The Franchise: New York Rangers: A Curated History of the Blueshirts

By Rick Carpiniello

In The Franchise: New York Rangers, take a more profound and unique journey into the history of an iconic team. This thoughtful and engaging collection of essays captures the astute fans' history of the franchise, going beyond well-worn narratives of yesteryear to uncover the less-discussed moments, decisions, people, and settings that fostered the team's iconic identity. Through wheeling and dealing, mythmaking and community building, explore where the organization has been, how it got to prominence in the modern NHL landscape, and how it'll continue to evolve and stay in contention for generations to come.Rangers fans in the know will enjoy this personal, local, in-depth look at hockey history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Oct 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781637271513

Book preview

Dedication

To Maureen, my everything

To the memory of Mr. Ranger, Rod Gilbert—my friend…everyone’s friend

Contents

Foreword by Brian Leetch

Introduction

Part 1. The Early Close Calls

1. To Hab or Hab Not

2. Miracle Man and the Smurfs

Part 2. The Curse

3. Trader Phil

4. Turning the Corner

5. The Captain, the Mutiny and Iron Mike

Part 3. The Slaying of the Dragon

6. A Glorious, Chaotic Season

7. No More 1940

Part 4. The Drought

8. The Great Reunion

9. The Dark Ages

Part 5. The Rebuild

10. The Rise of a King

11. Rebuilding

Epilogue

About the Author

Sources

Foreword by Brian Leetch

My relationship with Rick Carpiniello started when I was 19-20 years old coming to the Rangers from the 1988 Olympics in Calgary.

The beat writers were the pulse of the team and the city, the people who were there every day for practice and the games, and they were the ones who got out the information. This was before there was all the news on the internet. The articles in the newspapers were important for the fans to get a taste of what was going on behind closed doors, what went on after a game and what went into each game. Their opinions meant something, a lot at that time.

I always found Carpy’s opinions—I don’t know if he had more leeway with the number of words he could write, but his articles were definitely longer and more in-depth than other beat writers’ for other papers at that time. He always listened to what I had to say, and if his opinion was different than mine, he’d always ask about it, but he’d also always include my opinion in the article, even if it was the opposite of his. He’d still write what he saw and what he felt needed to be changed if it was different than what I did, and I always respected that and enjoyed it.

I also knew he was a hockey fan. I could tell by the way he talked about the game and the way he saw the game and the enjoyment he got from covering the team. He’d been a hockey fan before I came to the team and enjoyed covering it, and I knew he’d be a hockey fan after he retired and continued to watch the games.

So that was fun, and we became friends throughout the 18 years I was there. Obviously he watched a lot of the good stuff that went on through the mid-1990s and then was there when all the bad stuff was going on and we were missing the playoffs and couldn’t figure out a way, right until I got traded in 2004.

I’m happy and honored to be part of his book and to have my opinion in the foreword.

The group that we had at that time was a great one. We had a lot of moving parts through the ’90s and a lot of people coming and going.

Certainly Mike Richter, as an example, is an unknown character. People don’t realize how much of a character he was. Goalies are always looked at as these intense, keep-to-themselves personalities, more than the rest of the team. Mike was the opposite. He was one of the group. He loved to talk. He loved to throw out one-liners all the time, and he’d laugh at his own. I’d laugh at him while we were stretching or whatever, because he was laughing at himself and no one else was laughing.

I don’t know if our sense of humor was similar or not, but it was nonstop. He’d throw out all these lines. I’d go, Mike, you’re quantity versus quality, aren’t you? You don’t care if the joke’s funny or anything. You think they’re all funny. And he starts laughing and goes, Yeah. I do. They were just comments on people. Not jokes you would tell like, One person walks into a bar… It was always quick comments on things going on and him getting a kick out of them. That was always the funniest thing. He couldn’t have been more intense about his craft. He worked so hard on the mental aspect of the game, which was new to me, like the visualization and all these books on mental toughness that he was reading, as well as all the physical parts, the stretching, the weight workouts. That was all new to me. He was already doing it, preparing, but then he was completely part of the team and had this sense of humor that was nonstop and not everyone got it.

Of all the friends who were there for all those years, Gravy, Mess, Beuk...Ricky [Richter] was definitely the one who was much different than what people saw on the outside. All my friends said, Ricky’s the nicest guy, like Gravy but in a different way. But the humor part to him, so many people would never see.

We’d prepare hard and we were intense on the ice, but still I could kid with him. Like, I’d say, Boy, I’m glad that post was there, Mike, And he’d go, Not as glad as I am. Or he’d go, Leetchie, did you lose an edge there or what happened? And I’d go, No, I just got beat. He’d say, That’s what I thought. I was just being nice. This is while we’re getting ready for a faceoff.

We had a lot of good people and a lot of characters, and it was a fun time. So, to be a part of this and see some of the stories that come out will jog my memory too—some of the things that went on and some of the characters who came through there.

I’m sure it will be a fun book for Rangers fans of all ages and eras.

Brian Leetch played 17 of his 18 NHL seasons with the Rangers and is arguably the greatest homegrown player in franchise history. He won the Calder Trophy (rookie of the year) and two Norris Trophies (NHL’s best defenseman) and was the first U.S.–born winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoffs MVP when the Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994. He had his uniform No. 2 retired and raised to the rafters at Madison Square Garden in 2008 and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009.

Introduction

Yes, this is a hockey book. I promise.

I spent most of the 43 years from the 1978–79 season through the start of 2021–22 covering the Rangers and the NHL. I won’t be able to tell every single Rangers story or anecdote in these pages because my mind can’t recall them all, and this book can’t fit them all. But I hope to share as many as possible.

I covered a lot of other sports, too, mostly in my off-seasons. Because of their magnitude, in certain cases, some of my greatest memories are non-hockey-related—in particular, the 1986 Mets and those two impossible-to-describe Game 6s against Houston and Boston; the Giants’ first Super Bowl over Denver in Pasadena, and their unforgettable one in Arizona over Tom Brady and the 18–0 New England Patriots; Aaron Boone’s Game 7 ALCS homer against Boston and the Yankees’ historic collapse to the Red Sox the following autumn; Phil Mickelson’s I am such an idiot blown U.S. Open in 2006 when he cranked a drive off the top of a hospitality tent on the 72nd hole at Winged Foot; and Fuzzy Zoeller’s epic white-towel-waving playoff victory over Greg Norman on the same course 22 years earlier.

I’ve had the honor of unforgettable lengthy one-on-one sit-downs with the likes of Henry Aaron, Tom Watson, Whitey Ford, Gary Carter, etc., and the odd pleasure of dining, with a small group of beat reporters, as guests of George Steinbrenner at the fabled 21 in Manhattan. Covering the Steinbrenner era was tense, at best, and you’d have to arrive hours earlier than most teams’ beat writers because anything could happen at any time.

Steinbrenner was mostly kind to us and available when convenient for him, though perhaps not so nice with his employees. One of Steinbrenner’s longtime, oft-fired PR men would tell the story, and I paraphrase: The phone would often ring at three or four in the morning and you knew it was either a death in the family or George. After a while, you’d root for ‘death in the family.’

I was there when Billy Martin, after answering the usual questions following a tough loss, was encountered by a late-arriving, frequently aggravating reporter, who said to him, Billy, I need three quick quotes.

To which Martin famously replied: Three quotes? OK. One, fuck you. Two, you’re a fucking asshole. Three, get the fuck out of my office.

One night, in Mariano Rivera’s rookie season, I was filling in for the Yankees beat writer. My press box phone rang. The guy said he was from a radio station from Cleveland and wanted to interview me about Rivera being snubbed from the All-Star team.

Politely, I told him that I wasn’t the beat writer, and that I didn’t feel comfortable doing the interview. He thanked me and hung up. Moments later, the phone rang again. The same guy tried to persuade me to do the interview. I declined. He offered me a $50 gift certificate to Modell’s Sporting Goods store. I declined again and we hung up. The phone rang a third time. Same guy. Now the offer was a $100 gift certificate to Modell’s. I was irritated but polite and declined once more.

Finally, a fourth call came. Same guy. I finally flat-out and somewhat rudely said, No. Now he was insulting me, calling me some terrible names, a bleeping wuss and a bleeping this and that. He finished it off by adding that he and his crew were scheduled to visit New York soon, and when they did, he said he was going to personally kick [my] ass!

My reaction wasn’t very professional, but I cursed him repeatedly and angrily dared him to come and try it. I looked to my left at that point, and down at the other end of the Yankee Stadium press box was Jack Curry of The New York Times and a bunch of other beat writers, laughing hysterically. The radio guy from Cleveland was actually Curry, and he had gotten me big time.

Hockey was in my wheelhouse because, unlike quite a few other sportswriters not only in the field, but particularly at the nine-newspaper chain where I began, I had played the game a bit and followed it as a kid. Hockey’s not my No. 1 sport, but I love it nonetheless. So when the chain that would eventually become The Journal News in New York City’s northern suburbs set out to do a prototype for the as-yet unborn USA Today, a great opportunity arose. We had a bunch of very young, inexperienced kids on the staff, covering high school and local sports. But with the prototype, we were all assigned an area of expertise, or a sort-of beat. I got the Rangers. What that meant was that I’d attend home games and some practices and write short stories for the prototype Today (which was printed on a pinkish colored broadsheet paper, thus the catchy sales phrase Reach for the Peach). Dick Yerg, the sports editor, was also the Rangers beat writer, so he’d let me handle practices on off days, and then I’d join him at home games. Wow.

Once I got started I also got hooked. I liked to write with strong opinions and sarcasm, and my paper soon found that the Rangers’ readership was second only to that of the Yankees.’ Pre-data, the Rangers would get more Letters to the Editor than any other team. Once online data arrived, my newspaper soon learned that popularity of all stories available on the web went like this: 1. Yankees, 2. Rangers, 3. Obituaries…

That was pretty cool to me. I got to attend and cover games home and away and ruminate about what I saw, what I thought and in some cases, what I knew.

I lasted a month short of 40 years with Gannett before being laid off in a budget squeeze—booted out the door unceremoniously, along with several superb colleagues. I went to work at the United States Postal Service briefly, while keeping my hand in hockey by freelancing Rangers stories for MSG Networks’ website. Then The Athletic was founded and in 2018 launched its New York City vertical, and I went back to being a beat reporter, the best job I ever had.

So many stories through the years. So many characters. So many friends. So many memories, good and bad.

One night it all came together in a single wisecrack.

At Shea Stadium, there was a club on the press box level—I believe it was called the Diamond Club. The Mets players and staff would often meet family or friends there, sometimes do a meet-and-greet, or whatever.

There was a shortcut back to the elevator through the press box.

On this night, Mets manager Davey Johnson was taking the shortcut as dozens of us were banging out stories on deadline, which often was a tense time.

Johnson looked over a few shoulders down at the field below.

Gee, he said, it really does look easier from up here.

Part 1. The Early Close Calls

1. To Hab or Hab Not

The beginning, for me, was at a place called the Westchester Ice Skating Center in Hawthorne, New York, in the fall of 1978. The twin-rink center was the New York Rangers’ temporary practice facility, bridging a run at Long Beach, New York, out on Long Island, and the soon-to-be agreement with the Ice Casino on the pier of Playland, an amusement park in Rye, New York.

Madison Square Garden chairman Sonny Werblin wanted his team practicing in Westchester County, in the northern suburbs of New York City, which he felt was an easier commute to and from Manhattan.

As a kid, I had played pick-up hockey at the Hawthorne rink—my high school didn’t have a team—and so I was familiar with the place.

I was hardly familiar with the Rangers, though. I mean, I grew up watching them, especially those Saturday night road games, with Jim Gordon and Bill The Big Whistle Chadwick. I went to games at Madison Square Garden once in a while. My fandom waned in the mid-1970s when they dumped GM/coach Emile Francis, after he dumped my favorite player, Vic Hadfield, waived Hall of Fame goalie Eddie Giacomin and made the mostly disastrous trade of Hall of Famers Jean Ratelle and Brad Park (plus minor leaguer and trivia answer Joe Zanussi) for Hall of Famer Phil Esposito and defenseman Carol Vadnais. Those trades, among others, left the Rangers with just seven players remaining from the 21 who participated in the Stanley Cup semifinal series against Philadelphia, which the Flyers won in Game 7, a year and a half earlier.

The Esposito blockbuster, in November 1975, became miles worse when, in the worst trade in franchise history, the Rangers sent young scorer Rick Middleton to the Bruins to acquire Esposito’s buddy and linemate Ken Hodge, whose career was running on fumes, the following May. Middleton would score 402 of his 448 career goals and 898 of his career 988 points in 881 games for the Bruins. Hodge would play 96 games as a Ranger, scoring 23 goals and 68 points.

The B’s, with Park, Ratelle and Middleton, reached the Stanley Cup Final in 1977 and 1978, only to fall twice to the Canadiens’ dynasty.

To this day, Rangers fans cringe when the Esposito trade is mentioned, and their reaction is a bit stronger, bordering on actual nausea, when the Middleton trade is discussed.

* * *

But here I was, in 1978, at my old rink, in my new assignment as a part-time beat reporter (and part-time local sports editor/writer) on the Rangers. It was there where I interviewed my first pro athlete—rookie prospect Don Maloney—and of course my first pro coach, Fred Shero. I knew plenty about Shero from the two Stanley Cup runs he made with the pugilistic Flyers, who won using intimidation as much of a strategy as skill, and from the bloody feud Philly had with the Rangers. I had no idea what type of person he would be, though; no idea if I should be afraid of the father of the Broad Street Bullies who wore tinted glasses and thick bushy sideburns. I was quite happy with, and thankful for, his accommodating style.

The Rangers had lured Shero from the Flyers for cash and a first-round draft pick, which Philadelphia used to select long-time and legendary pest Ken Linseman. Shero was also given the general manager title with the Rangers. This, they felt, was Step 1 back toward contention after the failed post-Francis era of GM John Ferguson and coaches Ron Stewart, Ferguson and Jean-Guy Talbot.

* * *

Werblin, meanwhile, was all about making a splash. It was Werblin who bought the New York Titans of the American Football League and renamed them the Jets. It was Werblin who hired coach Weeb Ewbank from the Baltimore Colts to the Jets. It was Werblin who signed an Alabama quarterback named Joe Namath, who had been drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals of the National Football League, signing him to a then-whopping $427,000 contract. Werblin also built the Meadowlands Sports complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, which would become home to the New York Giants, the Jets, eventually the New Jersey Devils of the NHL and the Nets of the NBA.

When a new Jets ownership group bought out Werblin and sent him packing in 1968, before the team’s Super Bowl III victory over the Colts which was guaranteed by Namath, legendary Newark Star-Ledger columnist Jerry Isenberg wrote that there would be a Curse of Sonny Werblin on the franchise. As of the completion of this book, the Jets had not even been to another Super Bowl.

In March 1978, Werblin made another big, bold move, this time for his hockey team. The Rangers’ Stanley Cup drought at the time was a measly 38 years old, the 1940 championship having been their last. A relatively baby curse to that point.

In the 1970s, the NHL came to have a new, unwelcomed rival, the World Hockey Association, which lured many of the NHL’s stars with lucrative, long-term contracts, such as Bobby Hull’s then-astronomical 10-year, $2.7 million deal with Winnipeg. The upstart league raided the NHL for players such as Gordie Howe, Gerry Cheevers, Bernie Parent, Frank Mahovlich and Derek Sanderson. It would also mine the European leagues, which had yet to have been targets of the NHL.

So Werblin, Rangers president William Jennings and general manager John Ferguson turned the tables on the WHA that March, spending a bunch of team owner Gulf and Western’s money to sign Winnipeg’s Swedish stars Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson to play for the Rangers starting in 1978–79. They each received a two-year deal worth about $600,000 per season according to multiple reports. Playing on a line with Hull in Winnipeg, Nilsson, a playmaking center, put up 120, 114, 124 and 126 points in four WHA seasons; Hedberg, a speedy right winger, scored 53, 50, 70 and 63 goals, with 100, 105, 131 and 122 points.

Now they had a new two-time Cup-winning coach in Shero, joining a somewhat young roster, and Esposito, who despite the unpopularity of the trade that brought him to New York had scored 29, 34 and 38 goals in his first three seasons as a Ranger (a far cry from his previous five straight seasons of 55 or more, including a then-record 76 in 1970–71 and more than 61 in three other seasons).

* * *

The addition of Hedberg was also expected to ease the pain of the Rangers’ loss of young right winger Don Murdoch.

A happy-go-lucky fellow known by teammates as Murder, he had set a team record in 1976 when, as a rookie, he scored five goals in a game against the Minnesota North Stars (since matched by Mark Pavelich and Mika Zibanejad). He scored 32 goals in 59 games as a rookie, 27 more as a sophomore.

There was a time, stories say, when Murdoch was asked if he were a man or a mouse, and he reportedly replied, Pass the cheese, which was, knowing him as little as I did, probably his way of joking. I think it may have been a line from a Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoon starring Sylvester the Cat.

What wasn’t funny at all, though, was when, in April 1978, Murdoch, on his way from New York to his home in Cranbrook, British Columbia, pled guilty to possessing 4.8 grams of cocaine, packed in a sock inside his luggage at the Toronto airport, with a street value of $1,300. Murdoch was fined $400 for his guilty plea, but the NHL came down hard on him, fining him $500 and issuing a 90-game suspension. The Rangers could request reinstatement around mid-season 1978–79.

* * *

Shero’s Rangers would line up behind Esposito, Vadnais, Hedberg and Nilsson with big, gregarious goalie John Davidson, some leftover stalwarts from the early ’70s playoff runs in Walt Tkaczuk and Steve Vickers, popular enforcer/prankster Nick Fotiu (a native New Yorker from Staten Island with a giant personality) a young, talented, mostly speedy group that included Pat Hickey (some suggested his name be changed to Hockey), Ron Duguay, Ron Greschner, Mike McEwen, Lucien Deblois, Mario Marois and the youngest captain in franchise history, Dave Maloney, who at the age of 22 had been given the C that previously belonged to Esposito. Dave is Don’s older brother.

Davidson, acquired by Emile Francis in a trade from St. Louis, had the unenviable task of replacing Eddie Giacomin and being in the home net the night Giacomin returned to the Garden as a Red Wing, days after being waived and claimed by Detroit, to be serenaded all night long with chants of Eddie, Eddie! Giacomin beat the Rangers 6–4 that night.

* * *

The Rangers, still, were hardly odds-on favorites in ’78–79. They had gone through a relatively glorious (but non-Cup-winning) era early in the decade, losing in the 1971 semifinals to Chicago, the 1972 Stanley Cup Final to Boston, the 1973 semifinals to Chicago, and the 1974 semifinals to Philadelphia. Since then, though, were some dubious seasons that included a 2–1 preliminary-round loss to the upstart New York Islanders (on J.P. Parise’s goal 11 seconds into overtime), non-playoff years in ’76 and ’77, and a preliminary-round loss to Buffalo in ’78.

Shero, who played for the Rangers in his career, had two Cup rings, but had his hands full. He also had a nickname: Freddie the Fog, for his distant personality, his unrevealing answers to questions and his relationships, or non-relationships, with players, though his hockey genius was undeniable. Shero delegated many of his GM duties to assistant GM Mickey Keating and did likewise with a lot of his on-ice coaching to assistant coach Mike Nykoluk, who had come with him from Philadelphia and had a rapport with the players.

Shero arrived as one who was known for oft-repeated sayings, such as:

Arrive at the net with the puck and in ill humor, which was his most famous quote.

And, To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.

Before the Flyers clinched their first of consecutive Cups in ’74 and ’75, he told his team, Win today and we will walk together forever.

I’m not sure Shero coined that one, but it has been since used often by coaches whose teams are on the cusp of a championship, including Mike Keenan with the Rangers in 1994.

In 2019, around the 40th anniversary of the 1978–79 season, I interviewed several Rangers players for a story in The Athletic. Here is what they said about Shero:

He was obviously very quiet, said Don Maloney, who was called up from the Rangers’ minor league affiliate, the New Haven Nighthawks, in mid-season. I had, I want to say, three conversations with him. Like, brief conversations in a year and a half. And I think he liked me, too. I remember when I first got called up and I ended up in an elevator with him the first month, and I go, ‘Hello, Mr. Shero.’ He said hello and then we rode in dead silence the rest of the ride up, and it was a high floor. You talk about uncomfortable.

Don’s brother Dave knew about that all too well.

Being a captain, I probably didn’t have more than five conversations with him, Dave Maloney said. More of the dialogue was with Mike Nykoluk, and our older guys were really important guys to kind of lead us along a little bit. So ‘The Fog’ was an appropriate thing. It wasn’t a detrimental thing at that time because he kind of set the table with his reputation and he had those little moments where you’d go, ‘I’m not sure what that meant, but it sounded good.’

Despite the limited personal relationships, though, Shero was not just respected, but admired.

Freddie. What a man, Ron Greschner recalled. I remember one time I got caught out late and me and Freddie were on the elevator together. He saw me and I saw him, but nothing was said. We were playing in Vancouver and I’m going, ‘Man, this is going to be bad; my family’s here and I’m not going to play.’ And I probably played about 50 minutes.

He allowed a team of multiple and quite colorful personalities to be just that—a team.

Some of us were—like me—very much free spirits, said the flamboyant Ron Duguay. "But when it came down to working and competing we knew how to shut it down and just play hard. And a lot of it had to do with the genius of Freddie Shero. Freddie at that point had been an experienced coach, had won a couple of Stanley Cups, and he understood the importance of the character of the team. You can have players on paper that look good, but unless the character’s right, you’re not going to win the Stanley Cup. He had an idea what that looked like. So he gave us free rein to be ourselves, as long as we showed up and competed, as long as we respected him as a coach, he allowed that.

"He was the perfect coach for me at that time because I was having a whole lot of fun, but I would show up to practice and practice hard, show up to games and play hard. And he wasn’t judging what he was seeing off the ice as Herb Brooks [who replaced Shero in 1981] ended up doing to me. Herbie would see articles on me in the Post, Page Six, that I would be out with Cher or Farrah Fawcett at Studio 54, and he would bring me in and kind of discuss it with me, like it was an issue. My first year with Herb Brooks I scored 40 goals. But he was judging everything I was doing off the ice. Freddie Shero, that wasn’t the case. ‘You show up, you play hard, I’m going to allow you guys to bond.’

That’s what we did back then.

 Shero was most certainly protective of his players, especially his two newly signed Swedes.

"Freddie was, to me, a very unique individual, the way he treated people, the way he behaved