New York Rangers: 10 most unique moments, including Mika Zibanejad masterpiece
Longtime New York Rangers coach and general manager Emile Francis had a famous quote about why strange things happened in the NHL.
“This game is slippery. It’s played on ice.”
That quote from April 1970 has been true since the NHL dropped the puck for the first time 107 years ago. And oddities, quirks and one-of-a-kind happenings have been a part of Rangers history since they played their first game on Nov. 16, 1926 — and they still are today.
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10 most unique Rangers moments all-time
Here are 10 of the oddest/quirkiest occurrences in the Rangers’ 98 seasons (in chronological order):
Fight Night for Frank Boucher: Nov. 16, 1926
Hockey Hall of Famer Frank Boucher was known for two things, his ample skill and his gentlemanly play. Boucher won the Lady Byng Trophy, which recognizes both those attributes, seven times in eight seasons (he was second in 1931-32). The NHL finally gave him the original trophy in 1935 and had a second one made.
But Boucher did get into one fight in his NHL career, and couldn’t have picked a more notable night to do so.
Nov. 16, 1926, marked the first game in Rangers history, and Boucher was part of the team that stepped onto the ice at Madison Square Garden against the defending Stanley Cup champion Montreal Maroons. The Rangers won 1-0 and went on to finish first in the American Division in their inaugural season. But the highlight of the game came in the third period, when Boucher and Bill Phillips of the Maroons “staged a wild battle on the ice,” as The New York Times reported the next day.
Not only did each player receive a five-minute major penalty, the NHL also fined them $15 apiece. Boucher sustained a neck injury from the butt of Phillips’ stick during the fight, left the game and didn’t return (though he didn’t miss any subsequent games).
It turned out to be the only fight in Boucher’s NHL career, which spanned 557 regular-season games and 55 more in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Lester Patrick saves the day: April 7, 1928
It seems incomprehensible now, but for decades NHL teams carried just one goalie. This meant that if the goalie was injured, the game stopped when he “went off for repairs” — or the team with the injured goaltender found someone else (sometimes a trainer, sometimes what we’d call today an Emergency Backup Goalie, or EBUG) to take over.
But when Lorne Chabot took a shot in the left eye midway through a scoreless Game 2 of the 1928 Stanley Cup Final and Rangers coach-general manager Lester Patrick was told by a doctor to “get yourself a new goalie,” they couldn’t agree with the Maroons on who should replace him. Patrick wanted to use Alex Connell, a star goalie for the Ottawa Senators who was in the crowd at The Forum. Not surprisingly, Eddie Gerard, Patrick’s counterpart with the Maroons, said no. Gerard also put the kibosh on a request to use minor leaguer Hugh McCormack.
Rangers defenseman Leo Bourgeault volunteered to put on the pads, but Boucher and Bill Cook, the team’s two biggest stars, persuaded the 44-year-old Patrick, a defenseman in his playing days, to replace Chabot. Luckily for the Rangers, Chabot’s skates and equipment were a good fit, so after a warmup, the “Silver Fox” took the ice.
Cook put the Rangers ahead 1-0 by scoring 30 seconds into the third period, but Nels Stewart’s bouncer got past Patrick with 1:09 remaining, sending the game into overtime.
Patrick kept the puck out of the net in overtime until defenseman Ching Johnson slid a pass to Boucher, who went in and beat Clint Benedict at 7:05 of OT for a 2-1 victory that tied the best-of-5 series 1-1. The Rangers celebrated by carrying Patrick off the ice on their shoulders.
Luckily for the Rangers, Patrick was able to go back behind the bench for the rest of the series; the NHL gave permission for them to use Joe Miller, who had played for the New York Americans that season. With Miller in goal, the Rangers lost 2-0 in Game 3 but defeated the Maroons 1-0 in Game 4 and 2-1 in the deciding fifth game for their first championship — one that Patrick was happy to celebrate in a suit and tie rather than skates and pads.
History and heartbreak for “Bones”: April 18-20, 1950
To say the Rangers were an underdog in the 1950 Stanley Cup Final would be an understatement.
Not only did the Rangers finish fourth in the six-team NHL, earning a playoff berth despite a sub-.500 record (28-31-11) before upsetting the Montreal Canadiens in the Semifinals, they were also facing the first-place Detroit Red Wings, who had lapped the field in the regular season before defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs in the other semifinal.
Another factor in the Red Wings favor was the schedule. In those days, the circus had priority over the Rangers at the Garden. They wound up playing two “home” games in Toronto (Games 2 and 3) and the rest at the Detroit Olympia.
The Rangers trailed 2-1 as they headed to Detroit for the rest of the series. Little did they know that a skinny center was about to make NHL history.
Don Raleigh was nicknamed “Bones” for obvious reasons: He was 5-foot-11 but weighed all of 150 pounds. The Winnipeg native was only 17 when he made his NHL debut with the war-riddled Rangers in 1943-44, but by 1949-50 was a regular who’d scored 12 goals and finished with an NHL career-best 37 points, then contributed two goals and seven points in the five-game upset against Montreal.
Raleigh went scoreless in the first three games against Detroit before making history in Games 4 and 5.
“Bones” evened the series by scoring 8:34 into overtime to give the Rangers a 4-3 win in Game 4, then ended a goaltending duel by beating Harry Lumley 1:38 into OT for a 2-1 win in Game 5. He became the first player in NHL history to score overtime goals in consecutive Final games; John LeClair of the Montreal Canadiens in 1993 is still the only other player to do so.
But the Rangers lost Game 6 and couldn’t hold leads in the deciding game, so for the first time in NHL history, Game 7 of the Final went into overtime — and Raleigh came within inches of giving them the Cup. He had a couple of golden chances in the second OT.
“I think one of them went over my stick,” he said in a 2006 interview, “and I believe I hit the post or crossbar on the other. To have the Stanley Cup that close and not get it was terrible.”
Instead, Detroit’s Pete Babando won the game a few minutes later. The Rangers didn’t even get back to the Stanley Cup Final again until 1972.
Said Raleigh: “It was heartbreaking.”
Frantic finish: April 5, 1970
The quote at the top of this story dates to the final weekend of the 1969-70 season, when the Rangers earned a playoff berth after one of the most unlikely finishes in NHL history.
Injuries had helped knock the Rangers down from first place in February and forced them to scuffle for a playoff berth entering the last weekend of the season. Their chances weren’t helped when the Red Wings whacked them 6-2 at the Olympia on Saturday night, clinching a playoff berth of their own in the process. The only thing that kept the Rangers alive was that the Chicago Black Hawks won 4-1 at Montreal, keeping the Rangers two points behind the Canadiens.
The Rangers and Red Wings flew back to New York for a Sunday afternoon rematch. The situation was dire: Not only did the Rangers need to win in the afternoon and have the Canadiens lose that night in Chicago, they had to pile up goals — New York trailed Montreal by two points and five goals scored (the first tiebreaker at the time).
Garden fans weren’t optimistic; defenseman Brad Park remembered years later that there were “about 7,000 or 8,000 fans” on hand when the puck dropped. But the fans who were there (and the ones who showed up later to fill the building) saw a game unlike any other in Rangers history. Rod Gilbert put them ahead 36 seconds after the opening faceoff and rookie Jack Egers scored twice before the end of the period to send the Rangers into the locker room up 4-1.
“I told the guys right from the start, ‘Let’s run ’em off the ice,’” Francis said. “And run ’em off the ice is what we did.”
The goals kept coming. Gilbert scored 20 seconds into the second period to make it 5-1, Ron Stewart beat Roger Crozier twice for a 7-3 lead after two periods, and Dave Balon got his second and third of the game early in the third for a 9-3 advantage.
But Francis wanted more. With the Rangers pelting Crozier, who ended up facing 65 shots, Francis pulled goalie Ed Giacomin with about four minutes remaining despite leading by six goals.
“He understood, and the players all understood,” Francis said. “We threw caution to the wind.”
Detroit hit the empty net twice, but the Rangers won 9-5 and had outscored the Canadiens by four goals. When Montreal fell behind 5-2 in the third period at Chicago, coach Claude Ruel pulled his goalie, only to see the Hawks score five empty-netters for a 10-2 win that sent the Rangers to the postseason and the defending champion Canadiens to the golf course.
“When we got into the playoffs, I bought a round for the bar — the most expensive round I ever had,” Park said after the Rangers became the only team in NHL history to allow two empty-netters but still win by four goals. “But you can bet that I enjoyed it.”
Pierre Jarry’s night to remember: Nov. 21, 1971
Pierre Jarry was the first player in Rangers history to score two goals in eight seconds. They were the first two goals of his NHL career, and he did it during an eight-goal third period in a 12-1 wipeout of the California Golden Seals at the Garden on the Sunday before Thanksgiving in 1971.
Jarry is one of 35 NHL players who’ve scored twice in eight seconds or less. But his quick pair is still unlike any other.
The Rangers led 4-1 after two periods and had outshot the Golden Seals 31-13 before tearing their white-skated opponents apart in the third.
Jean Ratelle scored his third and fourth goals of the game, and goals by Ted Irvine and newcomer Gene Carr made it 8-1 midway through the period. Jarry, a rookie who had gone scoreless in his first 12 NHL games, joined the party at 11:03, triggering an eruption from the sellout crowd when he beat rookie goalie Gilles Meloche. That was the end of the night for Meloche, who was in tears as he skated off the ice.
But his replacement, Lyle Carter, fared no better. Eight seconds after the puck dropped, Jarry flew into the California zone and scored again. The Rangers ended up setting single-game team records that still stand for most goals and biggest margin of victory.
Jarry also did something that had never been done before and hasn’t been accomplished since: He scored twice in eight seconds against two different goalies. Alas, that was the highlight of his time in New York; he scored just once more before being traded to Toronto on Feb. 20, 1972.
Five Goals for the Kid: Oct. 12, 1976
Rangers fans didn’t have to wait long for their team’s first-round pick in the 1976 NHL Draft to deliver.
The Rangers selected Don Murdoch, a forward from Cranbrook, British Columbia, with the No. 6 pick in 1976 after he scored 82 and 88 goals in his two full seasons with Medicine Hat of the Western Hockey League. He scored two goals in his NHL debut and one in his second game before being held scoreless in the third.
But his fourth NHL game, against the Minnesota North Stars at Met Center, was one for the record books.
Murdoch scored 8:23 into the second period to make it 5-2, then connected again at 12:31 and completed his first NHL hat trick at 19:50.
The Rangers were ahead 8-4 late in the game when Murdoch earned his spot in the record book. He got his fourth of the game at 17:32, then became the first member of the Rangers to score five goals in a single game when he beat Gary Smith with 10 seconds remaining.
The NHL has seen a player score five or more goals in a game 60 times through 2023-24. Murdoch is still the only player to do it as a teenager; he was 19 years and 353 days old when he made history.
Murdoch ended the season with 32 goals and 56 points in 59 games; a torn Achilles tendon likely cost him the Calder Trophy as NHL rookie of the year. However, not much went right for him after that.
He was arrested for cocaine possession in the summer of 1977 and sat out a 40-game suspension to start 1978-79. He later admitted to drug and alcohol problems, and the Rangers sent him to the Edmonton Oilers at the NHL Trade Deadline in 1980. Murdoch played his last NHL game in 1982 and retired from hockey after four seasons in the minors.
One Game, One Goal, Goodbye: Oct. 8, 1988
A total of 59 skaters, from Bill Allum to Bill Wylie, have played exactly one game for the Rangers. Doug Wickenheiser is unique among them — he’s the only one to score a goal in his lone appearance.
Wickenheiser took a circuitous route to the Rangers, who signed him as a free agent in the summer of 1988. He was the No. 1 pick in the 1980 draft by the Canadiens, who were looking for a big, talented center as the stars of the 1970s dynasty began to retire. Instead, they earned the scorn of their fans for passing on Montreal native Denis Savard, who went No. 3 to Chicago and wound up in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
It’s not that Wickenheiser was a bad player, it’s just that he wasn’t what was expected from a No. 1 overall pick and didn’t cope well with the pressure of having the Canadiens pass up a local star in the process. Montreal traded him to the St. Louis Blues early in the 1983-84 season, and he was claimed by the Vancouver Canucks in the 1987 Waiver Draft.
A season of seven goals and 26 points in 80 games left him on the outside looking in after the Canucks opted not to re-sign him in the summer of 1988; the Rangers took a flyer on him a month before training camp opened.
Wickenheiser was scratched for the Rangers’ season opener on Oct. 6, 1988, but he dressed two nights later when the Rangers visited St. Louis. The last of his four shots on goal against his former team found the back of the empty net with 46 seconds remaining, wrapping up a 4-2 victory.
And that was it. Wickenheiser was sent to the minors five days later, played with Canada’s National Team and joined the Washington Capitals. His NHL career ended in 1989-90, though he played in the minors and Europe until 1993-94. Wickenheiser was 37 when he died of cancer in 1999.
Skap-Happy: Feb. 20/March 14, 2015
If Louis Domingue earns another callup this season, he’ll have the chance to do something just one other goaltender in Rangers history has accomplished: Win both of his appearances in a Rangers uniform.
Domingue (4-1 against the Minnesota Wild on Nov. 9, 2023) and Bert Gardiner (3-1 against the Boston Bruins on March 22, 1936) each won his lone start with the Rangers. But MacKenzie Skapski, a sixth-round pick in the 2013 draft, is the only one who’s perfect in more than one start.
Skapski looked like organizational fodder at best when he was selected in the draft, despite winning 34 games with Kootenay of the Western Hockey League in 2012-13. But 28 wins, a 2.70 goals-against average and .916 save percentage in his post-draft season was good enough to earn him a contract from the Rangers and a chance to play in the minors. The 20-year-old started in the ECHL, but injuries at Hartford gave him a chance in the AHL. His play surprised everyone in the organization, moving him ahead of more highly regarded prospects. So when Henrik Lundqvist got hurt in late January of 2015, Skapski was the one who got the call.
Cam Talbot carried the bulk of the load as the Presidents’ Trophy-bound Rangers ground down opponents. But Talbot couldn’t play every night, so Skapski made his NHL debut against the woeful Buffalo Sabres on Feb. 20, 2015. He allowed a goal to Matt Moulson 14 seconds into the game but stopped the last 24 shots he faced in a 3-1 win against the League’s worst team.
The Rangers returned to Buffalo on March 20, and Skapski was again in goal. This time he was perfect, stopping all 20 shots he faced in a 2-0 win. He was the first Rangers goalie since Marcel Paille in 1957 to earn a shutout in either of his first two starts.
But Skapski’s time on Broadway didn’t last much longer. Lundqvist returned from his injury a few days later and Skapski was sent back to the minors, never to see the NHL again. The Rangers didn’t tender him a contract after he spent 2016-17 in the minors, and by the summer of 2019 he had retired — taking with him a 2-0-0 record in two appearances and a unique place in team history.
Hats off to Matt: Dec. 29, 2016
The Rangers have had 296 hat tricks (280 in the regular season, 16 in the playoffs), scored by 226 players. It’s hard to imagine a more unlikely one than Matt Puempel’s three-goal night just after Christmas in 2016.
Puempel was a first-round pick by the Ottawa Senators in the 2011 draft who never panned out. The Rangers claimed him off waivers on Nov. 21, 2016, after he scored four goals and had six points in 52 games during three seasons with the Senators. He got off to a fast start, scoring in his first game with the Rangers, then went nearly a month before connecting again.
The Rangers hit the road after Christmas, and Puempel celebrated four nights after the holiday in Glendale, Arizona.
Puempel had not scored a power-play goal in his 63 NHL games before he got one 2:24 after the opening faceoff against the Arizona Coyotes. The game was tied 3-3 with 5:20 remaining when Puempel scored again, also on the power play. He completed by far the best night of his career with a third power-play goal, this one with 17 seconds remaining, to cap a 6-3 victory.
But to say that his lone NHL hat trick was the apex of Puempel’s career would be an understatement. He missed time with a concussion, scored in his first game back in late January, then went without a goal for the rest of the season. The Rangers traded him to Detroit early in 2017-18; he spent the rest of that season in the AHL, scored one goal while playing briefly for the Red Wings in 2018-19, then spent one season back in the AHL before continuing his career in Europe.
His Rangers career ended with six goals — three of them on one night in Arizona. No one who’s had a hat trick with the Rangers has ever scored fewer goals during his time with the team.
The Mark of Z: March 5, 2020
The deal that brought Mika Zibanejad to New York from the Ottawa Senators in July 2016 is one of the best in Rangers history.. He’s averaged more than a point a game during the past six seasons and keyed a team that’s been to the Eastern Conference Final twice in the past three seasons.
But he’s never shown brighter than he did against the Washington Capitals shortly before COVID-19 brought the 2019-20 season to an early end.
Zibanejad became the third player in Rangers history to score five goals in a game and the second in NHL history (the first since Detroit’s Sergei Fedorov on Dec. 26, 1996) to get No. 5 in overtime when he beat Ilya Samsonov with a backhander 33 seconds into OT for a 6-5 win against the Washington Capitals at the Garden.
It looked like Zibanejad might end up with a four-goal night when his power-play goal with 1:42 remaining in regulation put the Rangers ahead 5-4. But Alex Ovechkin scored his 47th of the season 59 seconds later to send the game into OT. Zibanejad wasted little time getting his name into the record book and giving the Rangers the win.
He was greeted by an empty locker room when he entered after his big night — until his teammates came out of hiding and quickly mobbed him.
“The puck followed me today, I guess,” Zibanejad said of his big night. “You look at the goals, some unbelievable plays were being made. Today I was at the right spot at the right time.”
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