Rangers history would be very different had the Toronto Maple Leafs finished off the Boston Bruins in 2013.
Following the conclusion of the Bruins and Maple Leafs first round series this year, it brought back a wave of nostalgia. The Last time the teams squared off in the postseason was 2013 in which the Bruins came back from a three-goal deficit in less than ten minutes. That Toronto team was a bizarrely effective compilation of veterans and unproven young players.
At points, they dominated the Bruins, including the first fifty minutes of game seven. Now two time Stanley Cup Champion Phil Kessel had six points in the series including two in game seven. This was a game seven for the ages in which the Bruins simply refused to lose. For almost the final five minutes of the game, Boston played with their goalie pulled to try and pull even.
Six minutes and five seconds into the overtime period, Patrice Bergeron scored the game-winning goal. The Bruins would go onto win the eastern conference and make it to the Stanley Cup final before losing to the Chicago Blackhawks.
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Had the Maple Leafs not collapsed, things may have turned out very different for the Rangers. In fact, they might not have ever hired Alain Vigneault during the summer of 2013.
The Rangers
Now, the 2013 lockout season Rangers were not world beaters by any stretch of the imagination. Though the team boasted a shiny new Rick Nash, an emerging Derek Stepan and an okay defensive core, the bottom six was outright ugly. The team rolled with Taylor Pyatt, Michael Haley, and Kris Newbury in the playoffs. Aside from those terrible forwards, the team’s defense featured a mentally fragile Michael Del Zotto, journeyman Steve Eminger, washed up Roman Hamrlik and a shaky John Moore.
This wasn’t a great team that was going to dominate on its way to a Stanley Cup. It was a John Tortorella coached team that would try to win every single game 2-1 and riding Henrik Lundqvist. In the first round against the Washington Capitals that year, this formula paid off in the shape of two straight wins in games six and seven.
Although this team was underwhelming talent-wise, the entire league was off due to the lockout season. Due to the owners locking out the players, all 30 teams played an abbreviated 48 game schedule. This created a frantic atmosphere where underqualified teams like the Maple Leafs could sneak into the playoffs.
The Hypothetical
So we’re jumping in our time machine and by some stroke of luck, the Maple Leafs hold on in the TD Garden and advance to round two. Instead of the Bruins steamrolling the Rangers in five games, it is a much more even series. Going head to head against that Maple Leafs team, the Rangers would have had a very good chance to win.
Comparing the two teams regular season performance and roster, the edge goes to the Rangers. With an in his prime Henrik Lundqvist and the shutdown pair of Ryan McDonagh and Dan Girardi, Toronto’s top scoring threat, Kessel, would be held in check. Outside of Kessel, the Leafs next best players were Nazim Kadri and James Van Riemsdyk.
The Rangers had a talented forward group that included Ryan Callahan, Carl Hagelin, Brad Richards, Derick Brassard, Nash, and Stepan. matched up against the Leafs forwards, the Rangers would not have had too much trouble.
Conference Finals
After getting by the Maple Leafs in the second round on their talent, the Rangers would face off with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the conference finals. Now, prior to the 2014 postseason, the Rangers had never beaten a Sidney Crosby Penguins team in the playoffs. However, the 2013 iteration of Pittsburgh was not a standout.
In fact, the Penguins only scored two goals in four games in the 2013 conference final. The Bruins outright destroyed them in a four-game sweep. The Rangers would have played well, but probably not as well as the Bruins against Pittsburgh. Giving the Penguins the benefit of the doubt, they probably go six games against the 2013 Rangers.
The 2013 Penguins were extremely dinged up and did not boast the same level of depth they did during the last two Stanley Cup final runs. Outside of the superb Crosby, the next two leading point scorers on the team were Pascal Dupuis and Chris Kunitz. Kunitz’s point total (52) should be taken with a grain of salt being that he rode shotgun with Crosby for the entire season.
So the Rangers eke by the Penguins in six games in the conference finals and move onto the 2013 Stanley Cup final against the Blackhawks.
The Cinderella run ends
It’s taken quite a few suppositions and hypotheticals to get this far, but it’s time for a reality check. There is no recipe in which the 2013 Rangers could have beaten the 2013 Blackhawks. That Chicago team was loaded from top to bottom with no weaknesses. The Rangers bottom six and third defensive pair would’ve been no match for Patrick Kane and the other Chicago standouts.
Even with a superhuman Lundqvist and McDonagh and Girardi playing 30 minutes a night the Blackhawks simply had too much offense. If the Rangers had got lucky, they might have been able to drag the series to six. Even that is probably giving that team that had Newbury, Pyatt, and Hamrlik on the ice for a series losing goal against the Bruins too much credit.
However, if they got that far, the Rangers would not have followed the same path following that season.
The Tort’s show
The Rangers ultimately dismissed Tortorella after the slaughter against the Bruins. The players in the room had grown tired of his hyper-demanding and brutal coaching style. After a while, abrasive coaching becomes irritating and can alienate a locker room. This is what happened with Tortorella because the player exit interviews are what got then general manager Glen Sather to pull the trigger.
However, if the Maple Leafs did not blow their series against the Bruins, and our other hypotheticals came to fruition, Tortorella would have stayed. If the Rangers had kept Tortorella on as head coach for the 2013-2014 season, they probably don’t make the Stanley Cup final that year. The team under his coaching tenure was far too anemic offensively and could not score in the postseason.
Even with a breakout season from Mats Zuccarello and a renaissance season from Richards, it wouldn’t be enough. The hiring of Alain Vigneault that summer is what turned the Rangers from a grinding to a finesse style team. If the Rangers made the Cup Final in 2013, they would have remained a grinding offensive team.
In turn, New York would not have had as much success as they did with Vigneault. Tortorella would probably have only lasted one or two more seasons at the most and not picked up the President’s trophy or an Eastern Conference finals appearance.
Next: 2018 report cards: Henrik Lundqvist
Weirdly enough, the Rangers were probably better off with the Maple Leafs winning. They subsequently played a buzzsaw of a Bruins team that smoked New York. This spurred a culture change that brought about the most successful period of Rangers hockey since the early 90s.