Al MacNeil, Rangers defenseman and four-time Cup winner as coach and exec, dies at 89
Al MacNeil, who played for the New York Rangers late in his career before going to great success as a coach and NHL executive, died Sunday in Calgary. He was 89.
MacNeil played 11 seasons in the NHL as a low-scoring defensive defenseman. The 10th of those seasons came with the Rangers in 1966-67, after they claimed him from the Montreal Canadiens in the NHL Waiver Draft – a move that came shortly after the Canadiens had claimed him from the Chicago Black Hawks.
Rangers coach/general manager Emile Francis was doing all he could to spark a franchise that had missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs for four seasons and finished last in the six-team NHL in 1965-66. He knew MacNeil wasn’t going to provide much offense – he had one assist in 51 games for the Hawks in ’65-66, finishing with fewer points than goalie Glenn Hall. But Francis was looking for defense-first defensemen after the Rangers surrendered 261 goals in 70 games on the way to their last-place finish. MacNeil was a combined plus-80 for Chicago from 1962-63 through 1964-65 while playing 209 of 210 possible games and putting up 55 points (10 goals, 45 assists) and 300 penalty minutes during that span.
Francis saw MacNeil as an ideal shutdown defender, which turned out to be the case. The native of Sydney, Nova Scotia, had just four points, all assists, in 58 games. But he led all Rangers defensemen by finishing plus-9 and played a valuable role in helping the Rangers reduce their goals-against total by 72. They returned to the playoffs for the first time since 1962 and finished over .500 (30-28-12) for the first time since 1957-58 — even though they actually scored seven fewer goals than they had while finishing last during the previous season.
MacNeil had no points in the Rangers’ four-game sweep by the Montreal Canadiens in the Semifinals, and the 2-1 overtime loss at Madison Square Garden that ended their season also ended his time with the Rangers. Francis didn’t want to lose younger defensemen like Jim Neilson, Rod Seiling and Arnie Brown, so he made MacNeil available in the 1967 NHL Expansion Draft. He was the first defenseman taken (in the fourth round) by the Pittsburgh Penguins, who had nabbed another Ranger, center Earl Ingarfield, in the previous round and later grabbed Andy Bathgate, the Rangers’ all-time scoring leader at the time.
The 1967-68 season turned out to be MacNeil’s last in the NHL. He finished with 12 points (two goals, 10 assists) while playing all 74 games for the Penguins and ended his NHL career with 92 points (17 goals, 75 assists) and 615 penalty minutes in 524 regular-season games. MacNeil had four points, all assists, in 37 playoff games.
Former Rangers defenseman, 4-time Cup winner MacNeil dies at 89
He played one season with Houston in the Central Hockey League and one with Montreal of the American Hockey League before hanging up his skates to take a role in 1969-70 with the Canadiens’ AHL affiliate, the Montreal Voyageurs. But he was promoted to coach of the Canadiens in December 1970 after Claude Ruel resigned — and five months later he had won the Stanley Cup that had eluded him as a player.
A big part of that success was his decision late in the season to go with a rookie goaltender named Ken Dryden, who had played for him in the AHL, over veteran Rogie Vachon and understudy Phil Myre. After a meeting with his three goalies to map out Montreal’s run to the postseason, MacNeil pulled Dryden aside and told him “We have a plan,” without elaborating, according to NHL.com’s Dave Stubbs.
With Dryden manning the crease, the Canadiens stunned the regular-season champion Boston Bruins in seven games, knocked off the Minnesota North Stars in six then defeated the Black Hawks in seven games to win perhaps the most unlikely of their 24 Stanley Cup championships. MacNeil was carried around the ice at Chicago Stadium on the shoulders of defenseman Pierre Bouchard and Marc Tardif.
“When you win that way, you’re thrilled for yourself, but also for the person next to you,” Dryden told Stubbs. “There’s so much thrill to be passed around, to be shared. The one thing with Al is that it was different. He was really happy to win for himself, for the Canadiens, for the players. But I had never before had a coach who I sensed was genuinely happy for me … It was so clear to me that this is how Al felt. It was really something special.”
But having been moved into the top job in Montreal on an interim basis, MacNeil stepped down a month after winning the Cup. Scotty Bowman was hired and led the Canadiens to five championships from 1972-73 to 1978-79.
Instead of trying for a second straight Stanley Cup, MacNeil was sent back to the Voyageurs, who had been relocated to his home province of Nova Scotia. He led the team to Calder Cup championships in 1972, 1976 and 1977 while helping the Canadiens develop some of their greatest talents. He is one of only six men to coach championship teams in the AHL and NHL.
MacNeil returned to Montreal and won the Cup twice more with the Canadiens as director of player personnel before leaving to become coach of the Atlanta Flames in 1979. He later followed the franchise to Calgary, eventually winding up as director of player development and pro scouting. MacNeil helped the Flames reach to the Stanley Cup Final in 1986 and win their only championship in 1989 as assistant general manager, a role he held from 1985 to 2006 — along with short stints as an assistant coach (1991-92) and coach (2002-03) before stepping away after the 2005-06 season.
MacNeil is a member of the AHL Hockey Hall of Fame, the Nova Scotia Hall of Fame, and the Cape Breton Sports Hall of Fame.
More About:New York Rangers News
Read This Next
