Oh yes, if you’re new to the NHL landscape, something that may jump out at you is that you don’t often see players hit the 200-minute park in penalties. In fact, only a handful will cross the 150-minute threshold these days. But once upon a time in the NHL, that wasn’t the case, and the NY Rangers were no exception.
So let’s engage in a fun exercise and ask ourselves who the most penalty-ridden players were in a single season, all-time, for the Blueshirts. One of the five names mentioned will make a pair of appearances, and if you’ve been a Rangers fan for a while, you probably won’t be surprised to see them listed.
Barry Beck, 1980-81
Barry Beck was a curious addition here, as while the NHL was a different place back in 1980-81, Beck’s number of penalty minutes never topped 106 in the years leading to the campaign. Beck, who was a sound points producer between 1977-78 and 1979-80 mainly with the Colorado Rockies, saw a bit of a change occur in 1980-81, when he accumulated just 34 points and 231 penalty minutes.
Per Hockey Fights, Beck was in eight fights that season, and it ended up as a career-high. The number of fights certainly played into his career-high in penalty minutes, and following the 1980-81 season, Beck never came close to that number again.
Tie Domi, 1991-92
Unlike Barry Beck, Tie Domi was notorious for fighting, specifically vs. one of his biggest rivals in Rob Ray of the Buffalo Sabres. But years before he joined the Toronto Maple Leafs and took part in the bulk of his numerous battles with Ray, Domi logged 246 penalty minutes in 1991-92, his final full season with the Blueshirts.
He took part in 16 fights that year, so like many players on this list, it’s where a large portion of his penalty minutes came from. As for logging minutes for fighting, Domi was just getting started as an enforcer, as he would get himself involved in 20-plus fights in a season on six different occasions throughout his career.
Troy Mallette, 1990-91
Troy Mallette is the name you’ll find on this list multiple times, and he’s the only member of the NY Rangers to log over 300 penalties in minutes in team history as of the 2023-24 season. I say ‘as of,’ because Matt Rempe might just surpass him one day at the rate he’s going.
Anyway, one season after Mallette hit the 300-plus mark, he logged 252 minutes in 71 games. Interestingly, Mallette wasn’t a bad complementary scorer that season, as he finished the year with 12 goals, a 13.2 shooting percentage, and 22 points.
Kris King, 1989-90
Kris King is another name Blueshirts fans probably remember for the number of minutes he spent in the box, and he topped 286 in 1989-90. King took part in 16 fights that year, and you can say it helped him reach his career-high, even if he reached the 17-plus threshold four times in the following seasons.
King spent two more seasons in New York following 1989-90, and he saw himself climb over the 200-minute threshold again in 1991-92, his final full year with the Blueshirts.
Troy Mallette, 1989-90
Just like we saw in a previous section, Troy Mallette wasn’t a bad scorer, and he also looked like an adequate points producer in 1989-90, logging 29 of them with 13 goals. But his 305 penalties in minutes lead the NY Rangers to date, and one major reason came from the 22 fights he found himself in.
The following year in 1990-91, he was involved in 17 fights, but that number stagnated in the seasons that followed. Still, that wasn’t the case during his time with the Blueshirts, and he ended his career in New York with 557 penalty minutes.
(Statistics and data powered by Hockey-Reference and Hockey Fights)