A phoenix rises from the ashes
In April of 1993, the New York Rangers tabbed Mike Keenan to be their new head coach.
On first glance, Keenan had an impressive resume. In eight years of coaching, his teams had never failed to make the playoffs, and got to the Finals three times. But a closer look showed his squads had lost the Stanley Cup Finals three times, he’d been fired by Philadelphia one year after almost winning the Cup, and forced off the bench in Chicago and into focusing on being a G.M. right after taking them to the Finals. Red flags, all.
Still, Neil Smith probably would have been happy if Keenan could do a similar job in Madison Square Garden, getting them that close to a championship. The team needed someone to lead them, to make them reach higher.
They got that in spades.
Stumbling out of the blocks
The Rangers didn’t quite start the 1993-94 season on fire. After the relatively easygoing Roger Neilson and Ron Smith, Keenan showed them his brand of tough love. Emphasis on the tough, not so much the love.
How bad could he be? Later on, when he was coaching St. Louis, Dale Hawerchuk‘s dying grandmother came all the way from Ontario to Buffalo to see him on the ice one more time. Keenan didn’t allow Hawerchuk to play that game, benching him. When Hull loudly voiced his disapproval, the coach took away Hull’s captaincy.
With the Rangers, Keenan sat stars like Brian Leetch and pulled the goalie with alarming frequency, at times either embarrassing or challenging Mike Richter, depending on your viewpoint.
And the team may not have liked it, but the results were promising. After trading for Steve Larmer and Nick Kypreos (jettisoning James Patrick and Darren Turcotte), they were in first place in the division as New Year’s drew nearer, and they had their sights set on another Presidents Trophy.
But in March, after losing to Detroit at the Garden, then to Pittsburgh on the road, the Blackhawks blew their doors off in a 7-3 home loss.An important road trip was coming up and one thing seemed clear to Rangers management. The team was good, but not good enough to win a Cup. And Mike Keenan didn’t think they were nearly tough enough. All season, he’d pressured Smith to trade for the pieces he wanted and to get rid of those that didn’t play the way he wanted them to play.
High on his wish list was Stephane Matteau, a big (6’4″ 220), tough forward who (like Larmer) Keenan knew from his days in Chicago and he strongly encouraged Neil Smith to get him.
That deal would have a high cost. The Blackhawks wanted Tony Amonte in exchange. Amonte scored 68 goals in his first two seasons, but that production fell by half under Keenan. Smith didn’t want to trade him, but after Chicago threw in Brian Noonan (and presumably a boatload of pressure from Keenan) the deal got done.
But New York was still in need of another center. Matteau and Noonan were Keenan’s guys, but Neil Smith wanted yet another veteran with Cups on his resume.
More short-term gains, long-term losses
The Rangers were operating that season without a true center. Esa Tikkanen (acquired for the previously dangled Doug Weight) was playing that position, but he was normally a winger. For months, Neil Smith had been badgering Oilers’ General Manager Glen Sather for veteran Craig MacTavish, wanting someone who could win faceoffs and kill penalties.
Even though Edmonton’s glory days were in the rear-view mirror, Sather was hesitant to trade away one of the last links to their amazing past. In the end, all it cost the Rangers was center Todd Marchant, a fast skater who had played exactly one game in the NHL to that point.
But the dealing wasn’t done yet.
Mike Gartner had piled up most of his over 400 goals playing for the Washington Capitals and Minnesota North Stars, but he had put in four solid years for the Rangers, including three straight seasons of 40-plus goals (49 in 1990-91), the biggest scoring threat to take up residence in the Garden since the bygone years of Vic Hadfield.
Still, he was another speedy player Keenan wanted to replace with a tougher specimen, somebody who showed a bit more when the post-season rolled around.
It was another case of Iron Mike bullying Smith into getting rid of a good player for someone who fit Keenan’s scheme a bit better. So Gartner was traded to Toronto for another star whose best days were behind him, Glenn Anderson. But Anderson had a fistful of rings and Keenan valued that veteran playoff experience.
So a team that was (arguably) the best in the NHL shredded their roster, making five trades with 12 games to go in the season. Even if the transactions were a net positive, would the new players have time to get to know their new team (and teammates) before the playoffs started?
The reconfigured Blueshirts played their first game in Calgary, where Glenn Anderson scored two goals, putting the Rangers ahead 3-2, but the Flames scored twice in nine minutes to take the lead.
Then, Stephane Matteau justified Keenan’s trading for him. With Richter out of goal, Matteau evened the score with 14 seconds left, leading to a tie on the road. He got another goal the next game in Edmonton, which was a pretty good introduction to Rangers fans.