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Who is the greatest Ranger ever?

Who is the greatest NYR ever?

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Id say probably Leetch. Drafted a Ranger, over a decade here, won a Calder, two Norris’ and won the Smythe when the team won its championship. Hard to beat that.
 
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mas0764 said:
I hate to be that guy but it’s kinda reasonable not to count anything before like 1970 and since then the answer has to be Leetch.

The same reason no one really counts Norm Van Brocklin or YA Tittle or Otto Graham among the NFL’s all time great QBs anymore. It’s a different game.
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So, you just toss out Gordie Howe's career when talking hockey greats? Never happened?
 
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TominNC said:
So, you just toss out Gordie Howe's career when talking hockey greats? Never happened?
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No but it has to be contextualized. He goes down as a hockey great but then there is always the asterisk “but he was great when there were only 6 teams in the league mostly.”

It’s a different level of competition and a different level of athlete. It will be the same 80 years in the future as it is talking about Howe who began his career in like 1942, almost 80 years ago now. People will be like, yeah, that Wayne Gretzky was amazing, but he also played back when players didn’t have bionic limbs, so how good could he really have been? Etc.

As such I’m not really that interested in discussing what great NY Rangers were around in 1930. It’s fun for historians and important to remember, but any relevant conversation about the greatest will have to center around the Rangers who faced the greatest competition in the greatest era of hockey, which is the last 20, 30 years. Even the 1994 team is beginning to feel irrelevant to modern hockey discussions, even compared to like the ‘97 Redwings. The league changed a lot in those years. The Rangers felt like the last of the ‘80s teams in a way whereas those Redwings felt like the harbingers of the next decade or two until the Pens/Blackhawks/Kings/Bruins reigns started.
 
Brian Leetch.

Id be interested to do a Rangers all time starting lineup.
 
Greatest most impactful ranger player ever is messier... He just sucks now so its tainting his image, imo


Edit: No other team can claim Leetch like Edmonton can for Messier and Leetch never left for any reason other then being left behind. If the reason he is the greatest NYR is because of all around loyalty and longevity then it is leetch.
 
mas0764 said:
No but it has to be contextualized. He goes down as a hockey great but then there is always the asterisk “but he was great when there were only 6 teams in the league mostly.”

It’s a different level of competition and a different level of athlete. It will be the same 80 years in the future as it is talking about Howe who began his career in like 1942, almost 80 years ago now. People will be like, yeah, that Wayne Gretzky was amazing, but he also played back when players didn’t have bionic limbs, so how good could he really have been? Etc.

As such I’m not really that interested in discussing what great NY Rangers were around in 1930. It’s fun for historians and important to remember, but any relevant conversation about the greatest will have to center around the Rangers who faced the greatest competition in the greatest era of hockey, which is the last 20, 30 years. Even the 1994 team is beginning to feel irrelevant to modern hockey discussions, even compared to like the ‘97 Redwings. The league changed a lot in those years. The Rangers felt like the last of the ‘80s teams in a way whereas those Redwings felt like the harbingers of the next decade or two until the Pens/Blackhawks/Kings/Bruins reigns started.
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If we can't even include the '94 guys as the game has changed too much then our options for 'greatest ever' (with ever pretty much pointless if we're only working in the last 20 off years...) are basically Lundqvist, or 3 seasons of Jagr....
 
mike14 said:
If we can't even include the '94 guys as the game has changed too much then our options for 'greatest ever' (with ever pretty much pointless if we're only working in the last 20 off years...) are basically Lundqvist, or 3 seasons of Jagr....
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Well I said Leetch.

I’m just saying I am not gonna concern myself with what happened before the 70s really when I’m trying to make an argument for greatest “ever.”

To me I guess it’s really an impossible objective cause it’s like two different games anyway. Prior to expansion from the Original 6, deserves its own category of “greatest.” Then the modern/current era will get its own “greatest,” which is the era we can default to as the relevant one for discussing “the greatest.”
 
It's gotta be Leetch and it's really not all that close.

I wasn't around when the greats like Andy Bathgate and Frank Boucher laced them up and I don't take anything away from them. I go back to the '70-71 season as my first year I followed and understood what the Rangers were about. Ratelle, Gilbert, Giacoman and Park all have strong cases to be in the conversation.

But when it's all said and done, Leetch is the player most Ranger fans such as myself who go a long way back and the younger one's would say. Leetch also, if you ask opposing fan bases, would very likely be the player they thought was the greatest Ranger of all time as well.

Leetch is the greatest Ranger ever...period end of story!
 
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mas0764 said:
No but it has to be contextualized. He goes down as a hockey great but then there is always the asterisk “but he was great when there were only 6 teams in the league mostly.”

It’s a different level of competition and a different level of athlete. It will be the same 80 years in the future as it is talking about Howe who began his career in like 1942, almost 80 years ago now. People will be like, yeah, that Wayne Gretzky was amazing, but he also played back when players didn’t have bionic limbs, so how good could he really have been? Etc.

As such I’m not really that interested in discussing what great NY Rangers were around in 1930. It’s fun for historians and important to remember, but any relevant conversation about the greatest will have to center around the Rangers who faced the greatest competition in the greatest era of hockey, which is the last 20, 30 years. Even the 1994 team is beginning to feel irrelevant to modern hockey discussions, even compared to like the ‘97 Redwings. The league changed a lot in those years. The Rangers felt like the last of the ‘80s teams in a way whereas those Redwings felt like the harbingers of the next decade or two until the Pens/Blackhawks/Kings/Bruins reigns started.
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League was less watered down too, though. Competition must have been insane for those positions.
 
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