Part Two: New York Rangers teams that (somehow) didn’t win the Cup
The New York Rangers have won four Stanley Cups in their storied history and lost in the Finals seven times. In 1971 they had a golden opportunity, but bad luck and timing beset them one more time.
This is the second in our series looking at some of the greatest New York Rangers team to not win a Stanley Cup. The 1970-71 New York Rangers seemed destined to end a Cup drought going back to 1940, but fell short.
1971
As the New York Rangers and their fans know all too well, the Boston Bruins and Bobby Orr dominated the NHL in first half of the 1970s.
Boston eliminated the Blueshirts in the 1970 playoffs en route to winning the franchise’s fourth Stanley Cup, and two years later would break the hearts of the Rangers and their faithful in the Cup finals, beating New York in six games.
In 1970-71, the Bruins were poised to repeat as NHL champions after leading the league’s regular season with 57 wins, 121 points and 399 goals.
However, Boston’s long-time nemesis, the Montreal Canadiens, had other plans.
After finishing with 97 points, the fourth-best in the league’s regular season, Les Habitants upset the Bruins in seven games in the opening round of the playoffs.
The Bruins posted a 33-4-2 record at the Boston Garden that season, but the Canadiens won there twice in the series, including Game Seven, stunning Boston and, frankly, the entire hockey world.
With Boston eliminated, the Rangers seemed to have finally caught a huge break and at the right time.
The Blueshirts had quite the regular season, themselves, finishing in second place in the East Division with a 49-18-11 record for 109 points, second-most in the league.
They set franchise records for wins, goals (259), power-play tallies (30), and 20-goal scorers (seven), and for longest home undefeated streak (26, 19-0-7, including the final two matches of 1969-70), home victories (30), home points (67) and fewest home losses (2).
A great duo in goal
The Rangers’ success started in goal, where Eddie Giacomin and Gilles Villemure combined for a 2.22 goals-against average and won the Blueshirts’ first Vezina Trophy since Dave Kerr earned it in 1940.
Giacomin led the league with eight shutouts, and posted a 27-10-7 record and 2.16 goals-against average. Villemure finished with a 22-8-4 mark, 2.30 GAA and four shutouts.
The defense was led by Brad Park — who notched career highs in points (44) and penalty minutes (114) – as well as Jim Neilson (32 points), Rod Seiling (27 points) and Tim Horton (20 points).
Up front, Walt Tkaczuk led with 75 points. Dave Balon notched a team high and career best 36 goals. Rod Gilbert produced 30 goals and 31 assists for 61 points. Jean Ratelle contributed 26 tallies and 46 helpers for 72 points, and Ted Irvine scored 20 times for the first time in his career.
The Rangers also consummated a trade with the Detroit Red Wings on October 31, 1970 (one that proved among the best in Blueshirts’ history) acquiring forward Pete Stemkowski for spare defenseman Larry Brown.
The Red Wings weren’t very good when they hired new coach Ned Harkness to essentially clean house prior to the 1970-71 season. It was a radical move for the Wings, as Harkness was he first coach hired from the college ranks, based on his success at RPI and Cornell.
George Grimm’s fabulous book “We Did Everything but Win” notes that Harkness disliked Stemkowski because of his penchant for locker room pranks, earning him the moniker “the Polish Prince”.
Stemkowski, a 6-foot-1, 195-pound center who had won a Stanley Cup with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1967, gave the Rangers stability and durability. And some timely playoff goals.
The Rangers followed their record-setting season by beating Toronto in the playoffs’ opening round in six games. Along the way, the Blueshirts enjoyed streak-busting wins.
The Blueshirts’ victory in Game Four in Toronto was their first road conquest in the postseason since 1958, having dropped 15 in a row.
In Game Six at Maple Leaf Gardens, Bob Nevin’s overtime goal (his second of the match) clinched the series for the Rangers, their first playoff round victory in 21 years.
Next up, the Blueshirts faced Bobby Hull and the Chicago Blackhawks in the semifinals.
Stemkowski scored twice in overtime in the series – in games one and six, the latter in the third extra period, just over four hours after the match began. Stemkowski’s goal at 41:29 of the third overtime was the last by a Ranger until Marian Gaborik scored in triple OT against Washington in 2012.
With the Bruins already eliminated and the Rangers carrying momentum into Game Seven, the Blueshirts seemed destined to meet Montreal in the finals. That’s where the Blueshirts legendary bad luck steps up. Although the Rangers had he second-best record in the league, Chicago had home ice advantage due to the fact that they finished first in the Western Conference.
As a result, the deciding match was at Chicago Stadium, one of the noisiest venues ever built, but the Rangers had already split the first two games of the series there and took Game Five to overtime before falling.
The crowd wouldn’t bother the Rangers, but “The Golden Jet” would.
The game was tied at two early in the third period when Hull (who won Game Five in overtime) ripped one past Giacomin. Chicago added an empty-netter for a 4-2 win.
Looking back, perhaps a harbinger of the Rangers’ fate in the Blackhawks’ series can be traced to February 3 of the regular season, when the Chicago ended the Blueshirts’ home undefeated streak.
The score? Chicago 4, Rangers 2.
Next up: The year that a circus and the Detroit Red Wings sent the Rangers packing. Plus, how the Blueshirts were energized by the “The Fog” and reinstatement of a player who was suspended by the NHL after his arrest for cocaine possession.
Great teams that didn't win, part 1. light. Related Story