Making Their Cases For The Mount

By now you've seen Puck Daddy's Mount Puckmore summer series where a blogger has been selected to honour four of the pillars of their respective franchise. As Leahy explained, they are "the four defining faces of their franchise. These four people are who you remember most when you think of these teams -- whether they be players, coaches or executives." Playing the part of the Borglums (the father and son who carved the original) for the Rangers will be whomever Wysh picks. While I don't think that fella will follow suit with the overwhelming majority in the "who you remember most" all being '94 guys, I figured I go through some of the candidates (alphabetically) and explain why they should and why they shouldn't be etched in digital stone. My selections are bolded ...

Andy Bathgate
+ The face of the Rangers for the 50s; 1958-59 Hart Trophy; eight All Star berths; 729 points in 719 regular season games.
- No Stanley Cups with New York; captained the team for just three seasons.

Frank Boucher
+ Won two Stanley Cups as a player and coached the Blueshirts to a third; had the Fan Club's most popular player trophy named after him; was with the team from 1926 through 1954 as a player, coach and GM.
- Walk around the Garden now and 90% of the people will have no idea who he was.

Bill Cook
+ One of the most dominant players in NHL history; won two Stanley Cups; 367 points in 474 games in the original dead puck era.
- Walk around the Garden now and 95% of the people will have no idea who he was; a Gretzky-esque failure as a coach in the early 50s.

Emile Francis
+ Sixteen years with the franchise; coached the team to the '72 Finals; drafted Brad Park, Steve Vickers, Pat Hickey and Rick Middleton; started the New York Junior League.
- No Cups; wasn't a particularly good goaltender.

Eddie Giacomin
+ Greatest goaltender in Ranger history; adored by the Faithful; 267-174-89 record; team-record 49 shutouts.
- No Cups.

Rod Gilbert
+ Collected 1,065 points and a team-record 406 goals over 15 seasons; team ambassador; eight All-Star games; Masterton Trophy winner.
- No Cups; had some great help with GAG linemates Jean Ratelle and Vic Hadfield.

Adam Graves
+ Beat Hadfield's regular-season record 50 goals with 52 in 93-94; 1994 Stanley Cup; team ambassador; Masterton Trophy winner.
- Played in the shadow of Messier.

Ron Greschner
+ Played over 1,000 games including playoffs; second-most career points by a Ranger defenseman; helped drive the Rangers to the 1979 Cup Final; defensive stalwart.
- No Cups; never considered among the best blueliners in the league.

Harry Howell
+ Played more games in a Blueshirt than anyone; defensive stalwart; 1966-67 Norris Trophy.
- No Cups; named the Rangers' MVP just once over his entire tenure.

Brian Leetch
+ All-time leading scorer among Ranger defensemen; two Norris Trophies; 1994 Stanley Cup; '94 Conn Smythe; Calder Trophy.
- Horrible as team captain; stupid injuries robbed him of some prime time.

Henrik Lundqvist
+ Three-time Vezina finalist; 177 wins in 338 regular season games; collected 30 or more wins each of his five NHL seasons.
- No Cups yet; no awards; biggest successes came overseas.

Mark Messier
+ Messiah; the Guarantee; The Captain; 1994 Stanley Cup.
- Everything was downhill after 94; went after Vancouver's money; second-stint nothing less than horrible.

Lester Patrick
+ One of Hockey's Royal Family; took over for Conn Smythe and built the Blueshirts; coach, GM and VP over a 24 year career; Lester Patrick Trophy; Patrick Division; one game as goaltender a puck legend.
- Walk around the Garden now and 90% of the people will have no idea who he was.

Mike Richter
+ All-time Ranger win leader with 301 victories over 666 appearances; stopped Pavel Bure on perhaps the most famous penalty shot in hockey history; 1994 Stanley Cup.
- Only two seasons with 30 or more wins; variety of injury woes; never considered among the best goaltenders in the business.

Neil Smith
+ Built the 1994 Rangers including trading for Messier and Graves and drafting Sergei Nemchinov, Alexei Kovalev, Doug Weight, and Sergei Zubov.
- Played a big part in steering the NHL towards the lockout with outrageous salaries.

Others deserving of a moment's consideration: Bill Gadsby, Buddy O'Connor, Jaromir Jagr, Chuck Rayner, Lynn Patrick, Phil Esposito, Dean Prentice, Rod Seiling, Walt Tkaczuk, Jim Neilson, John Vanbiesbrouck, Steve Vickers, Ratelle and Hadfield.

Awake To Awesomeness

I wake up this afternoon and open up my web browser, which automatically goes to my home page of Yahoo! and what do I see?


If you haven't already seen our fine friend Marek Malik's gaffe, the link is here. I must say, it is so enjoyable to watch him do that for a team other than the Rangers. But after seeing that on Yahoo at the start of my day, what could possibly make this day any better?

Kansas City Drylanders

Brilliance by Kyle L., courtesy of Puck Daddy:

"I dabble around with Photoshop type programs often, and had created the KC Islanders logo as an avatar for a NY Rangers board I frequent. When I saw the article about The Sporting Store, I figured it was time to slap it on a jersey. It's similar to the current Islanders jersey, just with trim that is slightly crooked as an ode to John Spano.
"By the way, that's not Missouri in the logo, it's Kansas which is exactly the kind of mistake the geographically challenged NY Islanders would make." --Kyle

Personally, I love it - even if it renders the hockey card I created for an earlier Puck Daddy contest obsolete:
Man, do I hate the Islanders ...

Cardboard Dreams

Over at Puck Daddy, Sean Leahy has come up with a fun contest for Photoshopped hockey cards. After the craziness this summer with their Bettman contest, this should wind up to being good for some laughs. Check out all of the details of this one here; the contest is running for another two weeks and you can win boxes of new cards if they choose your creation.

I luckily had a little bit of time last night so I got started on my submissions. Here's my first few, feel free to link yours in the comments:

You're Away From The Blog For One Day ...

... and all sorts of drama breaks out.

Greg Wyshynski, aka Puck Daddy, has taken exception to the actions of the Rangers.

Wyshy wrote a post today that the Rangers are coming off as "trifling and petty" after Tom Renney floated that idea that an opposing player should be investigated for intentionally attempting to injure another player. For those who didn't see, Mike Smith went at it with Aaron Voros during the third period Thursday, and nearly took out Voros' ACL with a vicious slash.

You can see it here (at the one minute mark) and it is clear that Smith was not just attempting to get Voros away from his crease but to take the Ranger's knee out. For Wyshynski to compare it to the contact that Voros and Sean Avery make with the netminder is absurd. One player plants his rear end at the top of the crease so the goaltender can't play the top of the paint, while the other is chopping wood.

When Brandon Sutter got his clock cleaned, Wyshynski said that "you have to draw the distinction between protection of players and what are, intrinsically, hockey plays." Now a slash like Smith's was a hockey play ... 20, 30 years ago.

It is not one today.

Today there is no instigator rule. Today cross checking is called on the player who finally fights back after three opposing players take turns hitting him (including a punch to the head). Today boarding or charging is called on at least half of the big hits on the boards. The NHL that Ron Hextall and Billy Smith played in was a distinctly different one than the one that Mike Smith plays in. In his NHL, penalties are called tightly (and inconsistently) and intent to injure is a major infraction, not something the coach tells Bobby Clarke to do.

There is nothing trifling or petty for a coach to come to the defense of one of his players and ask for the league's rules to be enforced.

You know, the legal drinking age was 18 years ago decades ago. It's illegal now. So if a high school party gets raided and no one gets hurt, maybe no one gets busted - depends on the cops mood. If one kid gets alcohol poisoning though, the hosts go to jail and the parent of the sick kid have the right to sue and they would win.

Had Voros been crippled by Smith's ax action, would the Rangers be allowed to complain then? Or would they just be trifling and petty?