Conference: Eastern
Division: Metropolitan
Stadium: Madison Square Garden (capacity 19,812)
Head Coach: Peter Laviolette (2023-present)
Starting Goaltender: Igor Shesterkin
Star Players: Artemi Panarin (LW), Vincent Trocheck (C), Adam Fox (D)
2022-23 Regular Season: 47-22-13 (5th in Eastern Conference)
2023 Playoffs: Eastern Conference Quarterfinals (defeated 4-3 by the New Jersey Devils)
Legendary Former Players: Mark Messier (C), Brian Leetch (D), Mike Richter (G)
Stanley Cups (NHL Championships): 4 - 1928, 1933, 1940, 1994
The future must have looked dazzlingly bright back in the Roaring Twenties when in 1928, just two years after joining the NHL, the New York Rangers became the first American NHL team to win the Stanley Cup. The Rangers repeated the feat in 1933 and again in 1940. Surely fans of the time must have anticipated that many, many more trophies would soon come. But it was not to be. Starting in 1942, the Rangers became one of the Original Six, considered by most hockey fans to be the sport’s first Golden Age, though for the Rangers, it was anything but. Like the similarly hapless Boston Bruins, the Rangers did not win a single Stanley Cup in the 25-year Original Six era (the Chicago Blackhawks had a tough time too, winning just once). Unlike the Bruins, however, the Rangers were unable to win any championships during the expansions of the late 1960s and 1970s. Their first chance to end the Cup drought came in 1972 when the Rangers reached the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1950, but they lost to the surging Bruins in six games. The team’s next chance was in 1979, but the Rangers found themselves up against the might of the Montreal Canadiens and crumpled in five. The ensuing years brought a new source of humiliation: a local rival in the form of the expansion New York Islanders. Rangers fans in Manhattan looked across the water at Long Island with disbelief and envy as the upstart Islanders not only beat the Rangers four times in a row in the playoffs in the early 1980s but also captured four straight Stanley Cups. More playoff disappointments were to follow in the decade to come, most often at the hands of local divisional rivals like the New Jersey Devils, Washington Capitals, or Pittsburgh Penguins, and the team’s most promising run in 1986 was ended by Patrick Roy’s Canadiens in the Conference Finals. The addition of the totemic Mark Messier in 1991 seemed to spur the Rangers on a bit and had fans whispering hopefully in 1991-92 after the team finished first in the NHL regular season to capture the Presidents’ Trophy, but they crashed out of the playoff to Mario Lemieux’s Penguins. The Rangers captured the Presidents’ Trophy again in 1993-94, but fans were understandably skeptical that this could translate into playoff success to bring home the trophy that they actually wanted to see on the ice at Madison Square Garden. However, after the Rangers swept the Islanders, steamrolled the Capitals in five, and squeaked past the Devils in a hard-fought seven-game series, battling back from a 3-2 deficit to reach the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals. There, they encountered the Vancouver Canucks, talented and hungry for their first-ever Stanley Cup. Fans in the Big Apple held their collective breath. Could their Rangers really banish the ghosts of the past and end the 54-year Cup drought? The series frayed nerves on all sides to breaking point, extending all the way to the third period of the seventh game where the Canucks hit the post with what would have been the tying goal in the dying minutes. In the end, though, the Rangers would prevail, with Mark Messier lifting his sixth Stanley Cup before an adoring New York crowd. Since that epic day in 1994, the Rangers have had many good teams (and many not so good teams) over the years, but have yet to match the accomplishments of Messier and Co. The 2014 Rangers went closest, reaching the Finals against the Los Angeles Kings, but lost in five games. While fans in New York who remember 1994 witnessed the emotional release of drinking from the Cup after such an incredible drought, they will surely be hoping that the Rangers' next triumph will not require quite such a long wait this time.
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