there like a cigar-store Indian.

Messier followed that bit of devilry with a laser-like wrist shot that left goalie Smith mummified as the puck hit the twine. Edmonton won the game and the next two to take the Cup—its first of four in five years.

Despite all the fuss and fanfare over Gretzky, it was Messier who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the postseason’s most valuable player in 1984. Mark had totaled 26 points in 19 playoff games.

After Gretzky was dealt away in 1988, Messier inherited the captaincy. Although hampered by injuries, he rose to the occasion as never before and carried the Oilers to their fifth championship in 1990. Mark also won the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player.

In a sense, this was Messier’s most arresting triumph. The Oilers were an underdog team loaded with youngsters and were, of course, without “The Great One.”

By this time, the Oilers were beset by economic problems, and the franchise’s fiscal situation was worsening by the season.

Large-market teams were acutely aware of this and attempted to pry Messier loose from the Oilers, particularly since he had become one of the higher-salaried players in the league.

Finally, on October 4, 1991, what was once thought unthinkable happened. Messier was traded to the Rangers with future considerations for Bernie Nicholls, Steven Rice, and Louie DeBrusk. Edmonton was in mourning because Messier had captured a top slot in every offensive category in its team’s history, including games played (second with 851), goals (fourth with 392), assists (second with 642), and points (third with 1,034).

Having seen enough of Messier to know how special he was as a player and a personality, New Yorkers greeted him with open arms.

In no time at all, Mark became a New Yorker through and through. He moved into a lavish apartment on 57th Street right next to Carnegie Hall and soon became a coveted member of Manhattan’s social set.

He endured a few bumps on Broadway before reaching the coveted Cup terminal.

Sparks emerged between Mark and coach Roger Neilson. Messier objected to Neilson’s style, and eventually the feud went public.

Messier, who had been knighted as soon as he arrived in New York, won the battle, and Neilson was replaced by Mike Keenan. The new coach and Mark worked well together.

Anyone who played alongside the captain invariably improved his game, but no one more than Adam Graves. During the 1993-94 season, Graves broke Vic Hadfield’s Rangers single-season goal-scoring record with 52 tallies. In addition, the Rangers won the Presidents’ Trophy for most points in the season.

But this was a prelude of even better things to come. The Rangers steam-rolled through the first two playoff rounds before running into a surprisingly hot, young New Jersey Devils team.

For a time, it appeared that the long-standing “Curse of 1940” would remain intact. The Devils had taken a three-games-to-two lead and were up 2-0 in the second period of Game 6.

Few Rangers fans were hanging their hopes on the “guarantee” delivered by Messier to the papers that morning, which assured the faithful that the Rangers would prevail.

Who could have dreamed that the victory would be manufactured with Messier’s three-goal hat trick? But it was!

New York went on to capture the seventh game in double overtime before facing Vancouver for the championship.

In Game 7 of the finals, No. 11 scored what turned out to be the game-winning goal in a 3-2 victory over Pavel Bure and the Canucks.

Messier and company were hailed like no other Rangers team in history. Crowds lined the Canyon of Champions in a memorable ticker-tape parade.

To some, Messier’s heroics went beyond the meaningful goals and raucous celebrations.

Unbeknownst to Messier, a young Rangers fan was holed up in Manhattan’s Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, dying of a heart ailment. The patient, Brian Bluver, desperately required a transplant. The lad’s father, Bill Bluver, contacted a hockey broadcaster, asking if a Ranger was available to visit and bolster his son’s spirits.

A phone call was made to the Rangers’ public relations office, where team publicist Barry Watkins took the message but promised nothing because of the intense round of celebrations that transpired all week.

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Watkins and left it at that.

A few days later, a limousine pulled up in front of the hospital in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. Out stepped Messier, carrying the Stanley Cup. The captain delivered the silverware to the intensive care unit and the bedside of the ailing Bluver. Despite his critical condition, the youngster responded positively to the Rangers leader, who delivered telling words of encouragement.

“It was a tremendous boost for my son,” said Brian’s father, Bill. “We couldn’t thank Mark and the Rangers enough!”

The Bluver family was further encouraged when Brian received a new heart and recovered to lead a normal life.

Eventually, Brian left the hospital, returned to school, and in time earned a law degree. He never forgot Messier’s visit and actually enjoyed a reunion with his hero many years later at Madison Square Garden.

Other fans’ dreams came true when Wayne Gretzky was reunited with Messier in the 1996-97 season. The pair spearheaded the Blueshirts to a playoff berth before being ousted by the Philadelphia Flyers.

That just about ended Mark’s rosy years in Manhattan. The Rangers were on a downward spiral that not even he could reverse, and he was dealt in 1997 to the Vancouver Canucks.

It didn’t seem possible that Messier would return to New York as a player, but in 2000, the 40-year-old warrior headlined an MSG press conference heralding his homecoming. Despite his advanced years, Messier collected 67 points and was one of four Rangers to play every game during that season—the second time in his career that he had competed in all 82 games. But the gas finally ran out of Mark’s tank prior to the 2003-04 season and he called it a career.

The future Hall of Famer owned dynamic credentials.

He amassed 694 goals, 1,193 assists, 1,887 points, and 1,910 penalty minutes in his regular-season career. During the playoffs, Mark produced 109 goals, 186 assists, 295 points, and 244 penalty minutes.

The capper for Mark in Manhattan occurred on January 12, 2006, when a gala Mark Messier Night preceded an Oilers-Rangers match at the Garden. The captain’s No. 11 was officially retired, never to be worn by a Ranger again. Tears of joy along with endless applause filled the venerable arena.

Nobody summed up Messier’s qualities better than the man who nurtured him as a rookie in Edmonton in 1979.

“Mark had that look in his eye,” explained Glen Sather. “It’s a look that I had only seen once before in a great hockey player, and that was Maurice Richard. But Mark had it even more. At critical times in the playoffs, he’d give everyone that look in the dressing room, and away we’d go!”

Perhaps it is redundant to add that Messier was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in the summer of 2007. “Mark represents the epitome of hockey excellence,” said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. “His career was distinguished by his skill, by his drive, and by his refusal to accept anything less than the best.”

Al MacInnis, who was also named to the Hall along with Messier, played against Mark for many years. The defenseman summed up his feelings about his longtime foe this way: “Mark’s reputation is the right one as far as maybe being [one of the best], if not the best, leaders in the game for many, many years. . . . [A] complete player, he could change the momentum of a game with his skill level and his physical attributes.

“He was one of the top players ever to play the game.”

MURRAY

MURDOCH

1926-1937

It’s been said that hockey’s foot soldiers are often as valuable to their teams as the glittering superstars. This was never more true than in the case of Murray Murdoch.

When the original Rangers team was being organized in 1926, Murdoch had just graduated from the University of Manitoba. When Conn Smythe was scouting players for the Rangers, he liked what he saw of the lad, although he couldn’t have imagined how durable he would prove to be. Murdoch was living in Winnipeg when Smythe was signing other would-be Rangers in Duluth, Minnesota.

Murdoch, who was a newlywed, received a telegram from Smythe: “MEET ME HERE IN DULUTH STOP ALL EXPENSES PAID.”

To that, Murdoch wired back, “IF YOU WANT TO SEE ME COME TO WINNIPEG.”

Decades later, Murdoch recalled the fateful rendezvous: “Smythe came to Winnipeg, we talked, and he offered me a $1,500 signing bonus and a $5,000 salary. I remember sitting in the lobby of the Fort Garry Hotel thinking it over, and I was just about to say no when Conn leaned over a coffee table and slowly counted out $1,500 in $100 bills. That clinched it. For a young guy just married and with a summer job selling insurance, that looked like an awful lot of money.”

MURRAY MURDOCH

BORN: Lucknow, Ontario, Canada; May 19, 1904

DIED: May 17, 2001

POSITION: Left Wing

NHL TEAMS: New York Rangers, 1926-37

AWARDS/HONORS: Lester Patrick Trophy, 1974

Although Smythe was in charge of the Rangers before their original season began, he was fired before the opening face-off in a dispute with management and replaced by the less-vitriolic Lester Patrick, who Murdoch appreciated much more.

“Lester never dealt that way. He just made his proposition, and you knew his word was his bond,” said Murdoch.

“Lester took over from Conn quietly without any fuss, and after a couple of days, he called a team meeting. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘when we start playing in the National Hockey League, you’re going to win some games and you’re going to lose some. I just want to stress this: if you lose more than you win, you won’t be around.’”

When Lester Patrick took over as manager and coach, Murdoch became one of the most valuable Rangers. Lester played him on a line with Billy Boyd and Paul Thompson. That Rangers checking unit was one of the best ever at what it did.

“Murray didn’t get the buildup that the modem players receive, but he was a superstar in his own right,” said hockey historian Kip Farrington. “His iron-man record stood as a tribute to his durability and desire.”

John Murray Murdoch was born on May 19, 1904, in Lucknow, Ontario, and was skating shortly after he learned to walk. He originally made his name in the sport while attending St. John’s College in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

A superb all-around athlete, Murdoch played tennis, baseball, and football in addition to hockey at St. John’s. But he was most comfortable on the ice.

In his senior year, after transferring to the University of Manitoba, Murdoch led his team to the Canadian Junior Hockey championship and the Memorial Cup—emblematic of Junior hockey supremacy in Canada—scoring nine of the team’s 14 goals along the way.

Murray played stellar hockey for nearly a decade, anchoring the checking line on the Rangers’ Stanley Cup–winning teams of 1928 and 1933. Following the Rangers’ 1933 Stanley Cup championship—their second in seven years—Murdoch and other members of the old guard began to falter, yet he still had some success, enjoying the biggest scoring season of his career in 1933-34 with 17 goals. He played capably through the 1936-37 season, his last. In that campaign, he had 14 assists but no goals.

During his 11-year career, Murdoch did not miss a single game. He played in a total of 508 consecutive contests during that span, including every one of the Rangers’ 55 Stanley Cup playoff matches.

Murdoch was there from the very beginning and retired with a pair of Stanley Cup rings.

An intense admirer of Murdoch as a player and a person, then Rangers president General John Reed Kilpatrick believed that Murray would make an excellent college coach. Since the General was a distinguished alumnus of Yale, he was in a position to help Murray obtain the job.

From that point on, Murdoch became something of a hockey legend at the collegiate coaching level. “He brought to Yale a quiet dignity and professionalism,” said Farrington. “The ruddy-faced Canadian, once a handsome, blond-haired centerman, helped popularize the sport at Yale.”

Murdoch coached Yale for 28 years before retiring in 1966. One of Murray’s players, Bill Hilderbrand, captain of the 1963 squad, said this of his coach: “Murray was one of the greatest college coaches who ever lived, if just from the standpoint of his knowledge of hockey. He knows the game inside out, but most of all, the players respect him because he’s a real man in every way.”

In 1974, Murdoch was awarded the Lester Patrick Trophy for service to hockey in the United States.

A distinguished citizen both on and off the ice, Murdoch was revered in every realm of the game, from the amateur level to the Rangers and then as a collegiate coach.

But when it came to the Blueshirts, who else can say—as Murray did—that he never missed a single game from the beginning of his honorable career to its conclusion?

BRAD

PARK

1968-1975

Had Bobby Orr not skated onto the NHL stage in the late 1960s, the spotlight would have focused on Brad Park, who was arguably the best defenseman—including offensive play as well as play behind the blue line—in the National Hockey League.

In fact, there was little to distinguish between Park and Orr when it came to analyzing their respective styles, not to mention value to their teams.

However, Park had one missing link in his glittering hockey necklace: a Stanley Cup ring. Orr had two.

The consummate contemporary defenseman, Park was the master of the hip check and an exceptionally accurate shooter who could develop an attack and then retreat in time to intercept an enemy counterthrust. The baby-faced backliner could also play the game as tough as anyone.

Park’s game was embellished by a fluid skating style that often underplayed his speed as well as strength, which proved deceptive because of his relatively modest size.

It was Park’s misfortune never to have skated for a genuine powerhouse. He was the ice general and captain of a modestly successful Rangers team in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but he never tasted the Stanley Cup champagne.

One of his closest encounters with the Cup came in the 1971-72 season, when his Broadway Blueshirts reached the Stanley Cup finals.

Facing the Boston Bruins, the Rangers extended the series to six games. The sixth was played at Madison Square Garden, where it appeared that the Blueshirts had an excellent opportunity to win the contest until Orr executed a razzle-dazzle play at the blue line that led to the decisive goal and helped Boston to the championship. Once again, Orr was in Park’s way.

By this time, the New York-Boston hockey rivalry had reached a fever pitch and got even steamier after Park decided to write his autobiography, Play the Man.

In one chapter, Park delivered some unkind words about Boston and the Bruins, which infuriated both the team and Beantown hockey fans. It seemed incredulous, but Brad had become the number-one villain in Boston.

Whenever he appeared at Boston Garden, Park was singled out for abuse. Just about the last thing anyone would have expected would have been the sight of No. 2 in a Boston uniform.

And then it happened. Because the Rangers failed to win the Stanley Cup during Park’s golden years in New York, he became the target of the Madison Square Garden boo-birds and was eventually part of one of the biggest trades in NHL history. On November 7, 1975, Park, who was then the Rangers’ captain, and Jean Ratelle, the club’s foremost playmaker, were traded to the Bruins for Phil Esposito and Carol Vadnais.

The blockbuster exchange reverberated negatively through New England and New York City. Bruins fans were stunned to the core by the idea of one-time Bruins-hating Park suddenly playing for the black, white, and yellow.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all was the ease with which Brad made the transition. For that he had to thank the guidance of coach Don Cherry. In no time at all, Park won the hearts of Boston fans with the same kind of dedication and hard work that had made him a hit on Broadway.

With Orr on his way out—he would finish his career in Chicago with the Blackhawks—Park became top banana on the Beantown blue line. With the colorful Cherry behind the bench, Boston played exciting hockey, even though the Bruins were no longer as powerful as they had been during their Cup-winning years.

Because he played in the shadow of some of the most proficient backliners, Park may not have received the media attention he merited, but the experts took due note of his excellence. Brad was voted to the First All-Star Team in 1970, 1972, 1974, 1976, and 1978. He made the Second Team in 1971 and 1973.

BRAD PARK

BORN: Toronto, Ontario, Canada; July 6, 1948

POSITION: Defenseman

NHL TEAMS: New York Rangers, 1968-75; Boston Bruins, 1975-83; Detroit Red Wings, 1983-85

AWARDS/HONORS: NHL First Team All-Star 1970, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1978; NHL Second Team All-Star 1971, 1973

More than anything, Park was a refreshing player to watch and, in some ways, a throwback to an earlier, more robust era of defensive play.

“One of the glorious aspects of sports,” said author Roger Kahn, “is having your spirits renewed by Brad Park.” Park’s own spirits were occasionally deflated by Orr’s presence in the same league. A defenseman like Park, Orr had been regarded by many as the “Most Holy, Blessed Be He” in hockey since the invention of the puck. Playing second fiddle to a superstar like Orr could not have been the easiest thing in the world, but Park made the adjustment.

“If I have to be number two,” Brad explained, “I might as well be number two to a superstar like Orr.”

Park had been super, or close to it, ever since he became a Ranger in 1968-69. An instant regular, he learned the ropes, took punches in the chops, and scored goals almost immediately.

His career almost ended with similar suddenness. The Rangers were playing the Red Wings, and dangerous Gordie Howe was still playing for the Detroit sextet. Park was guarding Howe, notorious for his great strength, durability, and viciousness. “Watch Howe!” Brad was warned. “He likes to club you with his elbows.”

Park remained vigilant, and when Howe confronted him, the young Ranger bodychecked the veteran cleanly, depositing him on the ice. But Brad became less vigilant as the game continued, and a few minutes later, Howe’s stick flashed, cracking into Park’s Adam’s apple.

For an instant, it appeared as if the blow might have ended his career. Brad fell, unable to swallow and gasping for breath. Rangers trainer Frank Paice dashed across the ice and calmed the kid until he was fully revived and able to skate off the ice under his own steam.

As Brad passed Howe, he turned to his assailant and rasped, ‘You son of a gun. It could have been my eye. From now on, when you’re skating around me, you damn well better keep your head up.” Park clashed with the best of foes, especially the Philadelphia Flyers.

The flak was never heavier than in the spring of 1974, when the Rangers met Philadephia in the semifinal round of the playoffs. Dave Schultz, the number-one hitter on the Flyers, made a point of zeroing in on Park early in the third game of the Cup round. First, he bodied Brad heavily in the comer. Then, as play swung up the ice, Schultz charged into Park a second time and knocked him down, straddling the semi-defenseless Ranger and pouring punches at his face.

The Flyers’ theory was simplicity itself—beat up on the best Ranger and grind out a series victory. ‘You can’t be a hitting team 60 minutes a game,” countered Park. “It’s exhausting.”

But it was just as exhausting for Park, mostly because his teammates failed to generate as much zest as he did. As a result, the Flyers edged New York four games to three and advanced to the Stanley Cup finals.

Douglas Bradford Park was born July 6, 1948, in Toronto, and learned the game on the city rinks. For many years, Brad’s size worked against him, but he was also tough enough to land a spot on the Toronto Junior Marlboros, a club that usually fed gifted stickhandlers to the NHL.

Normally, Park would have graduated to the Toronto Maple Leafs, but the NHL had instituted a draft rule that enabled the Rangers to land Park. Brad was stunned, to say the least.

When Park arrived at the Rangers’ training camp in September 1968, he was not even considered for a position on the New York varsity. The Rangers had a well-rounded defense and had also been grooming a tall, well-built prospect named Al Hamilton as their fifth defenseman. But Park outplayed Hamilton each scrimmage, and the Rangers’ braintrust was faced with a dilemma. Management solved the issue by sending Park to the minors and keeping Hamilton with the big club. But Brad played too well to be kept down, and Hamilton couldn’t cut it with the Rangers.

The call went out to Park, and he never looked back. Injuries severely braked the career of the star defenseman, but Park continued to play through knee problems, though at a more modest pace.

“In some ways,” said Don Cherry, “Brad was a better player after all the injuries because he began to pace himself. He wouldn’t take as many chances on offense, and that meant he was in better position on defense, so he was caught out of position much less.”

The pain had so troubled Brad that it was freely predicted he would retire by 1980, but he kept coming back. When the 1981-82 campaign began, he was back on the Bruins’ blue line, playing as smart a game as he ever had in his life.

Unfortunately for him, a number of younger, flashier defensemen such as Denis Potvin of the New York Islanders and Randy Carlyle of the Pittsburgh Penguins were scoring more than Park, though they didn’t necessarily play better defense. But the high-scoring defensemen received the accolades, and Brad, just as he had been during the Orr era, was relegated to the shadows.

Yet the purists remained appreciative of Park’s skills, particularly his “submarine” bodycheck in which he’d thrust his hip into the path of onrushing attackers, catapulting them upside down on the ice. In 1977 and 1978, Park was one of the primary reasons the Bruins reached the Stanley Cup finals. The series were close, but Boston ultimately lost; Brad had come in second once more.

Park concluded his career with the Red Wings and was named Detroit’s coach in December 1985. Unfortunately, he was the wrong man at the wrong time in the wrong place with the wrong team and was fired at the end of the season.

Brad finally obtained the recognition he deserved in June 1988, when he was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

LESTER

PATRICK

1927-1928

If anyone deserved the label “Mister Ranger” on the club’s administrative level, it was Lester Patrick. He created the first Rangers team in 1926, coached the first Blueshirts club, and guided them to their first two Stanley Cups in 1928 and 1933 while behind the bench. As general manager in 1940, Lester helped the club to yet another Stanley Cup championship.

When one considers the foremost notables in hockey, not to mention esteemed coaches, Patrick ranks at the very top of the list.

There are those who would argue that Patrick was in a class by himself during both his playing and coaching career, which lasted from 1905 till 1939.

To New Yorkers, it was Patrick the manager and coach who mattered most.

Patrick first made an impact on the game of hockey while playing for a team in Brandon, Manitoba. Patrick was the very first defenseman ever to make a practice of lugging the puck out of his zone and deep into enemy territory. Lester could never comprehend why only forwards were the puck-carriers and, conversely, why defensemen did nothing but engage the enemy attackers.

Said Elmer Ferguson of the Montreal Herald, “He felt that a defenseman should do more than defend, so he rushed the puck as well.”

Patrick graduated from Brandon to the powerful Montreal Wanderers in 1903. At that time, organized hockey was dominated by the Ottawa Silver Seven, a club that captured the Stanley Cup in 1903, 1904, and 1905.

The Wanderers finally dethroned the Silver Seven 12-10 in the 1906 two-game total-goal series. Patrick scored the 11th and 12th goals for Montreal.

LESTER PATRICK

BORN: Drummondville, Quebec, Canada; December 30, 1883

DIED: June 1, 1960

POSITION: Rover/Defenseman/Goaltender

TEAMS: Westmount (CAHL), 1905; Montreal Wanderers (ECAHA), 1906-07; Renfrew Millionaires (NHA), 1910; Victoria Aristocrats (PCHA), 1912-16, 1919-26; Spokane (PCHA), 1917; Seattle Metropolitans (PCHA), 1918; New York Rangers, 1927-28

AWARDS/HONORS: All-Star Coach, 1931-36, 1938; Hockey Hall of Fame, 1945; Trophy for outstanding service to hockey in United States named in his honor in 1966; Division of NHL named in his honor in 1974

Imperial looking—many fans said he reminded them of the distinguished actor John Barrymore—Patrick stood 6-foot tall, was slim but solidly built, and had a crown of thick, curly hair. (When the mane grew gray, he was dubbed the “Silver Fox.”) Lester had an inimitable knack for striking dramatic poses, tossing his head back, and staring archly at others.

He was actually one of the first high-priced athletes because he knew the value of a dollar and, more importantly, the value of Lester Patrick.

While Lester was starring for the Wanderers, a wealthy group of businessmen in Renfrew, Ontario, decided to organize a major-league team and pursued Lester. He eventually signed with them for what at the time was regarded an absurdly high fee for a hockey player—$3,000 for 12 games.

It was a honey of a deal, but Patrick only stayed one season and then abruptly moved to British Columbia with his family when his father established a lumber business in the Canadian Northwest. While logging the giant trees of the Fraser Valley, Lester and Frank came up with an ambitious plan to run their own hockey league along the Pacific Coast. They had only one problem: no natural ice or rinks existed in the area.

Undaunted, Lester borrowed $300,000 from his father and, with Frank’s assistance, built a chain of rinks that gave birth to the Pacific Hockey League, including Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, and Saskatoon. Lester operated the Victoria team while Frank ran Vancouver.

“The Patricks,” said Ferguson, “took hockey into an area where no hockey existed, built magnificent rinks, and made a major sport of it. They were the greatest personal factors in 20th-century hockey.”

Lester never gave up his skates for the executive suite. He was a one-man gang who owned, managed, coached, and played for his club. Patrick did wonders for the Cougars, especially in 1925, when Victoria met the Montreal Canadiens in the Stanley Cup finals.

“All the sportswriters had conceded the series to Montreal,” said Frank Frederickson, a Hall of Famer who played for Victoria. “But they didn’t bargain for Lester’s analytical mind, and we wound up beating the Canadiens.”

The triumph added another ribbon to Patrick’s collection, but it was soon dwarfed by his unexpected performance in the 1928 playoffs after he had retired as an active defenseman. It was then that Lester startled the hockey world by going into the nets and playing goal for the New York Rangers against the Montreal Maroons.

“This dramatic moment,” wrote Canadian journalist Trent Frayne, “has become a part of the lore of the sport, as legendary as the World Series home run Babe Ruth hit off Charley Root of the Chicago Cubs when he pointed to the distant center field bleachers and then laced the ball there.”

Patrick was manager of the Rangers at the time. His regular goalie, Lorne Chabot, had nearly been blinded by a shot from the stick of Montreal Maroons ace Nels Stewart. The Rangers had no spare goaltender, so Lester agreed to put on the pads.

John Barrymore couldn’t have played the part better had the playoff been staged in Hollywood. “Lester struck poses in the net,” one of his players recalled. “He would shout to us, ‘Let them shoot!’ He was an inspiration to the rest of us.”

The Rangers had scored once, and Patrick had a shutout going until late in the third period, when Nels Stewart finally beat him. The game went into overtime, and Lester foiled the Maroons until Frank Boucher was able to score the winner for New York. At that moment, Lester Patrick became immortalized.

He was half dragged, half carried off the ice by his players as he received a tumultuous ovation from the crowd. It was Lester’s final curtain as a player.

Lester Patrick was born on December 30, 1883, in Drummondville, Quebec, not far from Montreal. Although hockey was his forte, Lester was equally gifted at rugby, lacrosse, and cricket. He enrolled at McGill University when he was 17 but quit after a year to devote his energies to hockey. His first raves were received in Brandon, where he led the Manitoba sextet to the provincial championship and then the Stanley Cup round, in which they almost beat the mighty Ottawa Silver Seven. When he became captain of the Montreal Wanderers, they won the Stanley Cup in 1906 and 1907.

“Lester was a classical player in every phase of the game,” said Hall of Famer “Cyclone” Taylor, who teamed with Patrick on the Renfrew Millionaires.

It is fascinating to note that a number of Patrick’s most glorious moments as a player occurred at a time when most observers figured him to be washed up. He had decided to retire and concentrate on front-office duties in Victoria in 1921, but a year later, two defensemen on his Cougars club were seriously injured. Lester retrieved his skates and took his position on right defense.

“From the start,” one of his opponents commented, “he was a sensation.”

The Cougars, who had not won a game in seven starts, won 19-5, and Patrick was never better. He personally won two games, taking a shot to win in an overtime contest against the Saskatoon Sheiks and netting the only goal in a 1-0 victory over the Vancouver Maroons.

Patrick’s fertile mind had already brought permanent changes to the game. After watching a soccer match in England, Lester and Frank introduced the penalty shot to hockey. To this day, it remains one of the most exciting aspects of the game. Lester and Frank were the first to put numbers on the players’ jerseys. “It was a Patrick innovation,” said Elmer Ferguson, “pure and simple. And it has been universally adopted by all major sports.”

The Patricks were the first to adopt forward passing and to legalize puck kicking in certain areas as a means to sustain play. They invented the assist and broadened the rules governing goalies. Under the old conventions, a goalie could not legally make a stop while in any position but a vertical one. The Patricks said a goalie could fall to the ice. Today, that’s all netminders ever seem to do when blocking the rubber.

After Lester Patrick’s classic performance in goal, this photo was taken. Many experts believe it is a phony, with Patrick’s head superimposed on that of another goalie. From the Stan Fischler Collection

“The Patricks,” said Ferguson, “legislated hockey into modernism.”

More than that, Lester and his brother brought the professional hockey establishment to its knees. They battled the National League. They organized, reorganized, and then broke up a whole league on the Pacific Coast. When it became obvious that the Pacific League could no longer compete with the NHL, Lester sold his Victoria team to a Detroit group for $250,000.

When the third version of Madison Square Garden was completed in 1925, the first NHL team to play on its ice was not the Rangers but rather the New York Americans. The Amerks, as they were affectionately known, caught the imagination of New York fans.

The new club was owned by one of the most notorious bootleggers, “Big” Bill Dwyer, who just happened to be in jail on opening night. Nonetheless, the Amerks became such a hit that Garden ownership decided it should have a team of its own and sought a recognized hockey personality to help create it.

The organization’s first choice was Conn Smythe, who had made a name for himself in Toronto ice circles. Smythe came to Manhattan and began signing players for the Garden’s new club, which was named the Rangers.

But the irascible Torontonian clashed so often with management that he was fired before training camp had finished. MSG moguls were advised to replace Smythe with Lester Patrick, and it turned out to be a fortuitous move for both sides.

Lester became manager and coach of the Rangers in the midst of training camp and instantly won over his players with the Patrick blend of discipline and savvy, not to mention tactical brilliance.

It was a testimonial to the “Silver Fox” that he was nominated as outstanding coach in seven of his first eight years from 1930 through 1938. He missed only the 1936-37 season.

The Rangers have won four Stanley Cups since the club’s inception, three of them with Patrick as manager.

“Lester,” said Babe Pratt, who starred on defense for Patrick, “was to hockey what the legendary New York baseball Giants’ manager John McGraw was to baseball.”

That is true. One can even substitute the name Babe Ruth, Connie Mack, or Christy Mathewson for McGraw, but that still wouldn’t do the “Silver Fox” of hockey enough justice.

BABE

PRATT

1935-1942

Among the most likeable and competent skaters ever to don a Rangers uniform, Babe Pratt was the first genuine offensive defenseman to become a star on Broadway.

Like his namesake, Babe Ruth, Pratt was as flamboyant off the ice as he was in the rink, a fact that caused several run-ins with his boss/manager, Lester Patrick.

Nevertheless, Patrick valued Pratt’s ability to play sound defense while providing offensive power. Rangers scout Al Ritchie said Pratt was “the finest prospect” he had ever seen, and Ritchie knew what he was talking about.

The Babe replaced veteran defenseman Ching Johnson during the 1937 playoffs against Toronto and made headlines by scoring the winning goal in the deciding game. His presence also paid off in 1940, when the Rangers won their first Stanley Cup in seven years.

Pratt was a defenseman who could rush the puck and score goals in a manner similar to later blue-liners such as Bobby Orr and Denis Potvin. He had a flair for the dramatic and the ability to satisfactorily conclude each project he began.

Later in his career—as a Maple Leaf—the Babe was the architect of one of the most dramatic winning goals in Stanley Cup history. This was in the seventh and final game of the 1945 championship against the Red Wings. With the score tied 1-1 late in the game, Pratt fired the puck behind goalie Harry Lumley, and the Leafs triumphed 2-1 to capture the Cup.

BABE PRATT

BORN: Stony Mountain, Manitoba, Canada; January 7, 1916

DIED: December 16, 1998

POSITION: Defenseman

NHL TEAMS: New York Rangers, 1935-42; Toronto Maple Leafs, 1942-46; Boston Bruins, 1946-47

AWARDS/HONORS: Hart Memorial Trophy, 1944; NHL First Team All-Star, 1944; NHL Second Team All-Star, 1945; Hockey Hall of Fame, 1966

By all rights, Pratt should have been a New York Ranger at the time. He had climbed through the Rangers’ system, but his off-ice antics finally infuriated Patrick to the point that he finally decided to unload his ace.

Conn Smythe, the Toronto manager, had been watching Pratt for years and dealt for him when he got the chance.

“I remember once,” said Smythe, “when Pratt was with the Rangers, and we were tied late in the game. A good Rangers forward got hurt and Pratt was moved up to wing. I thought, ‘Aha, here’s our chance to win.’ Who got the winning goal? Pratt, playing forward.”

The Babe won the Hart Trophy as the National Hockey League’s most valuable player in 1944 and was a First Team All-Star that same year. A season later, he was voted to the Second All-Star Team. “If he’d looked after himself, he could have played until he was 50,” said Smythe in his memoir, If You Can’t Beat ’Em in the Alley. “But he was [as big a] drinker and all-around playboy as he was a hockey player.”

Walter Pratt was born January 7, 1916, in Stony Mountain, Manitoba, but grew up in the city of Winnipeg. His hero was National Hockey League star Frank Frederickson, who lived near the Pratt family’s home.

Babe played his early hockey on Winnipeg’s numerous outdoor rinks in temperatures as low as 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. When he was 15, he moved up to the Junior hockey level and began demonstrating the moves that would soon attract the attention of major-league scouts. Ritchie, a noted Rangers birddog, was so impressed with Pratt that he reported back favorably to Patrick. The Babe was invited to the Rangers’ camp in 1934 and played well enough to win a professional offer, but he chose to return to the amateur ranks for another season.

Considered the New York Rangers’ first offensive defenseman, Babe Pratt always enjoyed a good laugh.
From the Stan Fischler Collection

A year later, he returned to the Rangers’ training camp and was signed to a contract. He was farmed out to the Philadelphia Ramblers of the American Hockey League at first but was soon recalled by Patrick as part of a Rangers youth movement.

“By the end of the ’30s,” said Pratt, “Patrick had really developed a powerful hockey club; we could play terrifically offensively as well as defensively. Conn Smythe, who was then running the Toronto Maple Leafs, said that the 1940 Rangers were the greatest hockey club he’d ever seen. In those days, whenever we came to Toronto, Smythe would advertise us as ‘the Broadway Blues, hockey’s classiest team.’

“Our club was so well balanced that our first line scored 38 goals, the second 37, and the third line 36 over that season. On that Rangers team, we had three great centermen—Clint Smith, Phil Watson, and Neil Colville—plus so many good wingmen that we were able to put the pressure on the other team when we were a man short. Our power play was so strong that once the Toronto Maple Leafs took a penalty, we kept the puck in their end of the rink for the entire two minutes and scored two goals.”

Pratt’s experiences with the club were quite unlike those of hockey players now.

“It was a different kind of game then,” recalled Pratt. “Today, they stress board checking and checking from behind—both unheard of when we played. We’d hit a man standing right up, and now the players don’t seem to want to take that kind of check. The only check they want is on the first and 15th of the month.

“Sure, we played a tough game, but we also had a million laughs. There was a newspaperman from The New York World-Telegram named Jim Burchard who liked to drink, tell stories, and do wild things like swim across the Hudson River. Once, we had [big-time show business star] Ukulele Ike traveling with us, and naturally, Burchard had his own ukulele which he played every night we were in a Stanley Cup round. We also had quite a few jokers on the team. Ching Johnson was one; he was also one of the finest players when it came to working with rookies. Ching was from Winnipeg, too, and he sort of took me under his wing.”

When the Rangers later traded the Babe, they accepted an untried rookie, Red Garrett—who was killed during World War II—and a mediocre forward, Hank Goldup. Babe stabilized the Toronto backline and personally delivered a Stanley Cup in 1945. But the Maple Leafs floundered the following year, and Smythe decided to go with youth.

Pratt was traded to the Boston Bruins, played one season with them, and was then sent to the minors. Instead of quitting, he played for the Hershey Bears, Cleveland Barons, and New Westminster Royals. After skating for the Tacoma Rockets, he finally called it a career in 1952.

Those who knew and loved the Babe were delighted when the Vancouver Canucks signed him as a goodwill ambassador after they entered the NHL in 1970. Few big leaguers possessed as much goodwill as Pratt, and even fewer possessed his talent.

DEAN

PRENTICE

1952-1962

He’s not in the Hockey Hall of Fame, but many believe that Dean Prentice is a worthy candidate for the shrine. Certainly those who played alongside the left wing—especially his linemate, Hall of Famer right wing Andy Bathgate—would attest to that. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Bathgate and Prentice comprised one of the best forward duets in the NHL.

Originally, their line included Bathgate-Prentice-Larry Popein. It later became Bathgate-Prentice-Earl Ingarfield.

Indefatigable, Prentice was known as “Deano the Dynamo” for his tenacious checking and excellent speed. He was as good a two-way forward as the Rangers owned in that era.

Like Bathgate, Harry Howell, and Lou Fontinato, Prentice was a member of the Memorial Cup–winning Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters, the Rangers’ Junior farm team in the early 1950s. Their Cup win took place in 1952.

The Rangers had been missing the playoffs on a regular basis at the time and felt the need for new blood. Prentice was one of the first rushed into the breach straight from the Junior ranks—a move that severely stunted his hockey growth. It wasn’t until the 1955-56 season that he had matured into an NHL ace, but from that point on, he remained one of the best and most reliable Rangers forwards.

Prentice’s career in the majors lasted 22 years, spanning three decades—the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. Half of his seasons—the first 11—were spent on Broadway.

Prentice learned the hockey trade growing up in Schumacher, Ontario—a gold mining area in Canada. He played for a local juvenile team, the South Porcupine Teepees, which happened to be affiliated with the Rangers’ Junior club in Guelph.

The Rangers signed Prentice in 1950 when he was just 17 years old. He was placed on the Biltmores with a group that later became known as the “Guelph Gang.”

Early in the 1952-53 campaign, the “Guelph Gang,” with the exception of Fontinato, was called up to the Rangers.

Prentice’s first two years with the Rangers were statistically unimpressive, but the left winger’s hard work on both ends of the ice soon paid off. Along with Bathgate, Popein, and later Ingarfield, Prentice completed the Rangers’ most productive line. When he was not out on the offensive prowl, Dean found himself playing strong defense—he was even placed as a forward among defensemen when the Blueshirts were playing with a five-on-three disadvantage.

A fearless skater, Prentice even played the immortal Gordie Howe so thoroughly that a frustrated Gordie threatened to knock out his teeth.

Between the 1954-55 and 1962-63 seasons, Prentice never failed to reach the 30-point plateau with the exception of the 1957-58 season, in which he played only 38 games. However, Prentice still had at least one highlight during the 1957-58 preseason. He netted one goal and two assists in the All-Star game, earning top honors for the contest.

DEAN PRENTICE

BORN: Schumacher, Ontario, Canada; October 5, 1932

POSITION: Left Wing

NHL TEAMS: New York Rangers, 1952-62; Boston Bruins, 1962-66; Detroit Red Wings, 1966-69; Pittsburgh Penguins, 1969-71; Minnesota North Stars, 1971-74

AWARDS/HONORS: NHL Second Team All-Star, 1960; NHL All-Star Game. 1957, 1961, 1963, 1970

His best season in New York was the 1959-60 campaign. After missing all of training camp because of surgery to repair torn cartilage in his right knee, Prentice scored 32 goals and had 34 assists for 66 points in 70 games. The Rangers failed to make the playoffs that season, but the Rangers Fan Club awarded Prentice the Frank Boucher Trophy as the “most popular player on and off the ice,” ending Bathgate’s three-year streak. The Professional Hockey Writers Association also named Prentice the team’s MVP.

Dean suffered back problems during the 1961-62 season and was often forced to wear a corset. Nonetheless, in the final week of the 1961-62 season, he was involved in a play that helped send the Rangers to the playoffs for the first time in three years. The Rangers and Red Wings were battling for the fourth and final playoff spot; the winner would clinch the berth.

In the third period, Prentice charged down the ice on a breakaway. Hank Bassen, Detroit’s goalie, threw his stick at Prentice, causing a penalty shot to be called. However, Prentice did not take the shot. Referee Eddie Powers had forgotten a rule change that had taken effect that season: penalty shots were now to be taken by the offended player. Powers awarded the shot to Andy Bathgate because he was ruled the last Ranger to have touched the puck.

Bathgate scored on the shot, giving the Blueshirts a 3-2 victory, and moved the team into fourth place with just four games left in the regular season. The Rangers made it, and Detroit did not.

Near the end of the 1962-63 season, the Rangers traded Prentice to the Boston Bruins for Don McKenney and Dick Meissner. The pair the Blueshirts received in the trade combined to play 112 contests on Broadway. Meanwhile, Prentice went on to play in another 712 games with Boston, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Minnesota.

Prentice, a devoted Christian who joined Hockey Ministries International for several years after his playing and coaching days, played in 666 regular-season games for the Rangers, scoring 186 goals and 236 assists.

When Prentice retired at age 41, he had played in 1,378 games, which ranks him among the top 50 in games played in NHL history. He finished with 860 career points, 391 goals, and 469 assists, including 10 20-goal seasons.

After Dean retired from playing, he coached the New Haven Nighthawks for one season, leading the team to a 30-35-11 record and an appearance in the AHL finals.

Prentice played the game as it should be played. He wasn’t afraid to go into the corners and dig the puck out; he could skate, stickhandle, pass, and shoot. Though Dean may have lacked size—he was 5-foot-11 and weighed in at around 180 pounds—he was always the consummate team player, displaying both grit and determination.

JEAN

RATELLE

1960-1975

Elegant is one way of describing the silky-smooth style that was the hallmark of Jean Ratelle’s game. Enemy goaltenders also will cite his splendid shot and the adroit dekes that frequently confounded them.

Whatever the description, the lithe Ratelle was as pure a Hall of Famer as any who ever skated in the NHL.

But Jean was slow to stardom. Very slow! He suffered through a mediocre 1966-67 campaign when he finished with only six goals in 41 games. It wasn’t until Rangers GM Emile Francis fired Red Sullivan as coach and inserted Ratelle on a line with buddy Rod Gilbert and Vic Hadfield that Jean was able to silence anyone who doubted his extraordinary, natural hockey ability.

The gears meshed perfectly for Francis’ new trio, dubbed the GAG (Goal-A-Game) line, and they quickly emerged as the Rangers’ most consistent unit, leading the team to the playoffs for the first time in five years. Ratelle contributed to that 1967-68 campaign with 78 points in 74 games.

The nickname “Gentleman Jean” perfectly described Ratelle. Quiet to a fault, he soon developed into the team’s best center between Frank Boucher’s retirement and Mark Messier’s arrival.

Francis, who had coached Ratelle in Juniors before taking over the Rangers, once said, “Ratelle was the closest thing I had ever seen to Jean Beliveau.”

The analogy made sense. Both were tall, rangy centers who were swift skaters, deft passers, and accurate shooters. Like his boyhood friend and longtime linemate Gilbert, Ratelle overcame major back surgery to become a NHL star.

Employing a crisp wrist shot, Jean embarked on a string of three consecutive 32-goal seasons, establishing himself as the NHL’s premier centerman. Midway through the 1971-72 campaign, Ratelle was the NHL’s leading scorer, outpointing even the fabulous Phil Esposito of the Boston Bruins with 109 points in only 63 games. With the Rangers in first place and Ratelle’s line setting all kinds of scoring marks, Rangers fans were flying high.

One of the loudest and longest ovations in Garden history was heard on February 27, 1972, when Jean became the first Ranger to score 100 points in a single season. Ratelle briefly and modestly acknowledged the cascading applause and, looking embarrassed, skated back to the bench.

JEAN RATELLE

BORN: Lac Ste. Jean, Quebec, Canada; October 3, 1940

POSITION: Center

NHL TEAMS: New York Rangers, 1960-75; Boston Bruins, 1975-81

AWARDS/HONORS: Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, 1972, 1976; Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, 1971; Lester B. Pearson Award, 1972; NHL Second Team All-Star, 1972; NHL All-Star Game, 1970-73, 1980; Hockey Hall of Fame, 1985

Less than a week later, disaster struck. While the Rangers were playing the California Golden Seals, New York defenseman Dale Rolfe fired the puck at a maze of players in front of the net.

The shot careened goalward and struck Ratelle on the right ankle. The ankle was badly fractured, disabling him for the rest of the regular season.

He had accumulated 109 points, and with 15 games left, scored 46 goals. Number 50 was clearly in sight, but it was not to be. His value was underscored as the Rangers faltered without No. 19 in the lineup, falling to second place and barely finishing ahead of the contending Montreal Canadiens.

Ratelle briefly returned for the Stanley Cup finals against Boston, but was clearly not the same player. As a result, the Rangers were outclassed by the powerful Bruins in six games. Many contend that Ratelle’s injury was the key blow that cost the Rangers the Stanley Cup.

Nevertheless, Jean led his club in scoring and finished third in the league behind Esposito and Bobby Orr. For his efforts and for his sportsmanship on the ice, Jean was awarded the Lady Byng Trophy.

Jean Ratelle was born on October 3, 1940, six months into the Rangers’ 54-year Stanley Cup drought. Born and raised in Lac Ste. Jean, Quebec, a small town 300 miles north of Montreal, Ratelle established a name for himself in hockey with the Guelph Biltmore Juniors of the OHA before making his debut with the Blueshirts during the 1960-61 season.

Jean Ratelle leads a rush. From the Stan Fischler Collection

Though Ratelle was never able to top the magic he had performed in the 1971-72 season when he finished just short of the 50-goal mark, he remained one of the NHL’s best centers, piling up more than 90 points in two of the next three seasons.

Despite his diffident demeanor, Ratelle was extremely popular with the Blueshirts faithful and seemed a fixture in New York as long as he could play.

But on November 5, 1975, Ratelle was involved in a landmark trade. Along with Brad Park, he was sent to the Boston Bruins in exchange for Phil Esposito and Carol Vadnais. Originally, the deal was labeled a steal for the Rangers; Ratelle, whom management considered “over the hill,” was regarded as a “throw-in,” while Park and Esposito were the prime components of the package.

However, it didn’t take long for Gentleman Jean to prove his critics wrong. At the end of the 1975-76 season, Ratelle was at the top of the Bruins’ scoring list with an impressive 90 points.

A year later, Jean regained his starry form and proved the Bruins had received the better of the deal. Once again, he led the team in scoring with 94 points (33 goals and 61 assists), which was quite an achievement for an “over-the-hill” hockey player.

Ratelle went on to play five and a half more seasons in Boston, finishing his 20-year career with an average of nearly a point a game and retiring as the NHL’s sixth all-time leading scorer at the time. As a Ranger he compiled 336 goals and 817 points.

He completed his playing career in 1981 and was elected into hockey’s Hall of Fame four years later in 1985.

CHUCK

RAYNER

1945-1953

It’s a pity that Charlie Rayner never played for a Stanley Cup–winner. But he certainly spilled enough blood and broke enough bones en route to an illustrious career in Rangers livery. And, as an added fillip, it should be recorded that Charlie is the only goaltender ever to have scored a goal by skating the length of the rink in an organized hockey game, though not in the NHL.

He was also among the very first to participate in what was then a revolutionary two-goalie experiment along with his longtime sidekick and pal, James “Sugar Jim” Henry.

The 1949-50 season was in many ways the high point of Rayner’s career, as he almost single-handedly led the Rangers to the Stanley Cup finals.

It is a measure of Rayner’s ability that he won the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player in the 1949-50 season. He was only the second goaltender in history to have done so at that time.

Playing for a mediocre Rangers team that never finished higher than fourth, “Bonnie Prince Charlie” led the Rangers to a first-round upset of the Canadiens in the 1950 playoffs. The Blueshirts went on to the final round against the Detroit Red Wings. Never playing a single home game, the Blueshirts surprised the entire NHL with their strong bid, only to lose the seventh game in an electrifying, double overtime affair.

Rayner was the first goaltender ever to score a goal on an end-to-end rush. While he was playing for the all-star Royal Canadian Army team during World War II, Chuck was guarding his net when a 10-man scramble occurred behind it and the puck squirted free. No one was between Charlie and the enemy net. The temptation was too much for him to resist.

He left his net and charged down the ice. His opponents were so surprised that they simply stopped in their tracks. Rayner skated within a few feet of the opponent’s goal and shot. The opposing goaltender was dumbfounded and lunged, but the puck sailed right into the net.

CHUCK RAYNER

BORN: Sutherland, Saskatchewan, Canada; August 11, 1920

DIED: October 5, 2002

POSITION: Goaltender

NHL TEAMS: New York/Brooklyn Americans, 1940-42; New York Rangers, 1945-53

AWARDS/HONORS: Hart Memorial Trophy, 1950; NHL Second Team All-Star, 1949-51; Hockey Hall of Fame, 1973

When he won the Hart Trophy in 1950, it was one of the most popular announcements in the annals of the game, as Rayner was one of the nicest guys in his sport. Oddly enough, the year he won the Hart Trophy, he placed only fourth in the standings for the Vezina Trophy.

It was his remarkable and sensational performance in the 1950 playoffs that compensated for this. He was incredible during the series as he stopped virtually impossible shots.

Although the Rangers’ quest for the Stanley Cup was stopped, the Hart Trophy voting results were a credit to hockey’s sportsmanship when the tall goaltender’s name was announced.

Rayner received 36 out of a possible 54 points for a 13-point lead over Ted Kennedy of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The great Maurice Richard of the Montreal Canadiens finished third in the balloting with 18 points.

Chuck made the Second All-Star Team three times, in 1948-49, 1949-50, and 1950-51. In his eight seasons with the New York Rangers, which encompassed 424 games, he had 24 shutouts plus one shutout in the playoffs.

Rayner won the West Side Association Trophy as the Rangers’ most valuable player during the years 1945-46 and 1946-47 and shared it in 1948-49 with Edgar Laprade.

In August 1973, “Bonnie Prince Charlie” was inducted into hockey’s Hall of Fame in honor of his contributions to the sport.

Rangers goalie Charlie Rayner lunges for the puck. From the Stan Fischler Collection

Claude Earl Rayner was born in the small town of Sutherland, Saskatchewan, on August 11, 1920. Like all of the youngsters of that locale, he went down to the local skating rinks to play the national pastime. Chuck always wanted to be a goaltender. As a 16-year-old in 1936, Chuck played goalie when the Saskatoon Wesleys reached the Junior playoffs against the Winnipeg Monarchs. He then went into the goal for the Kenora Thistles in 1936.

At the end of the 1939-40 season, Chuck was assigned to the New York Americans’ farm club, the Springfield Indians. Rayner had only played seven games for the Indians when Earl Robertson of the Americans suffered a head injury, leaving open a berth in the nets.

Rayner was called up to take Robertson’s place, and so, in 1940, the young man from Sutherland was playing in the NHL.

Rayner played for the Americans throughout the 1941-42 season. He then went home and joined the Royal Canadian Armed Forces. Discharged from the service in 1945, Chuck returned to the NHL to discover that the Americans had disbanded and that all members of the team were distributed among the other NHL teams.

Lester Patrick of the New York Rangers pulled out Chuck Rayner’s name. Patrick had already hired a goalie, “Sugar Jim” Henry, but Chuck finally won the Rangers’ goalkeeping job permanently.

Rayner had to retire after the 1952-53 season. He had damaged the cartilage in his knee. Although an operation had temporarily saved the knee, it was weakened to the point that he felt he could no longer play.

After his retirement, Rayner returned to Western Canada, where he coached the Nelson Leafs. After two years, he then went to Alberta and coached the Edmonton Flyers. He next did some work for the Rangers, followed by the Detroit Red Wings organization with his friend, Sid Abel.

By the mid-’60s, he had been coaching nine years, but he didn’t enjoy it. Chuck didn’t like having to tell a kid that he was traded. As a result, “Bonnie Prince Charlie” left the sport completely.

Chuck was a courageous man who often played hurt. He was the kind of athlete who played despite debilitating injuries. It was unfortunate that Rayner never played on a Stanley Cup championship team. However, no one will ever forget Rayner’s heroics with the Cinderella Rangers during the exciting 1950 playoffs.

MIKE

RICHTER

1988-2003

In the long history of Rangers goal-tenders, no one was more unique than Mike Richter. For starters, he was a native of Philadelphia. Who could imagine someone from Flyers country becoming one of the foremost netminders in New York history?

On top of that, Mike belied the traditional image of the goofy goalie.

Richter was a scholar—attending Columbia University in the off-season—who indulged in areas foreign to most stickhandlers. Politics fascinated him as a player, and he has pursued that interest to this day.

But most of all, Richter was a master of the puck-stopping art and a primary reason that the Rangers won the 1994 Stanley Cup. Just watch a video clip of Richter stopping Pavel Bure on a penalty shot, and you will understand why he can be favorably compared to Davey Kerr, who guarded the New York nets in 1939-40 when the Blueshirts defeated Toronto for the third Stanley Cup in Rangers history.

Kerr led the Blueshirts to the top of the NHL. Before him, Lorne Chabot was present for the first Cup. Charlie Rayner, Lorne Worsley, and Ed Giacomin also helped the Rangers maintain their status. But none of these goaltenders could compare to the brilliance and success both on and off the ice achieved by the inimitable Richter.

Mike was remarkable in many ways. He could handle the media pressure that athletes face in the world’s largest television market, achieve win after win for a team striving for the Stanley Cup, and captivate fans with his sparkling and solid performances. He represented the power and prestige of New York City along with Patrick Ewing, Don Mattingly, and other athletic giants.

Richter was raised in Abington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. He grew up playing hockey and often competed at high levels. After finishing high school, he had to choose between Harvard and a good hockey school at Wisconsin. He chose the latter and played well enough to be selected 28th overall by the Rangers in the 1985 NHL entry draft.

In the first round of the 1989 playoffs, the Rangers faced a powerful Pittsburgh Penguins club led by Mario Lemieux.

New York’s starting goalie had failed to stop the Penguins’ tide, so Blueshirts coach Phil Esposito—with his club’s back to the wall—chose to take an enormous gamble; he thrust a peach-faced, untried rookie into the breach.

MIKE RICHTER

BORN: Abington, Pennsylvania; September 22, 1966

POSITION: Goaltender

NHL TEAMS: New York Rangers, 1988-2003

AWARDS/HONORS: NHL All-Star Game, 1992, 1994, 2000; NHL All-Star Game MVP, 1994; World Cup MVP, 1996

Few knew anything about Mike Richter at the time, and truth be known, he looked like a sitting duck when the game began.

Although Pittsburgh’s offense overwhelmed the Rangers, Richter perl formed expertly in goal, foiling Lemieux on at least two occasions.

True, the Rangers lost the game—and the series—but Richter had made his mark.

He became a regular for the 1993-94 season, in which the Rangers were awarded the Presidents’ Trophy for most points in the NHL. They went on to sweep the New York Islanders in the first round of the playoffs and annihilated the Washington Capitals in the second round four games to one. In the Eastern Conference championship, the Rangers, with a seventh-game hat trick by Messier and a wraparound goal by Stephane Matteau in a clutch Game 6 performance, defeated the New Jersey Devils.

The Blueshirts advanced to the Stanley Cup finals against the Vancouver Canucks, and it was then that Mike lifted his game a notch higher. One of Richter’s finest moments came in the fourth game of the series. The Canucks forced a turnover in the neutral zone and the “Russian Rocket,” Pavel Bure, was pulled down on a breakaway and awarded a penalty shot. “Here comes Bure against Mike Richter. SAVE BY RICHTER! WHAT A SAVE BY MIKE RICHTER!” shouted MSG announcer Sam Rosen when it happened. Richter made the most amazing save of the game, if not his career.

Despite the save, Vancouver was leading the game 2-0. However, the Rangers were able to take control of the contest and the series as they won two games in Vancouver. They won the Stanley Cup in the seventh game of the series with Richter making exceptional saves, sprawling on his back, using the butterfly on the ground, and gloving the high shots.

Richter had taken New York hockey fans—and the NHL—by storm. He had gained elite status in the hockey world. The United States team soon designated him as its starting goaltender for the World Cup of Hockey in 1996. The team was victorious in the tournament. With typical low-key humor, Richter jokingly admitted that he focused too much on hockey and not enough on other chores such as doing laundry.

Richter and his teammates had defeated a Canadian team featuring Joe Sakic, Rob Blake, Eric Lindros, Mario Lemieux, Rob Francis, Patrick Roy, and Martin Brodeur. Not only did his team win the gold medal, but former New York Ranger and star of the Canadian team Theo Fleury noted that Mike Richter was responsible for the team’s accomplishment.

“The guy should never have to buy another drink for the rest of his life,” said Fleury. In retrospect, the win was almost as incredible as the Americans’ Olympic win over the Soviet Union in 1980.

The years following his Stanley Cup and World Cup glory were not as rosy. Richter’s Rangers turned south and missed the playoffs every year after the 1996-97 season, consistently posting records below .500. Some attribute it to Mark Messier’s departure from the team, but a knee injury and post-concussion syndrome plagued Richter, and the Rangers and eventually forced him to retire.

Despite lagging at the end of his career, Mike finished with franchise records in wins (301), appearances (666), minutes played (38,185), victories in postseason play (41), and shutouts in postseason play (nine). In his astonishing 1993-94 campaign, Richter posted commendable numbers: 42 wins, a .910 save percentage, and a 2.57 goals-against average.

Since he had only completed two years of studies at the University of Wisconsin, Richter wanted to finish his degree and launch a new career. He attended Yale and served as an assistant coach for their hockey team.

Richter also offered his assistance to poor and sick children through a charitable program run by the Rangers.

In retrospect, Richter proved to be one of the best goalies in Rangers history and a true warrior who battled every game to the end, even when injuries plagued him late in his career. From the time he stepped on to an NHL rink to Mike Richter Night, when his jersey was lifted up to the rafters of Madison Square Garden, Richter demonstrated the true spirit of hockey.

ALLAN

STANLEY

1948-1954

One would be hard pressed to find a more unfortunate tale of an unappreciated Ranger than the saga of Allan Stanley. Here was a defenseman with exceptional but unobtrusive talent who arrived on Broadway with an enormous build-up and departed with an exhausted letdown for himself, management, and fans.

So one might wonder why Allan Stanley is mentioned here in the first place. The answer is simple; although fans failed to appreciate Stanley’s qualities, his teammates and management did, and “Big Allan” was a major contributor to his club’s ascent to the 1950 Stanley Cup finals. He also happens to be in the Hall of Fame.

Looking back, it can be said that Allan’s career began on a high note. The Rangers were desperate for defensemen in the years immediately following World War II and decided to dip into the vast American Hockey League pool for talent. Stanley had become property of Lou Pieri, owner of the American League’s Providence Reds, so Rangers boss Frank Boucher negotiated a deal for Stanley through the AHL boss.

To obtain Stanley, New York dispatched three pro players, cash, and the rights held by the Rangers to the services of an amateur. At the time, the value was estimated to be about $70,000. By today’s fiscal standards, it would be worth more than a million dollars.

ALLAN STANLEY

BORN: Timmins, Ontario, Canada; March 1, 1926

DIED: October 18, 2013

POSITION: Defense

NHL TEAMS: New York Rangers, 1948-54; Chicago Blackhawks, 1954-56; Boston Bruins, 1956-58; Toronto Maple Leafs, 1958-68; Philadelphia Flyers, 1968-69

AWARDS/HONORS: Hockey Hall of Fame, 1981

“One night,” said Stan Saplin, who had been the Rangers’ creative press agent, “Allan was a minor-leaguer in Providence, enjoying a postgame glass of beer with a few teammates at midnight. The next noon, he was in Leone’s Restaurant in Manhattan and being acclaimed, in effect, as ‘The Savior’ of the downtrodden Rangers.”

At first glance, Stanley lived up to his buildup, playing with a poise and confidence rarely seen in rookies. Despite a late start and an injury that hampered him later in the season, Stanley was runner-up to teammate Pentti Lund for the Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie.

One of Stanley’s biggest attributes, his endless patience, was also his biggest liability with Rangers fans; he wasn’t flashy, and as a result, his skating, passing, and shooting skills were sometimes lost on the gatherings at the Garden.

In no time at all, the “$70,000 Rookie” was being chided as the “$70,000 Beauty,” and then the “$70,000 Lemon.” None of this would have happened had the Blueshirts been winners, but they hovered between mediocrity and melancholy.

Boucher, who had brought Stanley to New York, appreciated Allan’s talents more than most and was upset by the fans’ reaction. Every so often, Boucher decided to spare Stanley any more hurt by playing him only in away games, but that just left the Rangers with a rusty defenseman and further increased the fans’ hostility.

“They’d boo every time I touched the puck,” Stanley recalled. “Then they began to boo every time I got on the ice. Why, even the few games when I sat on the bench, they’d yell at me.”

The agony went on for six years, but for one brief break when the Blueshirts took the Detroit Red Wings to the seventh game of the 1950 Stanley Cup finals before losing. Lynn Patrick was the New York coach at the time and called Stanley his most valuable Ranger. Although he played defense, Stanley had seven points in 12 games.

“Every summer,” Stanley once recalled, “I’d think about improving my play the next year and winning the fans over to my side. I was always hoping that I’d play like Superman.”

He was even chosen as captain in December 1951 when Frank Eddolls stepped down. But the Rangers’ continued struggles and Stanley’s lack of flash began to grate even more on the Garden faithful.

And so Stanley’s agony went on, seemingly interminably, until a cool Wednesday in 1954, when an unexpected but not necessarily welcome light was visible at the end of the tunnel.

Boucher raced into the Rangers’ press office and announced with a mixture of anger and relief that he had traded Stanley and forward Nick Mickoski to the Chicago Blackhawks for Bill Gadsby, a high-quality defenseman, and Pete Conacher, a forward.

The trade was as sensational as the original deal for Stanley, since Gadsby was also considered a potential star. (As it happened, Gadsby played 20 years in the NHL—though he never skated for a Cup-winner—and was named to the Hall of Fame in 1970.)

With little hint of martyrdom, “Big Allan” played two unpleasant seasons in Chicago for a feeble team. In the fall of 1956, the Blackhawks gave up, and general manager Tommy Ivan prepared to send him to the Hawks’ minor-league affiliate in Buffalo.

The Bruins, in need of an extra defenseman, bought him from Chicago for something less than the waiver price of $15,000. It was one of the best buys since the creation of the NHL.

Stanley’s impact with the Bruins was immediate and powerful. A season earlier, Boston was a fifth-place team in the six-team NHL. With Stanley starting as a Bruins blue-liner one year later, the club had climbed into first place. Bruins general manager Lynn Patrick claimed that “Big Allan” was “one of the main reasons” for the resurgence.

“Stanley was playing a calculating brand of hockey,” said Stan Saplin, who had covered the defenseman when he played in New York. “Almost every move was sound. His deliberate pace was deceptive, giving him an appearance of being slower and less effective than he actually was. His easy skating style made tough plays look simple, coupled with the fact that, by style, he was not a rushing defenseman but rather one who stayed back.”

Needless to say, Stanley played some of his best games against the Rangers at Madison Square Garden. He played two seasons in Boston, and when the Bruins figured “Big Allan” had had it, they traded him to Toronto for Jim Morrison. Although they were looking for a younger backliner, the Bruins had made an awful move. Allan was far from finished. Skating for Punch Imlach in Toronto, Stanley was just as good as he’d been in his Boston prime. It was the kind of move that helped brand Imlach a genius.

Stanley skated just as deliberately in Toronto as he had with the Rangers. The difference was that he was now playing before a sophisticated Maple Leaf Gardens audience who appreciated his defensive gifts as much as his boss, Imlach, did.

It was no coincidence that the Leafs annexed four Stanley Cups with the big guy snowshoeing behind the blue line. Stanley’s play had a blend of majesty and intelligence that was both hard and clean. He played textbook defense, you might say, the kind that is as rare today as a nickel cup of coffee.

Allan Stanley was born on March 1, 1926, in Timmins, Ontario. He began his career in professional hockey in 1943 with the Boston Olympics of the Eastern Hockey League. In 1946, he joined the Providence Reds, where he remained until he was dealt to the Rangers.

Could “Big Allan” have achieved the same distinction as a Ranger? Under the circumstances, it would have been a 50-1 shot.

The inescapable problem in New York was frustrated fans who would not, or could not, get off his back.

“There is always a nucleus of fans,” Saplin once said, “who pay their way in whether their team is winning or not. They need an outlet, though, for the bitterness that grows within them as failure piles upon failure.”

In the eyes of the Rangers faithful, Stanley was an abject failure, a skater who never fulfilled his notices, would never cut it on Broadway, and needless to say, would never make it to hockey’s Hall of Fame.

But “Big Allan” did, and part of his endorsement was his excellent, albeit short, career as a Bruin as well as his Cup-winning seasons in Toronto.

It was a strange and very painful counterpoint for Rangers fans who had wanted so much from the defenseman. It was even harder to digest when Stanley played so well against his former team at Madison Square Garden.

One night, the Rangers were playing host to Boston at the Garden. Stanley played brilliantly for the Bruins, who defeated New York in that contest. Many Rangers fans had difficulty understanding how well the player they once had booed out of the Big Apple was playing for the New Englanders.

As Stanley left the dressing room and walked out onto Manhattan’s 49th Street after the match, a Rangers fan approached him. The New York rooter had a quizzical look on his face as he admonished the defenseman.

‘You didn’t play that way when you were with us,” the fan said accusingly.

“Yes, I did,” Stanley replied, a bit sadly. “Yes, I did!”

Stanley wound up with exactly 100 career goals, 433 points, and four Stanley Cup rings. In 1980, he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Had Rangers fans been as patient with Allan as he was with the puck, the big fellow might have graced the Garden as a Ranger through his entire career.

But to that conjecture, the studious Stanley might have responded with a line from William Shakespeare: “There’s much virtue in IF.”

JOHN

VANBIESBROUCK

1983-1993

Over the years, top Rangers goaltenders have emerged from diverse locations. Hall of Famer Charlie Rayner learned his hockey in the remote hamlet of Sutherland, Saskatchewan, while Mike Richter began his career playing street hockey in Philadelphia.

Then there is the saga of John Vanbiesbrouck, who probably should have been a Red Wing since he originally started his netminding career in Detroit.

Considered by some scouts to be “too small” to be a goalie, Vanbiesbrouck caught the attention of Rangers birddogs during his Junior hockey stint with the Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario) Greyhounds of the Ontario Hockey Association.

The “Beezer,” as he became known to the Garden crowd, impressed the Blueshirts’ brass on a one-game call-up in 1981-82. He received another invitation to the big club in 1983-84 and continued to impress. But it wasn’t until the 1983-84 playoffs in the old Central Hockey League that John convinced the Rangers’ management that he belonged at the top.

Although his Tulsa Oilers were forced out of their home rink in the playoffs, Vanbiesbrouck nevertheless paced them with four wins in four games and a 2.50 goals-against average, outstanding numbers for the CHL at that time.

His performance in Tulsa won him a promotion to New York in 1984-85, and John remained a Ranger through the 1992-93 season.

His size never was a detriment and in some ways was actually an asset. Vanbiesbrouck boasted excellent lateral speed, and his competitive drive was equaled by few. Not surprisingly, that drive helped his improvement every year.

By the 1985-86 campaign, “Beezer” had reached his prime.

Winning the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top netminder as well as being selected to the First All-Star Team, John became the goalie the Rangers had been looking for ever since the departure of Eddie Giacomin 10 years earlier.

Vanbiesbrouck remained the Blueshirts’ number-one netminder until 1989, when another smallish goalie, Mike Richter, showed up and battled “Beezer” for his job. While it quickly became apparent that Richter was something special, the Rangers were still unwilling to forsake their franchise goalie.

JOHN VANBIESBROUCK

BORN: Detroit, Michigan; September 4, 1963

POSITION: Goalie

NHL TEAMS: New York Rangers, 1983-1993; Florida Panthers, 1993-98; Philadelphia Flyers, 1998-2000; New York Islanders, 2000-01; New Jersey Devils, 2001-02

AWARDS/HONORS: Vezina Trophy, 1986; NHL First Team All-Star, 1986; NHL All-Star Game, 1996-97

As a result, Vanbiesbrouck and Richter were platooned, creating the best one-two goaltending punch in the league. For four years, the pair would remain a dynamic duo and one of the best in the game. Even during this tough competition, John found time to represent his country, starting in goal for Uncle Sam in the 1987 and 1991 Canada Cups.

Ultimately, the New York brass had to make a decision about the two netminders.

Choosing youth over experience, the high command decided to leave Vanbiesbrouck unprotected in the 1993 expansion draft.

The newly minted Florida Panthers, desperate to launch their inaugural campaign with a name goaltender, selected “Beezer” first in the draft. Within three seasons, Vanbiesbrouck had almost single-handedly legitimized a mediocre expansion team with his wizardry in goal.

In 1996, the aging but dynamic goalie led the underdog Panthers on an improbable run all the way to the Stanley Cup finals. Though Florida lost to a loaded Colorado Avalanche team in four games, hockey savants recognized the improbability of the Panthers’ run and attributed it in large part to Vanbiesbrouck.

John Vanbiesbrouck was born in Detroit, Michigan, on September 4, 1962. At 15, he had yet to be claimed in the “midget draft,” so he chose to visit Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, for a tryout with the local Greyhounds of the Ontario Hockey League. John made the team and spent three years sharply honing his netminding talents. By the time he was 18 and eligible for the entry draft, no one doubted he would be chosen.

Vanbiesbrouck became a free agent for the first time in his career in the summer of 1998, but finding work wasn’t a problem. The Philadelphia Flyers won the sweepstakes and signed “Beezer” to a three-year contract worth approximately $11.25 million. His results were less than expected.

In his first year as a Flyer, the Maple Leafs eliminated Philadelphia in the opening playoff round. The year 1998 wasn’t all bad for John, though; he teamed with his old rival, Mike Richter, for the U.S. team in the 1998 Nagano Olympics.

Vanbiesbrouck’s last full NHL season split between the other two New York Metro-area teams, the Devils and Islanders, came in 2000-01. He would play five more games with the Devils before calling it quits for good in 2002, becoming only the second American-born goalie to win 300 NHL games. (Tom Barrasso had accomplished the feat a month earlier.)

After retiring, “Beezer” bought a share in the OHL’s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, with whom he served as general manager and coach. He then moved into the television realm as an analyst.

From a historic perspective, John ranks among the best goalies in Rangers history. One of the few bright spots of the 1980s New York team, Vanbiesbrouck made hockey eminently watchable for Rangers fans in that decade.

GUMP

WORSLEY

1952-1963

“The Gumper.” What a man. What a goaltender. What character! From his rookie-of-the-year season in 1952-53 to his last year on Broadway, Worsley crafted a niche as one of the game’s most colorful characters. He was also among the last of a dying breed: the maskless goalie. In fact, it took 24 years for Gump to give in and agree to wear a mask while tending goal.

He thus became the last outstanding NHL goalie to do so, yet ironically, he never overcame his intense fear of flying.

Few first-rate netminders have been more durable than Worsley. He turned pro in 1952, when the National Hockey League embraced but six teams, and retired more than two decades later, when more than twice that number existed.

He was the premier goalie on the Montreal Canadiens with whom he won four Stanley Cups, yet he is best known for his escapades as a member of the Rangers between 1952 and 1963.

Throughout some of those seasons, the Rangers often seemed mired in a subterranean section of the NHL. Worsley always seemed to perform like Horatio at the bridge.

New York fans appreciated the roly-poly goalie, but his coach, the volatile Phil Watson, was less enthused.

Watson constantly singled out Worsley for criticism in one form or another. “The Gumper” didn’t exactly help matters, baiting Watson at every possible opportunity.

GUMP WORSLEY

BORN: Montreal, Quebec, Canada; May 14, 1929

DIED: January 26, 2007

POSITION: Goaltender

NHL TEAMS: New York Rangers, 1952-53, 1954-63; Montreal Canadiens, 1963-70; Minnesota North Stars, 1970-74

AWARDS/HONORS: Calder Memorial Trophy, 1953; Vezina Trophy, 1966 (shared with Charlie Hodge), 1968 (shared with Rogatien Vachon); NHL First Team All-Star, 1968; NHL Second Team All-Star, 1966; NHL All-Star Game, 1961-62, 1965, 1972; Hockey Hall of Fame, 1980

When asked his opinion of the fiery Rangers coach, Worsley replied, “As a coach, he was a good waiter.” Despite Watson’s harangues, Worsley played splendid goal for the Rangers in the late 1950s, leading them to the playoffs in 1956, 1957, and 1958.

In his autobiography, They Call Me Gump, Worsley admitted that he turned to alcohol to ease his anguish. “I was using the bottle to chase all of those bad games and bad goals. I used to feel like a duck in a shooting gallery.”

Gump Worsley prepares to thwart a Gordie Howe attack. From the Stan Fischler Collection

When asked by a reporter which NHL team gave him the most trouble in goal, Gump deadpanned, “The Rangers.”

Worsley’s Manhattan miseries ended on June 4, 1963, when he was traded to the Montreal Canadiens. As Gump succinctly put it, “That was the day I got out of the Rangers’ jailhouse!”

“I WAS USING THE BOTTLE TO CHASE ALL OF THOSE BAD GAMES AND BAD GOALS. I USED TO FEEL LIKE A DUCK IN A SHOOTING GALLERY.”

Playing for the Canadiens was not exactly Utopia for Worsley, at least not at first. But he was unquestionably an asset to the Montrealers. He proved it in the spring of 1965 during the Stanley Cup finals against the Chicago Blackhawks.

After playing the first two games of the series, Gump tore a thigh muscle in Game 3 and had to be replaced. The series went down to a seventh and final game with the teams tied at three games apiece. Gump had been taking injections for his injury and was improving, but doubted that he would play in the seventh match.

Prior to the game, Worsley was sitting in the Montreal Forum’s lounge when Larry Aubut, the Canadiens’ trainer, walked in and told him he was playing.

“I glanced at my wife, Doreen, as she ordered a rye and ginger ale—for herself. I could have used one too, but instead I headed for our dressing room to get ready for the game.” Worsley recalled. “Was I nervous? Here I’d been playing pro hockey for 15 years and finally was getting the big opportunity. This was it, the final game of the Stanley Cup championship. You bet your ass I was nervous.”

Almost immediately, Camille Henry of the Blackhawks—once Gump’s teammate on the Rangers—skated in alone against Worsley. “My legs were knocking,” Worsley admitted. But he made the save, and the team went on to blank the Blackhawks 4-0.

“Nothing,” said Worsley, “has ever matched that thrill. The first Cup victory is always the biggest moment in a hockey player’s life. I was the luckiest guy in the world.”

Lorne Worsley was born on May 14, 1929, in Montreal. As a kid, Worsley admired goaltender Davey Kerr, hero of the Rangers’ 1940 Stanley Cup championship team. Gump received his first break after winning a tryout with the Verdon Cyclones, a Junior team from a Montreal suburb, while playing for a second commercial-league club. It was then that he was given his nickname. A teammate noticed that Lorne bore a striking resemblance to comic book character Andy Gump, and he began calling him Gump. Soon after, all his teammates followed suit.

In 1949 Worsley was invited to the Rangers’ training camp and was assigned to the Blueshirts’ farm team, the New York Rovers of the old Eastern League. He played well and drank well.

“We ran from bar to bar in those days,” Worsley confessed, “and you know how many bars there are in New York: about 10,000. After most games, we’d go out drinking and stay out until the joints closed at four o’clock in the morning. We were always there for the last call.”

Nevertheless, Worsley continued the upward climb from the Rovers to the New Haven Ramblers of the American League, with stopovers at other New York farm clubs in St. Paul and Saskatoon before reaching the Rangers.

Then came an ironic twist.

“NOTHING HAS EVER MATCHED THAT THRILL. THE FIRST CUP VICTORY IS ALWAYS THE BIGGEST MOMENT IN A HOCKEY PLAYER’S LIFE. I WAS THE LUCKIEST GUY IN THE WORLD.”

Although he won the NHL’s Calder Trophy as the rookie of the year in 1953 while amassing 13 wins, a 3.06 goals-against average, and two shutouts, his job was by no means secure. The Rangers had purchased Johnny Bower, a highly regarded minor-league goalie, and installed him in the net ahead of Gump the following season. But Worsley returned to stay the following year and remained a New Yorker until he was dealt to the Canadiens. After a squabble with the Habs’ management in 1970, he was picked up by the Minnesota North Stars and concluded his career in April 1974.

Worsley played his 860th regular-season NHL game against the Philadelphia Flyers on April 2, 1974. The final goal—he allowed 2,432 in his NHL career—was scored by Dave Schultz, who had been born the year Worsley played his first pro game in 1949.

“That made me feel old,” Worsley said. “Too old to consider another comeback.”

He retired and became a scout for the Minnesota North Stars. In 1980 Worsley was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. “The Gumper” never did look like much of a goalie, but he did know how to stop the puck, and his longevity and championship rings attest to the fact that he did his job better than most.

Worsley died January 27, 2007.

When all is said and done, Gump will go down in hockey annals as one of the most colorful, boisterous, and best in his profession.

Even though he never delivered a Stanley Cup to Rangerville, Worsley will always be fondly remembered by fans who had the pleasure of watching—and listening—to him in the 1950s and 1960s.