New York Rangers

The New York Rangers are a team playing within the National Hockey League that are responsible for perhaps some of the most interesting pieces of hockey history and lore that exist in the world today. There are certain franchises within the National Hockey League (NHL for short) that are known as storied franchises. The New York Rangers are a storied franchise because they have a huge amount of history and achievements that are available for people to read about and see wherever they might choose to go.

One of the things that set the New York Rangers apart from a number of other teams is simply the fact that the New York Rangers themselves are actually what is known as an original six franchise. The original six are the group of six teams that started the NHL and along with the New York Rangers these include the Montreal Canadiens, the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Chicago Blackhawks, the Detroit Red Wings and the Boston Bruins. These teams have all been around for decades, are the oldest teams in the game and all have a large history from which they can draw a number of triumphant moments.

For the longest time, there was what was known as a curse on the original six teams. This is because out of the original six teams, only the Montreal Canadiens continued to be competitive after the league expanded in the 60s and the Leafs, Blackhawks, Red Wings, Bruins and Rangers all went on large streaks without winning the Stanley Cup; the premier prize in the NHL. The New York Rangers were able to finally end their streak in 1994 by beating the Vancouver Canucks to capture the Stanley Cup in that specific year. The Blackhawks, Leafs and Bruins are still on very long cup droughts that are not expected to end anytime soon.

The new deal within the NHL and the new collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players hit the New York Rangers particularly hard. They were always a team that tended to operate on a very large budget and the salary cap aspect of the new NHL hit them hard at first. Eventually, they hired a management team that understood how to work under a salary cap and they’ve actually managed to make the playoffs two years in a row; going to the second round of the playoffs in the most recent NHL season.

Jaromir Jagr

The current Captain of the New York Rangers is Jaromir Jagr; a man who is perhaps the best Czech born player to ever play the game of hockey. He dominated the scoring races throughout the 90s and indeed many people still consider him to be one of the top elite players within the National Hockey League. The focus of the Rangers has shifted to having European born stars rather than North American born ones. Whether this is because of a fundamental change in the way the team approaches hockey or simply because European players were better suited to their cap management remains to be seen in the years to come.