December 18, 2020: This day in New York Rangers history

A hat trick of hat tricks for the New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs

What happened on December 18 in the history of the New York Rangers

On this date in 1965, the New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs recorded a first in NHL history.  Three different players had hat tricks in Toronto’s 8-4 win over the Rangers at Maple Leaf Garden.  Dave Keon and Bob Pulford of the Leafs both scored three times while Earl Ingarfield did it for the Blueshirts.

Ingarfield was a center who played parts of nine seasons for the Rangers from 1958 to 1967.  He topped the 20 goal mark twice for the Blueshirts and this was one of two hat tricks he posted for the team.

That record held up until November 19, 1983 when the Edmonton Oilers smashed it and for the first time the three hat tricks were by players on the same team. Jarri Kurri had five goals while Wayne Gretzky and Willie Lindstrom each scored three times in a 13-4 win over the Devils.  This was the famous “Mickey Mouse” game when Gretzky ridiculed the Devils.

It has happened twice since then.  Tomas Sandstrom,Dave Taylor and Tony Granato each scored three teams for the Kings in a 1990 win over Calgary.  The Kings did it again in 1992 when Sandstrom, Luc Robitaille and Gord Donnelly did it for the Kings in a win over San Jose.

Today’s birthdays

On this date in 1960, Bob Brooke was born in Melrose, Massachusetts.   Brooke was a star at Yale and a finalist for the Hobie Baker Award who played just over two seasons with the Blueshirts in the early 1980s

In 1984, one of the heroes of the 2014 Stanley Cup Finals team was born.  Brian Boyle is another Massachusetts product, born in Hingham, Mass.   Boyle played five productive years in New York before leaving to sign with Tampa as a free agent after the loss in the Finals to Los Angeles.

In 1979, an obscure former Ranger was born. Mike Siklenka was born in Meadow Lake, Sasketchewan and he played all of two games in the NHL, one with the Flyers and one with the Rangers in 2003.  He was a right winger and his Ranger career lasted all of two minutes, 26 seconds.

The numbers

December 18 is not a good day for the Rangers with only 13 wins in 35 games.

Games: 35
Regulation wins: 13
Regulation losses: 16
Ties: 4
Shootout wins: 1
Shootout losses: 1
Points percentage: .471

Looking back

Every day we look back to last season and five and ten years ago.  Two games and two bad losses.

Last year – 2019: No game

5 years ago – 2015: Winnipeg 5, Rangers 2

One year removed from a Presidents’ Trophy, the Rangers were in a December tailspin. This was their ninth loss in 12 games including road losses in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Minnesota. The road was not friendly for the Blueshirts.  In this game, Bryan Little scored twice as the Jets jumped out to a 3-1 first period lead.

Despite a Dan Boyle second period goal that made it a one goal game, a Tyler Myers goal two minutes later restored the lead and Andrew Ladd iced it with an empty net goal.  It wasn’t a good night.

It was a bad night for the Blueshirts as they were beaten in Philadelphia by the Flyers, 4-1.  It was night for revenge as Nikolai Zherdev scored twice for the Flyers.  Zherdev had played for the Rangers in 2008-09 after coming from Columbus in a trade for Fedor Tutin.  He had a solid season with 23 goals and 58 points, but couldn’t come to a contractual agreement with the Blueshirts as a restricted free agent.  He took the team to arbitration.

Zherdev was awarded $3.9 million in the arbitration and the Rangers chose to walk away from the 24-year-old forward.  He played the next season in Russia, but was signed by the Flyers for the 2010-11 season. In his first meeting with the Blueshirts, he scored one goal in a Flyers win. This night, he added two more.  That was the last time that a player took the Rangers to arbitration.