On April 16 in NYR history: A season of milestones for Gartner

What happened on April 16 in the history of the New York Rangers

Mike Gartner is often overlooked when discussing great players from the long history of the New York Rangers.   Though he came to New York late in his career, he was still a prolific scorer and he was a team leader and his character was impeccable.

On this date in 1992, Mike Gartner got the 500th assist of his career.  In doing so, he became the first NHL player to score his 500th goal, get his 500th assist, get his 1,000th point and play in his 1,000th game all in the same season.

The assist came in a 7-1 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins at Madison Square Garden. Gartner scored a goal and had two assists.

The 1991-92 Rangers team was destined to win the Stanley Cup.  They won the Presidents’ Trophy, Mark Messier won the Hart Trophy and Brian Leetch was the Norris Trophy winner. It all went south in the playoffs when an inadvertent Adam Graves slash broke Mario Lemieux’s wrist, but that is a story for another day.

For the 32 year old Gartner, it was his second straight 40 goal season and he would reach that mark again one year later.   Consider this.  The Rangers have topped the 40 goal mark only 24 times.  Gartner is the only player to do it three times.  In fact, Jean Ratelle and Marian Gaborik are the only Rangers besides Gartner do to it more than once.

One of the great tragedies of the 1994 Stanley Cup Championship was that the Rangers traded Gartner to Toronto for Glenn Anderson because Mike Keenan was convinced that Gartner was not a playoff performer.

Ironically, in 1994, Gartner scored five goals and had 11 points in 18 playoff games for Toronto. Anderson had three goals and six points in 23 playoff games for the Rangers. Would the Ranges have won the Cup with Gartner instead of Anderson?  Only the hockey god know.

Today’s birthdays

24 NHL players have been born on April 16, but only one wore a Rangers uniform.

Harry York was born on this date in 1974 in  Ponoka, Alberta.  York was a center signed by the St. Louis Blues as an undrafted free agent.  He was traded to the Rangers for Mike Eastwood and played only seven games in New York over two seasons before being swapped to Pittsburgh.  He was scoreless in his seven games with the Rangers.

Harry York, Mike York and Dan Newman are the only players to be named partially after the city they played in.   Purists will argue that Igor Shestyorkin should be included.  The Rangers actually drafted a player named Joe Ranger in 1986, but he never signed with the team.

The numbers

Playoffs games: 15
Wins: 5
Losses: 7
Overtime wins: 1
Overtime losses: 2
Winning percentage: 40%

Regular season games: 4
Regulation wins: 2
Regulation losses: 2
Points percentage: .500