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Underrated Rangers

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When players are with a team for only a limited run, it's easy for them to get lost in the shuffle.

Larmer was great for the Rangers and his penalty shot goal in his first visit back to Chicago was another truly magical moment in what was a very charmed season for the Rangers.

Pat Verbeek, playing Larmer's role the next season, was even better. The original "little ball of hate" had a great season for the Rangers in 94-95: 82 points in 69 games (41 goals and 41 assists); 129 PIM's and +29.

The one guy who had 3 different short stints with the Rangers who no one mentioned yet is Martin Rucinsky. He was a very versatile player in terms of positions played and played a two-way game. He was the only player other than Jagr to be over a point per game in 05-06 with 55 points in 52 games - to go along with 13 points in 15 games in 01-02, and 42 points in 69 games in 03-04.

Going further back, I loved "Lucky Pierre" Larouche when he was here. I still don't know why Esposito banished him to the minors in 85-86 but he came back and played like a man possessed for the remainder of the season when he was called up, scoring 20 goals in 28 games. His prior highlight season with the Rangers was 83-84 when he scored 48 goals.
 
Kris Chreider said:
I'll go out on a limb here and say.....

Brian Boyle.

He outscored Ovechkin, Nash, and Callahan in the playoffs. Without him, we might not have made it out of the 1st round.
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He also had 2 goals in the regular season including that nice empty net goal with less than 1 second remaining in the game. No telling if we make the playoffs without Brian Boyle's 2 goals last season.
 
I don't know if underrated is a good word for Boyle. Under appreciated is what I'd call him really
 
GWOW said:
Considering he was the only rangers forward who stayed on the team from 1999 to 2004, it's Petr The Great.
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Yep. Though to be fair he led the team in scoring twice and finished with one less point than Leetch in a third season.

I smile whenever I see a Nedved jersey (rare). I think he has a poor reputation amongst fans because thinking of him reminds them of the dark, revolving-door days.
 
Crease said:
Yep. Though to be fair he led the team in scoring twice and finished with one less point than Leetch in a third season.

I smile whenever I see a Nedved jersey (rare). I think he has a poor reputation amongst fans because thinking of him reminds them of the dark, revolving-door days.
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Ehh, while I recognized he was a good player, I never really liked Nedved - he came off as a guy who was perfectly fine playing on such ****** teams.
 
GWOW said:
In fact, there were rumors in 1992-93 that Richter and Zubov were being offered for Bourque when he had his contract issue with Sinden.
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Not to hijack the thread but here's a Richter rumor you can choose to believe or not. Back in 2000, I had heard from someone who I had every reason to believe would know, that Richter was almost moved in a deal with Theo Fleury and Mike York to the Coyotes for Keith Tkachuk and Khabibulin. The deal supposedly fell apart when Fluery's substance abuse issues came to light and he went into a rehab facility after the 99-00 season.

Khabibulin was in a contract dispute with the Yotes and played the entire 99-00 season for the Long Beach Ice Dogs of the IHL (where he won league MVP). After that season he was traded...but to TB where he won the Cup a few years later, playing a bigger role than I think he's given credit for. He had 5 shutouts in that Cup run and had 3 shutouts in one series, which is still pretty damn impressive. Prior to his holdout season, The Bulin Wall had been an All Star two years in a row and had very good playoff stats (he led goalies in playoff Save % in 1997).

Fleury was in his first season with the Rangers on a big free agent contract and had disappointed with only 15 goals that season. When the Rangers found out about his off-ice issues is anyone's guess.

The Ranger had really become a team of mercenaries in the 99-00 season bringing in Fleury, Val Kamensky, Rich "Pylon" Pilon, Stephane "I'm Homesick" Quintal, Alexandre Daigle, Tim Taylor, the player known at one time as "the best hockey player not playing in the NHL" Jan Hlavac and Kirk McLean and that followed the acquisitions of John MacLean, Kevin "Molly" Hatcher and Matt Schneider the season before.

Talk about a rudderless team.

Oh yeah, and it was all Torts' fault as he was brought in as an assistant coach that season ;)
 
Bleed Ranger Blue said:
Ehh, while I recognized he was a good player, I never really liked Nedved - he came off as a guy who was perfectly fine playing on such ****** teams.
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Well we all know you can't take someone being positive regardless of their surroundings so that probably explains it.


Nemchinov. No one ever talks about him but the guy was a very solid player.
 
GWOW said:
Brian Mullen.

Heart and Soul guy who never took a shift off, and even though he was slight of frame, he never shied away from contact.

Mark Pavelich is a guy nobody talks about. He was one-dimensional was one of the most creative guys I saw with the puck. Super patient and crafty.

And Vickers doesnt get enough love. He was my first idol. A great playmaker for a guy who played the wing. His goal against the Isles is what pretty much made me a fan for life.
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Right on all counts. Vickers was also a terrific fighter!
 
Cliffy1814 said:
Nylander was a guy who never got any credit. It obviously doesn't hurt having Jagr on your wing, but he was a very good player for us and never got any recognition.

I was not happy that Summer when they let him walk and then spent all the money on Drury and Gomez.
I would have signed one of the two and brought Nylander back.
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The Caps would have been clicking their collective heels together if we had decided to keep Nylander!
 
Drewbackatu said:
The Caps would have been clicking their collective heels together if we had decided to keep Nylander!
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He's one of those rare cases where the Rangers got a lot out of a player BEFORE their big payday.
 
Crease said:
He's one of those rare cases where the Rangers got a lot out of a player BEFORE their big payday.
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Amazing as it may seem now, that line put up some crazy ass numbers together for 2-3 years.
However, I gotta be honest here in saying that I detested watching them especially Nylander(aka "Kazoo") and Straka weave east and west in taking 30-45 seconds to get the lousy puck up the ice!

It used to drive all of us in the old section 411 absolutely nuts!
 
The Jagr/Nylander/Straka line is probably the best and worst thing that's happened to the Rangers in the last 15 years or so.

That was a lottery team if those guys didn't play like that (which probably would make this current team 1000x better), but damn did I not enjoy watching them play.
 
Drewbackatu said:
Amazing as it may seem now, that line put up some crazy ass numbers together for 2-3 years.
However, I gotta be honest here in saying that I detested watching them especially Nylander(aka "Kazoo") and Straka weave east and west in taking 30-45 seconds to get the lousy puck up the ice!

It used to drive all of us in the old section 411 absolutely nuts!
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Yeah, because watching last year's Rangers push the puck along the boards for 30-45 seconds was fun :sarcasm:

I enjoyed watching Nylander play.
 
SingnBluesOnBroadway said:
If you are going to use that example, than the most natural mention is Zubov. He lead that team in scoring in the regular season.

Larmer and Sarge are two other great mentions.

Over the last 20 years it's tough because there's been some bad teams and a lot of player who underachieved.

Others from the last 20 years:

James Patrick
Michal Rozsival
Matt Cullen
Martin Straka

Others beyond the last 20 years

John Ogrodnick
Tomas Sandstrom
Bob Froese
John Vanbiesbrouck
Ulf Dahlen
Don Maloney

I think some of the guys the Rangers traded were pretty underrated by the organization when they were dealt:

Manny Malhotra
Todd Marchant
Mikael Samuelsson
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Marc Savard says helloooooooooo
 
Savard didn't really become the guy he is known as today until the game opened up in 2005. I would argue that they got good value for him in the CGY trade but its a shame Lundmark didn't pan out.
 
Larouche wasn't banished to the minors by Espo, it was Ted Sator who sent down Larouche, Fotiu, Hanlon, and Rogers. Patrick was still GM. He did play for Espo when Espo took over as GM and only lasted a year and a half before his back went out.

Beezer was good but I always felt he was too streaky and went down way too early on breakaways. 1985-86 was his peak. He did play on some awful teams but he also let in so many soft goals. I know Richter had the famous meltdown goal against Francis in the 92 Penguins series but I knew in my eleven-year-old heart once Beezer was announced to start game 6, it was over.

Also a year before when Richter hurt his groin and it was Beezer and Boris Rouson...Beezer was a big part of that losing streak after the Miller for Kocur trade.

Nedved was awful. Fanned on his wrist shot three times a game and never scored any clutch goals. He had like 2.5 good seasons as a Ranger (98-99 his .5 and 99-00 and 00-01 as his two good seasons).

I think Doug Lidster deserves some love here. Played very well for his limited minutes.

Mike York was one of the few bright spots during the dark years. It's too bad he always ran out of gas buy the second half.

Everyone else here has been mentioned but I want to give a little love to Marek Malik. Yes, he was awful his last season here and had some awful moments, but from 2005-07 he played a lot of minutes, and at times like the end of 06-07 he was flying. He looked like Bobby Orr in that Atlanta series. And the shootout moment was a great gift he left us all with forever.
 
Erixon was vastly underrated. Around 1988 or 1989 Hockey Digest polled the top players in the game who they felt were the toughest guys to play against -- Gretzky said Carbonneau and Lemieux said Erixon.

Erixon was a Selke finalist in 1988. That's why I get mad when people call Callahan and Boyle good defensive forwards. They're good shot blockers and decent penalty killers, but neither of them are good at coverage and shadowing star players, which were Erixon's tasks every game.

Erixon was a coverage specialist. Granted, one man can only do so much against a guy like Lemieux or Gretzky, but many many forwards went through hell eluding Erixon's check.

He's the best defensive forward the Rangers have ever had, with Larmer, Tikkanen and the two months of Mactavish also up there.
 
Radek Dvorak?

Thought he was a good team player and really competed most nights on some bad teams

For me I always appreciated him more than Nedved
 
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