On January 20 in NYR history: Broadway Bernie arrives

What happened on January20 in the history of the New York Rangers

The New York Rangers pulled off a blockbuster trade on this date in 1990.   While it was a major deal, the full impact was felt 21 months later when it led to another major trade for Mark Messier.

General Manager Neil Smith pulled the trigger on the deal, sending Tomas Sandstrom and Tony Granato to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for Bernie Nicholls who had scored 70 goals the year before. In making the trade, the Rangers gave up their leading scorer in Sandstrom who had 32 goals and 88 points along with Granato, who had led the team in goals as a rookie with 36.

In exchange, they got Bernie Nicholls, a center who had scored 70 goals in 1988-89, becoming only the fifth NHL player to crack the 70 goal mark.  He had scored 32 or more goals for six straight years.

Some felt the Rangers had given up too much in swapping the two players whose statistics combined were better than Nicholl’s numbers.   They may have been right.  In his one full season in New York, he scored 25 goals and totaled 73 points.  The duo he was traded for had much better results, totaling 75 goals and 157 points. Sandstrom alone exceeded Nicholl’s numbers with 45 goals and 89 points while Granato scored 30 goals and added 34 assists.

Neil Smith didn’t waste any time in altering the legacy of that deal.  In October of 1991, he swapped Nicholls, Steven Rice and Louie DeBrusk to Edmonton for Mark Messier and later, Jeff Beukeboom.  We all know how that worked out.

Largest crowd in NHL history

On this date in 1946, the Rangers lost 9-1 to the Chicago Blackhawks in front of 19,749 fans at Chicago Stadium.  The gate set a record as the largest crowd to attend an NHL game, breaking the previous record, also set at Chicago Stadium in 1941.  Blackhawks management said that they had turned away 12,000 fans who wanted to get into the game.

Why the crowd?  This game had been hyped as a rematch with the Rangers after a penalty and fight filled 3-2 win by the New Yorkers a week earlier.   In the previous game Alf Pike of the Rangers had his forehead cut from a check and Blueshirt defenseman Bill Moe took a butt end in the face.   Moe was a target for the Hawks as he had injured Blackhawks star Bill Mosienko in a game on December 30, inflicting a knee injury that forced Mosienko out of the lineup.  The main event was a brawl between Rangers  forward Phil Watson and  Chicago’s Reg Hamilton.

This game was cleaner and one sided as the Hawks scored three goals in the first period and added four more in the second.  The Chicago Stadium was the largest arena in the NHL, but the crowd was still almost 2,000 more than it was supposed to hold for hockey.

Today’s birthdays

27 NHL players were born on January 20 with three former Rangers in that group.

Crowd favorite Lou Fontinato was born on this date in 1932 in Guelph, Ontario.  Known as “Leapin’ Lou,” he was one of the top enforcers of his time.  He played seven years for the Rangers, leading the NHL in penalty minutes twice.  The defenseman was the first NHL player to accumulate 200 penalty minutes in one season.

Fontinato is best known for his feud with Gordie Howe that culminated in a brutal fight in 1959 at Madison Square Garden. Howe got the best of Fontinato, breaking the Rangers’ nose and jaw.  Fontinato was traded to Montreal for Doug Harvey in 1961 and his career came to a sudden end when he was checked into the boards by the Rangers’ Vic Hadfield and suffered a severe neck injury.

Joe Jerwa was born on this day in 1907 in Krakow, Poland.  Jerwa was the first Polish player and one of four in NHL history.  Jerwa moved to Canada when he was six and the defenseman played one season with the Rangers, playing 33 games in 1930-31.  Jerwa wasn’t the only player of Polish descent on the Rangers.  Krzysztof Oliwa played for the Blueshirts in 2002.

Maxim Kondratiev was born on January 20, 1983 in Togliatti, USSR.  He played 29 games for the Rangers in 2005-06  and played 40 games in the NHL for three teams.  He is best known as one of the players the Rangers acquired from Toronto when they traded Brian Leetch in 2004.

The numbers

The Rangers should avoid playing on January 20 as it is their worst day of the month with an awful .375 points percentage and only 10 wins in 36 games.

Games: 36
Regulation wins: 10
Regulation losses: 20
Ties: 4
Overtime wins:  1
Overtime losses: 1
Points percentage: .375

Last year

The Rangers were off a year ago, licking their wounds after a bad loss to the Blue Jackets and preparing to take on the Islanders for the third time in eight days.