Former Rangers come together on Shanghai Dragons in KHL
A KHL team based in Shanghai, China, is just about the last place you’d expect to see a reunion of former New York Rangers. But that’s exactly what’s happening with the Shanghai Dragons, who boast four ex-Rangers players as well as former coach Gerard Gallant and assistant Mike Kelly.
Gallant, who coached the Rangers from 2021-23 with Kelly as one of his assistants, has two of his former players back with him — center Greg McKegg (2019-20 and 2021-22) and defenseman Ben Harpur (2022-23). The other ex-Rangers are defenseman Adam Clendening (2016-17) and center Ryan Spooner (2018). Harpur signed with Shanghai this week, and McKegg joined the team in early October and was scoreless Tuesday in his first game, a 7-6 shootout loss to Spartak.
Despite the loss, the Dragons are off to a good start, espite playing thousands of miles from their ostensible home city. The franchise, which entered the KHL as Kunlun Red Star in 2016, hasn’t played in China since 2019-20 due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic in that country. The Dragons play their home games in St. Petersburg, Russia, this season but plan to return to Shanghai for 2026-27.
It’s been a whirlwind couple of months for the 62-year-old coach. Gallant went to the KHL after he failed to draw any interest from NHL teams. He is 369-262-70 with four ties in an NHL career that has seen him coach the Columbus Blue Jackets, Florida Panthers and Vegas Golden Knights, as well as the Rangers. He won the Jack Adams Award as the top NHL coach in 2017-18, when he guided the Golden Knights to the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season.
“I’ve been out for two years … and nothing’s happened yet,” Gallant said in August on TSN 1050 in Toronto. “Am I a little pissed off? Yeah. But that’s the way it goes and you wait for your turn and your opportunities.
“So, I took this job. I’m going to Russia, going to St. Petersburg. I have a two-year contract and I’m going to honor that contract.”
Gallant’s .662 points percentage in his two full seasons is second-best in Rangers history, behind only Mike Keenan (.667), who coached them to the Stanley Cup championship in 1993-94, his lone season in New York. Keenan, who turned 76 on Tuesday, is also the first man to coach a Stanley Cup champion and a Gagarin Cup winner in the KHL (with Metallurg Magnitogorsk in 2014).
In mid-August, Gallant agreed to a two-year contract, tasked with filling out a roster in less than six weeks and running a franchise that hasn’t made the Gagarin Cup Playoffs in eight years.
So far, so good. Despite the shootout loss to Spartak, the Dragons have won nine of their first 16 games and are tied for second in the Tarasov Division of the Western Conference. They are four points behind first-place Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, which has played two more games, and even with Severstal, which has played one more game but has 10 regulation wins to seven for Shanghai. The Dragons play their next game at Dinamo Minsk on Friday.
Rangers reunion takes place in KHL
Clendening has been the most impactful of the former Rangers. He is tied for third in scoring among defensemen with 14 points (two goals, 12 assists) in 16 games and averages 22:54 TOI.
This is his second season with the Dragons franchise; he had 22 points (five goals, 17 assists) for Kunlun last season. Clendening played 31 games for the Rangers in 2016-17, his only season in New York, finishing with 11 points (two goals, nine assists).
The Rangers, who signed him as a free agent, didn’t re-sign him. He had brief stints with the Arizona Coyotes in 2017-18 and Blues Jackets in 2018-19, then played with four AHL teams before joining Ilves of Liiga in Finland for the 2023-24 season and switching to the KHL last season.
Spooner, a 33-year-old center, was part of the package the Rangers received when they traded Rick Nash to the Boston Bruins on Feb. 20, 2018. He had 16 points (four goals, 12 assists) for the Rangers in the 20 remaining games that season. But after a slow start in 2018-19, Sponner was traded to the Edmonton Oilers for center Ryan Strome on Nov. 16, 2018.
He’s played with four teams since coming to the KHL in 2020. Spooner has 12 points (four goals, eight assists) in 15 games this season.
The Rangers signed Harpur as a free agent on Oct. 27, 2022, and he had six points (one goal, five assists) in 42 regular-season games with them. He did not dress in the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs and was injured much of the past two seasons with Hartford of the American Hockey League.
New York was also the last NHL stop for the 33-year-old McKegg, who had five points (two goals, three assists) in 43 games during his second stint with the Blueshirts in 2021-22. He also had five goals and nine points in 53 games in 2019-20 before signing with the Bruins as a free agent.
The Rangers did not re-sign him after his second stint on Broadway ended in the summer of 2023. He joined the Edmonton Oilers but spent the next two seasons with their AHL affiliate in Bakersfield before sitting out last season.
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