This day in Rangers history: November 30th edition

 1977:

Phil Esposito recorded a hat trick to lead the New York Rangers to a 4-0 road win at the St. Louis Blues. The three-goal night gave him 605 in his career and moved him ahead of Bobby Hull for the second-most in league history, behind only Gordie Howe. He retired with 717 goals, good for sixth place on the all-time goals list. The Rangers entered the Checkerdome that night amid a slow start to the season at 8-12-2 but faced a lowly Blues team who finished the season 20-47-13(Ties).

Esposito netted his first two on the power play in the first period before bookending the scoring late in the second, sandwiched between a Pat Hickey tally. In goal, backup netminder Wayne Thomas made 32 saves for one of his four shutouts on the season. The Blueshirts later qualified with a record of 30-37-(13) but fell 2-1 in the preliminary round to the Buffalo Sabres(4-1, 3-4 (OT), 4-1).

2015:
Goaltender Henrik Lundqvist led the Rangers to a 4-3 win over the Carolina Hurricanes at Madison  Square Garden, making 33 saves in a contest the Rangers almost let slip away.
Hank’s 352nd career victory moved him ahead of Terry Sawchuk for the third-most wins with one franchise. Akin to the 2022-23 Rangers, this team was coming off an Eastern Conference finals berth and was two years removed from a trip to the Stanley Cup finals.

These are also not the dangerous Hurricanes we know of today. Still, Brett Pesce, Jacob Slavin, and Eric Stall were on that 2015 squad, who finished the season 35-31-16, enough for sixth in the Metropolitan division and 10th in the Eastern Conference.
Mats Zuccarello and Oscar Lindberg blasted first-period power-play goals past Cam Ward to get New York going, before
Chris Kreider and Derick Brassard joined on the fun in the second to increase the Rangers’ lead to 4-0. The tide began to shift towards the end of the second period as Carolina applied sustained offensive zone pressure and put one home courtesy of Jordan Staal.
The intensity heightened in the third, as Victor Rask and Chris Terry pulled The Hurricanes to within one, but the Rangers’ defense bore down, and Lundqvist made some key saves to preserve his historic victory. The Blueshirts left that evening 17-6-2 and would go 29-21-7 the rest of the way and qualify for the playoffs before bowing out in five games to the Pittsburgh Penguins.