NYR TODAY Wednesday 9/6: Alumni Birthday, Fast Gets a New Number

NYR Alumni Birthday September 6: 
Kilby MacDonald LW

Jesper Fast has changed his number to 17 with 19 heading to the Rafters this season in Honor of Jen Ratelle.

36 Rangers Players will now have doned Number 17. Those Players are as Follows:

Alex Kaleta 1951
Ed Harrison 1951
Clare Martin 1952
Lloyd Ailsby 1952
Dean Prentice 1953-1963
Don McKenney 1963-1964
Lou Angotti 1965-1966
Ray Cullen 1966
Walt Tkaczuk 1968
Dave Balon 1969-1972
Tom Williams 1972-1974
Jerry Butler 1973-1975
Greg Holst 1976-1978
Eddie Johnstone 1978-1983
Mike Rogers 1984-1986
Rob Whistle 1986
Jeff Brubaker 1988
Carey Wilson 1989-1990
Brian Lawton 1989
Rick Bennett 1991-1992
Greg Gilbert 1994
Pat Verbeek 1995
Jari Kurri 1996
Peter Ferraro 1997
Kevin Stevens 1998-2000
Derek Armstrong 2001
Colin Forbes 2001
Rem Murray 2002-2003
Chris Simon 2004
Jamie Lundmark 2006
Fedor Fedorov 2006
Petr Sykora 2006
Brandon Dubinsky 2008-2012
John Moore 2013-2015
Mike Rupp 2013
Jesper Fast 2017-2018

Richards and Leetch Named to Rangers Hockey Operations

The Rangers have announced that Brad Richards and Brian Leetch will join the organization as Hockey Operations Advisors.

From the Rangers release, "In their roles, Leetch and Richards will work with the hockey operations department in both hockey-related decisions along with off-ice player and prospect development. In addition, Leetch and Richards will assist prospects in the Rangers organization, including players with the Rangers' American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Hartford Wolf Pack, in on-ice development."

Richards and Leetch join Jed Ortmeyer (Director, Player Development) and Steve Eminger (Pro Scout) as former Rangers who re-joined the organization this summer.

NYR TODAY Tuesday 9/5: Alumni Birthdays, Today in Rangers History

NYR Alumni Birthdays September 5: 

Dave Dryden G (1961-1962) Henry Dyck LW (1943-1944) Don Maloney LW (Player 1978-1988, Asst GM 1997-2006)

Today in NYR History September 5, 2003: 

Mark Messier was traded to the San Jose Sharks for a fourth round draft pick. This draft pick ended up being used to select Rochester, NY native and future Rangers captain Ryan Callahan. Messier was a Shark for just a few hours as he re-signed with the Rangers as a free agent.

NYR TODAY Monday 9/4: Alumni Birthdays, Today in Rangers History

NYR Alumni Birthdays September 4: 

Sergio Momesso LW (1995-1996) Tomas Sandstrom RW (1984-1990) John Vanbiesbrouck G (1981-1983)

Today in NYR History September 4, 2003: 

Mike Richter announces his retirement from the NHL. The Rangers retired Richter’s #35 on February 4th, 2004.
Richter, at the time, the Rangers winningest goalie and their only one to win a Stanley Cup since 1940, choked back tears several times while reading from a prepared speech.

''It's a bit of a confusing day for me,'' he said. ''I feel great sadness, because I have to give up something I truly love.''

After he took a particularly long pause, Richter tried to make a joke that this was not the place in his speech where he was supposed to cry. But then he whispered into the microphone, ''I'm in denial.''

And that appeared to be true. His teammates and friends knew he wanted to keep playing, but Richter, the father of two sons, ages 3 and 1, knew he would be risking his health if he were hit in the head again.

So, in a room decorated with action photos of him, Richter said he would end his career after 14 seasons, all with the Rangers. Mark Messier, the Rangers' stoic captain, left the dais as a video of Richter's highlights was shown.

''That was a tough one,'' Messier said. ''It was a tough day for everybody. I can speak for every Ranger fan, and every hockey fan, especially in New York, that it was a tough day in New York.''

James Dolan, the chief executive of Cablevision, which owns Madison Square Garden and the Rangers, said, ''For us, it's not a happy day at all.''

"If you're going to be successful, you're going to need to have all the characteristics of a Mike Richter," Sather said.

The Rangers had signed him for two years last July and wanted him to come back.

Sather said it took Richter a long time to come to grips with his medical history, because Richter did not want his career to end.

Richter played in 666 games and won 301, more than any other Rangers goaltender, and he helped the Rangers win the Stanley Cup in 1994.

Richter played his final game on November 5, 2002 against Edmonton, and he was inadvertently kneed in the head during a collision with Oilers forward Todd Marchant.

Richter had missed the last nine games of the 2001-2002 season with a fractured skull and concussion incurred when a rising shot by Atlanta's Chris Tamer hit him in the face mask.

NYR TODAY Sunday 9/3: Alumni Birthdays, Today in Rangers History

NYR Alumni Birthdays September 3: 

Cliff Barton LW (1939-1940) Doug Bentley LW (1953-1954) Jed Ortmeyer RW (2003-2007) Michal Rozsival D (2005-2007) Martin Stratka LW (2005-2007)

Today in NYR History September 3, 1991: 

The Rangers sign free agent forward Adam Graves.

On Sept. 3, 1991, most of the hockey world was focused on an Ottawa arbitrator’s shocking decision to award All-Star defenseman Scott Stevens to the New Jersey Devils as compensation for Stevens’ former club, the St. Louis Blues, having signed Group 1 free agent forward Brendan Shanahan.

That very same day, however, the New York Rangers made a move that would help cement their future just as much as that arbitrator’s ruling did for the Devils. The club went out and signed a Group 1 free agent of their own, 23-year-old forward Adam Graves.

Adam Graves had to prove the skeptics wrong when he first arrived in New York as a free agent in September 1991.
The signing of Graves, who had scored only seven goals in 76 games the season before with the Edmonton Oilers, was, at first, overshadowed by the news of Stevens heading to New Jersey. When the Rangers and Oilers could not agree on compensation and an arbitration hearing date was set to resolve the dispute, the signing of Graves was openly questioned by many among the local media and fans.

Even after the arbitrator ruled in the Rangers’ favor -- awarding rugged winger Troy Mallette to the Oilers instead of Edmonton’s wish for forwards Steven Rice and Louie DeBrusk -- many people still questioned the wisdom of signing a player who had scored only 23 goals over the first 217 games of his NHL career.

Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that Mallette had become a very popular player with The Garden Faithful. Only 21 years-old at the time of the arbitrator’s ruling, Mallette had actually scored more goals (12) than Graves in the previous season, and he had netted 13 as a 19-year-old rookie two years earlier in 1989-90. Plus, Mallette was a stand-up teammate, who had racked up 305 and 252 penalty minutes in each of his first two seasons on Broadway, endearing himself to the home crowd with a wild fighting style that rocked The Garden.

However, Neil Smith, the Rangers’ general manager at the time, was confident that he had made the correct decision in signing Graves, who had a tremendous upside both as a player and a leader, at the expense of the often out-of-control Mallette.

Smith knew Graves quite well. When Graves was starring as a two-way power forward for the Windsor Spitfires in the Ontario Hockey League, Smith was watching his every move closely as the head of scouting for the Detroit Red Wings. After Graves scored 27 goals in his first season with Windsor, Smith and the Red Wings selected him 22nd overall in the 1986 NHL Entry Draft.

Graves responded with a 100-point season the following year at Windsor and by late in the 1987-88 regular season, the earnest, hard-working forward from Ontario had already made his NHL debut in Detroit.

However, two seasons later, after Smith had moved on to New York to become general manager of the Rangers, Graves was shipped to the Oilers as part of a trade that saw the high-scoring Jimmy Carson head to Detroit. That spring, playing on the so-called “Kid Line” with Joe Murphy and Martin Gelinas, Graves helped the Oilers capture their fifth Stanley Cup Championship, recording 11 points in 22 postseason games.

The big-game capabilities and passion for winning that would later become staples of Graves’ professional career began to emerge in the spring of 1990 during the Oilers’ run to the Cup. And Smith was not surprised at all, because he had seen these very same traits even when Graves was just a teen-ager playing in Windsor.

So when Graves became available through the controversial -- and short-lived -- Group 1 free agency loophole that prevented a player’s previous team from matching an offer sheet, Smith knew he had to find a way to bring him to New York, even with the dicey proposition that was arbitration to determine compensation.

And when local media outlets cried that the Rangers had surrendered Mallette for “a seven-goal scorer”, as The New York Times did, Smith was confident that over time the team would be vindicated for the signing.

It didn’t take long for Graves to show that the Rangers had made a wise move in signing him to a five-year contract. Offered the opportunity by head coach Roger Neilson to play as a top-six forward right from the outset of training camp, as opposed to the third and fourth-line duties he had logged with the Red Wings and Oilers, Graves began to flourish. And when Graves was placed on the left side of his former Oilers’ teammate Mark Messier upon The Captain’s arrival two games into the 1991-92 campaign, his game began to reach new heights.

Graves would go on to record 26 goals his first season in New York, helping the Rangers win the Presidents’ Trophy. He quickly won over Rangers’ fans everywhere with his intense play and willingness to stand up for his teammates, as well as for his goal-scoring and off-ice involvement in the community.

The rest, of course, is history, as the old cliché says. For 10 years Graves was the heart and soul of the Rangers, a leader on and off the ice as well as a star player. The mutual love affair between Graves and the fans at The Garden played out unabated whether he was scoring 52 goals and helping the Rangers win their first Stanley Cup in 54 years during the 1993-94 campaign or whether he was grinding through debilitating back pain trying with all his might to lead the Rangers back to the postseason when the new millennium arrived.

And it all started on an early September day in 1991, when so few could know that the Rangers had made, perhaps, the most important free-agent signing in franchise history.

NYR TODAY Saturday 9/2: Alumni Birthdays, Today in Rangers History

NYR Alumni Birthdays September 2: 

Don Jackson D (1986-1987) Stephane Matteau LW (1994-1995) Kevin Miller C (1988-1991) Glen Sather LW (1970-1973)

Today in NYR History September 1, 1926: 

The Rangers sign Lorne Chabot, Ivan “Ching” Johnson, Murray Murdoch, Melville “Sparky” Vail, and Frank Waite.

NYR TODAY Friday 9/1: Rangers & Alumni Birthdays

New York Rangers Birthday 9/1: Mats Zuccarello

Position: Right Wing
Uniform Numbers: 48, 36
Height: 5' 7"
Weight: 179
Shoots: Left
Born: Sep 1, 1987  (Age 29)
Birthplace: Oslo, Norway
Hometown: Oslo, Norway
   
Acquired: Signed with Rangers as an undrafted free agent on May 26, 2010.

Career Regular Season Rangers Stats: GP 303, G  71, A  132, PTS  203, +/- +43, PIM 129, PPG 12. SHG 1, GWG 14

Career Rangers Playoff Stats: GP 48, G 7, A 17, PTS 24, +/- +4, PIM 30, GWG 1

NYR Alumni Birthdays September 1: 

Norm Maciver D (1986-1989) Alexi Vasuliev D (1999-2000) Jeff Woywitka D (2011-2012)