New York Rangers: Five worst days in team history
By Steve Paulus
#2 Jean Ratelle breaks his ankle
The 1971-72 New York Rangers were poised to break the great Stanley Cup drought. They were a well balanced hockey team with a solid defense, four excellent lines and great goaltending. They also had a top line that was determined to be remembered as one of the best lines in the history of the NHL. Known as the GAG line, Vic Hadfield, Jean Ratelle and Rod Gilbert were simply unstoppable that season.
The GAG line was led by Jean Ratelle, their silky smooth center and team leader. After 63 games, he has scored 45 goals and added 64 assists for 109 points. Projected over a 78 game season, he was headed towards a 54 goals, 79 assist season for a total of 135 points.
That goal total would had been exceeded by only one player in league history, Phil Esposito. That assist total had been achieved by only one player in NHL history, Bobby Orr. Only Eposito and Orr had totaled more than 135 points in a season through the 1971-72 season.
Not only that, the Rangers had a record of 42-11-10 through their first 63 games. They stumbled to a 6-6-3 record after they lost Ratelle. While they probably wouldn’t have caught the Bruins for first place overall, they would have finished with a better record.
Where the injury absolutely killed the Rangers was in the Finals against the Bruins. Although Ratelle returned to play all six games of the series, he only had one assist and was shell of himself. Three of the four Boston wins were by one goal. Who knows what the impact would have been if the Rangers had a healthy Ratelle, the second best forward in the NHL, in action that series.
While the fact that the Rangers didn’t win the Cup in 1972 didn’t lead to any kind of immediate shake up, they wouldn’t make the Finals for another seven years and it played a role in the blockbuster deal between the Rangers and Bruins that sent Ratelle and Brad Park to Boston for Phil Esposito and Carol Vadnais, four years later.
A Cup win in 1972 would probably have meant no Bruins trade and no Phil Esposito in a Ranger uniform. That trade led him to eventually becoming the Blueshirts’ General Manager for three tumultuous and ultimately unsuccessful seasons in the mid-eighties.