Five players that you completely forgot were New York Rangers
The New York Rangers have had a lot of good players on their rosters throughout the years. With that said, we bet you forgot played on Broadway!
There have been many recognizable faces to wear the New York Rangers’ red, white and blue sweater over the years.
Since 1990, the franchise has seen players like Brian Leetch, Mark Messier, Mike Richter, Adam Graves and Henrik Lundqvist become immortal between the Garden’s walls. Other great players like Wayne Gretzky, Jaromir Jagr, Martin St. Louis, Eric Lindros, Brendan Shannahan, and many, many more have pulled the Blueshirt over their heads as well.
There are also a handful of very successful NHL players who played with the Rangers in this time period that you might not remember being in New York.
These players were on Broadway for very brief stints due to trade, free agency, retirement. While they were household names with other franchises, or at least very good players for an extended period of time, their time in New York will fade into irrelevance.
Who are these players, and how did they do in their forgettable stints with the Rangers?
Markus Naslund
After spending a majority of his career with the Vancouver Canucks, Naslund signed with the Rangers on a one-year deal in 2008-09.
Naslund, 35 at the time start of the season, was coming off of a wildly successful run in Vancouver where he scored 60 points or more in eight of his last nine seasons. That stretch included a 105-point season, an 90 point season, a 84 point season and a 70 point season. He broke the streak in 2007-08 but still tallied 55 points in that stretch.
In his only season with the Rangers, the former first round pick of Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft played very well, notching 24 goals and 22 assists in all 82 games.
Naslund also provided loads of leadership.
He was the captain of the Canucks for seven years before coming to New York. He bolstered a solid leadership group in the Big Apple, wearing an ‘A’ alongside Scott Gomez and under Chris Drury, the captain at the time.
In a time where the Rangers were still beginning to infuse young players into the lineup, Naslund, at least for a season, provided some stability, especially once Tom Renney was fired and John Tortorella came in.
Many were surprised when Naslund called it quits after the season. Because of that, he likely won’t stay on the Hall of Fame ballot too long and he certainly won’t be remembered as a Ranger.
Pascal Dupuis
While Dupuis was never a star player — he did make the All Star Game once, though — he was often a Rangers killer. In 45 games against the Rangers, Dupuis tallied 24 points.
The Rangers acquired Dupuis from the Minnesota Wild on Feb. 9, 2007 for Adam Hall. The Rangers were hoping to use Dupuis to get a leg up on the playoff race. To that point in the season, the Quebec native had 10 goals to his name.
Well, he didn’t last a month on Broadway as the Rangers.
On Feb. 27, the team dealt Dupuis and a third-round pick to the Atlanta Thrashers for prospect Alex Bourret. Bourret never played an NHL game in his pro hockey career and was left off the Wolf Pack’s roster after an awful 2007-08 season.
The following season, Dupuis was dealt again, this time to the Pittsburgh Penguins, where he’d spend the final eight years of his hockey career.
In his six games with the Rangers, the left wing tallied a single goal in a Feb. 15 game against the Hurricanes.
Pavel Bure
Most Rangers fans remember Pavel Bure as the Vancouver Canucks’ best player in the 1993-94 Stanley Cup Final. They do not remember the fact that Bure finished his career as a Ranger.
In 2001-02, the Rangers acquired Pavel Bure from the Florida Panthers, hoping to once again be a relevant hockey franchise.
Well, looking back, the trade was a disaster.
To acquire the 30-year old, the Rangers gave up two prospects (both of which, to be fair, didn’t have relevant NHL careers), a first round pick, a fourth round pick and the option to swap second round picks.
Bure would finish the 01-02 season tallying 20 points in 12 games with the Blueshirts, a tremendous start to a long career in New York, right?
Wrong.
In 2002-03, Bure notched 19 goals and 11 assists through 39 games. He would never play another NHL game again.
Bure suffered a knee injury in the preseason that lingered throughout the regular season. He then tore his meniscus in his left knee after a knee-on-knee collision. After sitting out the 2003-04 season, Bure decided to hang up the skates due to his health.
He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2012, but imagine what he could have done in Rangers blue if he was healthy?
Mike Knuble
The Rangers acquired Knuble from the Red Wings in 1998 in a deal that sent the Red Wings a second and third round pick. Coming off his first full NHL season with the Red Wings, where he scored 13 points in 53 games, Knuble played well with the Rangers in 98-99, tallying 15 goals and 20 assists in a bottom-six role.
In 59 games with the Rangers the following season, the Toronto, Ontario native seemed to regress as he only had 14 points. The team then dealt him to the legendary Pat Burns’ Boston Bruins for another winger, Rob DiMaio. DiMaio only played 12 games with the Rangers, scoring just one goal in those contents.
Little did the Blueshirts know that the trade would haunt them for the next decade.
Knuble spent the rest of his career playing for some of the Rangers’ most hated rivals; the Bruins, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Philadelphia Flyers and the Washington Capitals.
After a few middling seasons in Boston, Knuble broke out in 2002-03 when he notched 30 goals and 29 assists in 75 games. He went on to play 1068 games and tally 278 goals and 548 points in his career.
Just another example of the roster mismanagement by the turn-of-the-century Rangers.
Jonathan Marchessault
Now, this one is kind of cheating because Marchessault never suited up for the Rangers, but he was a member of their organization for a year, his first pro hockey season.
Marchessault played the 2011-12 season with the then Connecticut Whale. In 76 games, the then 20-year-old notched 24 goals and 40 assists and was one of the team’s best players.
The Rangers offered Marchessault a contract in the offseason, but the Quebec City rejected it and took a similar deal with the Blue Jackets.
When asked about the decision, Marchessault noted that he’d get more of an opportunity for playing time with the Blue Jackets, as the Rangers were just coming off of an Eastern Conference Finals appearance and weren’t gonna have much playing time to give him.
Over the next three years, Marchessault only played four NHL games; two with Columbus and two with Tampa Bay.
Finally, in the 2015-16 season, he carved out an NHL niche with the LIghtning. In 45 games, he scored seven goals and 11 assists and finally felt like an NHL player.
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On July 1, 2016, the Panthers signed Marchessault to his first ever one-way contract. He scored 30 goals and 51 points with the team, still not convincing them to keep him in the Expansion Draft. The Golden Knights got him and the rest is history.
If the Rangers were able to keep him, maybe they would have won a Cup by now?