Mike Keenan reveals he almost had second chance to coach Rangers
Mike Keenan is the only coach in the past 84 years that’s guided the New York Rangers to a Stanley Cup championship. Incredibly, that title-winning 1993-94 season was Keenan’s only year on Broadway, with a tumultuous divorce quickly following the parade through the Canyon of Heroes in Manhattan.
But on a recent episode of the Spittin Chiclets podcast, Keenan revealed that he came close to a second tour as Rangers coach eight years after winning the Cup.
According to Keenan, the Rangers reached out to him not long after he became coach of the Florida Panthers on Dec. 3, 2001. With the Panthers looking to trade star forward Pavel Bure, Keenan had trade discussions with the Rangers about Bure. And it’s during that time, Keenan said the Rangers tried to lure their championship-winning coach back to New York.
“Things got tight (in Florida), they weren’t drawing much (attendance) so [Panthers owner Alan Cohen] said ‘I gotta trade Pavel (Bure)’. Pavel at that time was making 10 million,” Keenan explained. “But anyway, my owner Alan Cohen would always come and sit in my office. So, I pick up the phone, it’s the New York Rangers. ‘Will you come and coach us’. He’s looking at me, he can probably hear. I hang up and he says ‘you’re not going anywhere’. I said ‘Alan, the team here, you just cut the budget by half, or more than half’. He says, ‘No. You’re not going.'”
And that was that. The Rangers didn’t land Keenan, but they did get Bure on March 18, 2002. Ron Low remained Rangers coach and they finished out of the playoffs with 80 points, 11th in the Eastern Conference.
Keenan and the Panthers didn’t fare much better and also missed the playoffs — not surprising considering the slashing of payroll and trading one of the great players in the sport. Keenan eventually became Panthers general manager and lasted until 2006 with the organization.
The Rangers went out and hired Bryan Trottier as coach for 2002-03. But that disastrous decision blew up by January when Trottier was fired after only 54 games. It was part of several dark years for the Rangers, when they missed the playoffs seven consecutive seasons.
Who knows if things would’ve been different if Keenan jumped from the Panthers to the Rangers. After his poor relationship with GM Neil Smith in 1993-94, Keenan would’ve worked for Glen Sather had he joined the Rangers in 2002.
It’s probably best for Keenan’s legacy with the Rangers that he was one-and-done, but forever a champion with the Blueshirts.
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Mike Keenan reveals Flyers owner ‘absolutely hated’ Rangers
Keenan is the 15th all-time winningest coach in NHL history with 672 victories. He coached the Philadelphia Flyers, Chicago Blackhawks, Rangers, St. Louis Blues, Vancouver Canucks, Boston Bruins, Panthers and Calgary Flames. He won the Stanley Cup only once despite being considered one of the great coaches of his era.
He had already achieved much success and acclaim before he joined the Rangers. In fact, Flyers owner Ed Snider tried to rectify having fired Keenan several years earlier when he tried to lure Keenan back in 1993.
“Mr. Snider invites me for breakfast, we’re having breakfast. ‘I want to talk to you about the team’ and so on.” Keenan, now 75, recounted on Spittin Chiclets. “He’s got a sports jacket on and he pulls out a five year deal in charge of player personnel and head coach. I said ‘Mr. Snider I can’t sign that right now.'”
Snider probably was stunned by that response. What happened shortly thereafter, though, infuriated him.
“So then I go and I end up now getting pursued by the New York Rangers and I sign a deal, the first to make a million and he never talked to me the rest of his life because he hated the New York Rangers. Absolutely hated the New York Rangers,” Keenan said.
The rest is history. Keenan took a talented team that collapsed and failed to make the playoffs in 1992-93, forced Smith to bring in players loyal to him and who could add bite to the Rangers roster, and helped the Rangers win their first Stanley Cup championship since 1940.
It became known that during the Cup run, Keenan was negotiating to become coach and GM of the Blues. It was a wild and crazy ride that ended in divorce not long after the ticker tape was cleaned up in New York City.
But at least there was good reason for that parade. “This one will last a lifetime.” Indeed.
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