At the culmination of the 1993/94 NHL season, the New York Rangers snapped a 54 year Stanley Cup drought, with their thrill-ride seven game series victory over the Vancouver Canucks. This team, the assembly of which, is one that people only dream about today,and has perhaps gone unmatched in hockey over the last 17 years, with its combination of veteran leadership, superstar power, clutch goal-scoring ability and goaltending, and a much less talked about presence of skillful youth. This is the one lineup, that, if given the opportunity, any fan of this team would ask for. However, two seasons later, the Rangers arguably fielded an even better team, but one that is largely forgotten, due to it being sandwiched between the Rangers’ Stanley Cup victory and the ensuing lockout, and later, the arrival of Wayne Gretzky in New York, to re-team with Mark Messier, a duo which won four championships in Edmonton. The mid-1990′s was the most exciting time to be a Rangers’ fan since probably the 1970′s. Anyone who has read Losing the Edge: The Rise and Fall of the Stanley Cup Champion New York Rangers (Pub. 1995), by Barry Meisel, knows that GM Neil Smith was poising his team to become a dynasty, but unfortunately, it never happened, and the Rangers would have to settle for only one. The 1995/96 season had even more promise at the start than 1994 did, and although they finished lower in the standings, this had all the makings of another championship.
1995/96: The Year the New York Rangers Should Have Won the Stanley Cup
Posted by Greg Caggiano on December 13, 2011
Posted in: Hockey, New York Rangers.
Tagged: Hockey, New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, NHL, Montreal Canadiens, Glen Sather, vancouver canucks, Adam Graves, Brian Leetch, Pittsburgh Penguins, mark messier, kevin lowe, Los Angeles Kings, neil smith, alexei kovalev, jaromir jagr, jeff beukeboom, mike richter, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, 1995/96 NHL Season, Pat Verbeek, Glenn Healy, Luc Robitaille, Darren Langdom, Ulf Samuelsson, Jarri Kurri, Ray Ferraro, Bruce Driver, Losing the Edge: The Rise and Fall of the Stanley Cup Champion New York Rangers, Barry Meisel, Ron Francis.
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