#2 Brad Park and Dale Rolfe
The great Rangers teams of the early 1970’s had some fine defense pairings including Jim Neilson and Rod Seiling, but the duo that anchored those teams was future Hall of Famer Brad Park and his partner, Dale Rolfe.
When Rolfe was acquired in a trade with Detroit in March, 1971 he played the remainder of the season with Tim Horton as his partner, but the next season he teamed up with Park and they were inseparable for the next four years.
Park was one of the best stickhandling defensemen in NHL history, second only to Bobby Orr at the time. Rolfe was a lanky 6’4″ tall defenseman who score all of 25 goals in a nine year NHL career. They were the perfect pairing as Rolfe stayed back during Park’s forays into the offensive zone.
For three straight years, the duo was the top defense pair for a Rangers team that made it to the Semi-Finals twice and the Finals once. The 1972 team was destined to win it all, but Rolfe played a role in that not happening.
It was a Rolfe slapshot that hit Jean Ratelle and broke his ankle in March 1972. At the time, Ratelle had already tallied 46 goals and 109 points in only 63 games and was headed for the greatest individual season in Rangers history.
Ratelle made it back to the team for the Stanley Cup Finals, but was not 100% as the Blueshirts lost to the Bruins in six games.
A second memory involving Rolfe was the beating he took at the hands of Dave Schultz of the Philadelphia Flyers in the first period of the seventh game of the 1974 Stanley Cup Semi-Finals. Schultz was the epitome of the Broad Street Bullies. It was a one-sided, savage beating that ended with a head butt by the biggest goon in hockey. No Ranger stepped into stop it as Rolfe was dazed and bloodied. The Flyers outshot the Rangers 46-15 and won the game and the series 4-3. The Flyers went on to with their first Stanley Cup.
Rolfe endured an injury filled season in 1975-75 and retired after the season. 13 games into the next season, Park was dispatched to the Boston Bruins where he went on to star for eight more seasons.