The New York Rangers are a storied franchise celebrating a centennial season in 2025-26, and there's a pair of records that are unlikely to ever be broken. With this being records week at NHL FanSided, now is the perfect time to dive in and investigate.
From Lester Patrick to Mike Sullivan, there have been 38 coaches in the history of the franchise, and there have been many interesting and historic names. You've had names like Emile Francis, Herb Brooks, Roger Neilson, Fred Shero, John Tortorella, Glen Sather, and Alain Vigneault. There are many others, but there will only be one Mike Keenan, and there's unlikely to be anyone like him ever again.
"Iron Mike" Keenan's legendary year on Broadway
Keenan holds the Rangers' coaching record for points percentage (.667) and playoff winning percentage (.696) and those marks are very unlikely to ever be matched or beaten. The 1993-94 Rangers won the Presidents' Trophy with a record of 52-24-8 and 112 points in the regular season, and went 16-7 in the playoffs to capture the Stanley Cup and snap a 54 year drought.
Just one month after leading the Rangers to glory, he announced that he was no longer the coach of the Rangers. Keenan had quite an adversarial relationship with General Manager Neil Smith, and things broke down to the point where he couldn't continue standing behind the bench.
Other stops for Keenan
After a brief suspension by the NHL, Keenan went on to be the coach and GM of the St. Louis Blues, and he would spend three seasons there before moving on to the Vancouver Canucks for two seasons. Other stops included a season in Boston, parts of three seasons in Florida, and a pair of seasons with the Calgary Flames.
There is unlikely to ever be another Keenan situation again
Because of the unique situation of Keenan coaching the team to a Presidents' Trophy and Stanley Cup in his one season with the team, it will be seemingly impossible for another coach to accomplish what he did. It would take a really dominant coach to have success in a short span of a few years to even come close, but even then, it would unlikely matchup with Keenan's legendary 1993-94 performance.