New York Rangers

New York Rangers, American professional ice hockey team based in New York City. One of the oldest teams in the National Hockey League (NHL), the Rangers play in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. The team has won the Stanley Cup, the NHL’s championship trophy, four times (1928, 1933, 1940, and 1994).

Founded in New York by Tex Rickard in 1926 as an expansion franchise, the team was given its name by the New York press, which nicknamed it “Tex’s Rangers” (a play on the phrase “Texas Rangers”). Rangers’ home games have been played in Madison Square Garden (a new arena of the same name opened in 1968) since the team’s founding. The Rangers were part of the “Original Six” (along with the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, and Chicago Blackhawks) that made up the NHL from 1942 until expansion in 1967.

Assembled by the legendary Conn Smythe (whose name is associated with the trophy awarded to the best player in the Stanley Cup play-offs), the first Rangers teams were filled with future stars, such as Frank Boucher, Murray Murdoch, and the Cook brothers (Bun and Bill), and the team found early success under its first coach, Lester Patrick (see Patrick family), who on the eve of the team’s first season replaced Smythe as manager-coach. The team finished first in its division in its first season, and in its second year (1927–28) it won the league championship by defeating the Montreal Maroons in a series in which coach (and former defenseman) Patrick replaced Lorne Chabot as the goalie midway through Game 2 when the latter suffered an eye injury; the Rangers thus became the first U.S.-based hockey team in the NHL to win the Stanley Cup. They would reach the Stanley Cup finals four more times by 1940, winning it twice (1933, 1940).

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The team had less success from the 1940s to the 1960s, when it often finished last in the six-team league and frequently missed the play-offs, despite the fact that four of the six teams made the play-offs each year. In the late 1960s the team experienced a resurgence and began regularly making it into the postseason. In 1971–72 and 1978–79 the Rangers made the Stanley Cup finals, though they lost both times (in six games to the Bruins in 1972 and in five games to the Canadiens in 1979). During the 1993–94 season, led by perennial all-star centre Mark Messier, defenseman Brian Leetch, left wing Adam Graves, and goaltender Mike Richter, the Rangers captured their first Stanley Cup since 1940, defeating the Vancouver Canucks in seven games in the finals. Despite numerous big-name acquisitions and trades, including those of Wayne Gretzky and Luc Robitaille, the team was unable to duplicate its Stanley Cup success in the years immediately following the 1994 season, and in the 1997–98 season the Rangers entered into a franchise-record seven-year postseason drought.

The Rangers returned to the play-offs in 2005–06, and in 2011–12 the team—led by goaltender Henrik Lundqvist and forward Marian Gaborik—won its first division title in 17 years and advanced to the conference finals, where it lost to the New Jersey Devils. In 2013–14 the team defeated its longtime rival Montreal Canadiens in a six-game Eastern Conference finals series to earn a spot in the Stanley Cup finals for the first time in 20 years, but there the Rangers lost to the Los Angeles Kings in five games. The Rangers posted the best record in the NHL and returned to the conference finals the following season, but the team lost a seven-game series to the Tampa Bay Lightning. The team qualified for the play-offs in the next two seasons but failed to advance past the second round, and in 2017–18 the team’s play tailed off, resulting in the Rangers’ worst record since 2003–04 and a last-place divisional finish.