Road Warriors: The Rangers’ Cup chase ends in the Motor City
After winning three Stanley Cups and six trips to the Finals in their first 14 years, the New York Rangers experienced their first Cup drought. They made it to the Finals only once in the next 32 years and fell just short, again victims of bad luck and bad timing.
In the first two parts of our series on great New York Rangers teams that came close to winning hockey’s Holy Grail we looked at the powerhouse teams of the early 1970s. In part three of our series, we look at one Rangers team that wasn’t expected to succeed and came thisclose to winning it all.
1950
Before Bobby Hull, Bobby Orr and dynastic Montreal Canadiens broke the hearts of the New York Rangers in the 1970s, two distinct enemies combined to thwart New York in the 1950 Stanley Cup Finals against the Detroit Red Wings: pedestrian left winger Pete Babando – and the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
In fairness to the circus owners – whose show occupied Madison Square Garden during the entire finals, forcing the Rangers to play two “home” games in Toronto with the possibility of five matches to be held in the Motor City – the Rangers sure didn’t look like Cup contenders in the regular season.
Other than goalie Chuck Rayner winning the Hart Trophy, the Rangers didn’t do much otherwise to indicate a playoff run to the Finals was imminent. The Blueshirts finished the regular season in fourth place (21 points behind first-place Detroit) with a 28-31-11 record and scored just 170 goals, fewest among the league’s six teams.
But in the opening round of the playoffs, the Rangers stunned the Montreal Canadiens, winning in five games. Forward Pentti Lund, who a season earlier won the Calder Trophy, scored five times, including a hat trick in Game Three. He also closely marked Maurice Richard, helping limit “The Rocket” to just one goal in the series.
The playoffs were only two rounds in those days and the win over Montreal meant the Rangers would face the powerhouse Detroit Red Wings in the Finals. The Wings were good, so good that between 1948 and 1956 they made the Finals seven times in nine years, winning the Cup four times.
They were headlined by Ted Lindsay and Sid Abel along with Gordie Howe who formed the Red Wings’ “Production line”. During the season, the line became the first and only in NHL history to finish one, two, three in points (Lindsay-78, Abel-69 and Howe-68).
Despite having to play their first two home games in Toronto due to the Circus occupying the Garden, the Rangers jumped out to a three games to two lead in the series. They were helped by the fact that Gordie Howe missed the entire series due to an injury he suffered in the first round.
A new hero emerged for the Rangers in the Finals. Down two games to one, Don “Bones” Raleigh scored in overtime of games four and five, becoming the first player to tally in overtime in back-to-back matches. Not bad for a center who posted just 12 goals during the regular season.
The Rangers were poised to win their fourth Cup title and first since 1940 in Game Six, but that’s when the Rangers incredible streak of bad luck emerged.
No place like home
Game Six should have been played in Toronto, but NHL rules mandated that no Cup-deciding game could be played on neutral ice. Therefore, the match would be played at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.
It didn’t seem to matter to NHL President Clarence Campbell that he hadn’t had an issue allowing the Rangers to call the neutral ice of Maple Leaf Gardens “home” earlier in the series, or the fact Detroit is still closer (by about 260 miles) to the neutral site than New York City is.
Nor, apparently, did it bother Campbell that if the neutral site was the Montreal Forum, the difference in distance would’ve favored New York, but by only 187 miles. But then, it’s unknown whether the Canadiens would’ve been willing hosts to a team that had just eliminated them from the playoffs. It would’ve certainly been a lot to ask.
The game was a heartbreaker with the Blueshirts holding leads of 2-0, 3-1 and 4-3 before third-period goals by “Terrible” Ted Lindsay and Sid Abel gave the Red Wings a 5-4 win. There’s no way of knowing how much playing in front of a home crowd helped the Wings as they rallied for the victory.
The loss stung, but wasn’t a killer. There was still a Game Seven to be played.
Road warriors fall short
Despite having played on the road for nearly three straight weeks including the last four games of the Finals in Detroit, the Rangers fought valiantly, taking leads of 2-0 and 3-2, before losing on Babando’s goal at 8:31 of double overtime.
It was the first time a Stanley Cup Final Game Seven had been won in overtime in league history and is still the only Game Seven to go to multiple overtimes.
And who was Pete Babando whose backhander beat Rayner and launched a Detroit dynasty? He was a journeyman left wing who scored all of six goals in 56 games that season. Scoring the Cup winning goal didn’t mean much as Babando was sent packing to the Blackhawks that summer in a multi-player deal.
Ironically, Babando would become a Ranger for 29 games in January 1953, coming to Broadway from Chicago for cash. He posted four goals and four assists for the Blueshirts, was traded to an AHL team the following August, and never played another NHL match.
That wraps our look at what could have been the Rangers team that almost beat the most overwhelming odds, but for a Madison Square Garden Corporation that valued elephants and clowns more than a Stanley Cup championship.
Next, part four of our series will revisit another Rangers team that wasn’t expected to win it all, but came close after pulling off one of the greatest playoff upsets in NHL history.
Related Story. Part 2: A great team that fell short. light