By DAVE ANDERSON
Published: March 29, 2006
The New York Times
Greenburgh, N.Y.
SOONER or later, almost any conversation about the Rangers these days gets around to Jaromir Jagr, and as Coach Tom Renney leaned against the glass wall of the team's weight room after practice yesterday, he quietly defined Jagr's value.
"On the ice," he said, "he's as important a player as this franchise has ever had."
Notice that he didn't say that Jaromir Jagr was the most important player the Rangers have ever had, merely that he was as important. And you can't rebut that, because in addition to his 52 goals and 109 points, Jagr's most endearing contribution has been his waking the echoes of so many names, which were, in each one's time, as important to the Rangers and their long frustrated followers as he is now.
Those names drift back through eight decades. Names like Mark Messier, Adam Graves, Jean Ratelle, Rod Gilbert, Vic Hadfield, Andy Bathgate, Chuck Rayner, Buddy O'Connor, Bryan Hextall and Bill Cook.
Jagr knows Messier, of course. When Jagr was with the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals, he skated against Messier, who this season called Jagr "the best hockey player in the world." Which is what Messier was when he led the Rangers to the Stanley Cup in 1994 after a 54-year famine.
Jagr also skated against Graves, now in the Rangers' front office as a special assistant for community relations. Jagr's 52 goals has tied Graves's single-season record for the Rangers, who visit the Islanders tonight in their pursuit of a playoff berth after seven shameful seasons. Not that Graves was surprised.
"When I had 40," Jagr said yesterday, "Adam told me he thought I would do it. I wasn't that confident. It looks easier when you're outside."
Jagr has also tied Ratelle's franchise record of 109 points, set during the 1971-72 season. Ratelle was the smooth center for Gilbert and Hadfield, who had 50 goals that year. Ratelle had 46 goals and 63 assists in only 63 games before a broken ankle sidelined him.
"I know Rod, too," Jagr said, referring to Gilbert, now the Rangers' director of community relations, "but I never met Ratelle or Hadfield."
Jagr is surely a candidate for the Hart Trophy as the N.H.L.'s most valuable player. If he wins the Hart, he will be only the fifth Rangers recipient, the first since Messier in 1991-92, his first season as a Ranger. The other M.V.P.'s were Andy Bathgate, Chuck Rayner and Buddy O'Connor.
Bathgate, a classy right wing, was the 1958-59 M.V.P. He also shared the point-scoring title with Bobby Hull and led the league in assists in 1961-62, when Doug Harvey was the Rangers' coach and the Norris Trophy winner as the league's top defenseman.
Rayner was the goaltender when the Rangers went to the 1950 Stanley Cup finals before losing Game 7 to the Detroit Red Wings in double overtime. O'Connor was a center who finished second in the league in points in the 1947-48 season.
If Jagr were to earn the Art Ross Trophy as the league's top scorer, he would be only the only third Ranger to lead the league in points scored. Bryan Hextall, the right wing who scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal in 1940, did so in 1941-42. In what is now considered the prehistoric era, right wing Bill Cook twice led the N.H.L. in scoring, in 1926-27, the Rangers' first season, and again in 1932-33, when they won their second Cup.
With eight rookies, these Rangers aren't likely to win the Stanley Cup, but they could win a playoff round or two, especially if they finish first in the Atlantic Division. That would give them home-ice advantage, at least in the opening round.
"Home ice, that would be huge," Jagr said. "Especially for our fans after not having been in the playoffs for so long. For us now, it's important to play all our games like they were playoff games, to believe you can beat any team in the league."
Of the Rangers' 10 remaining games (including 6 on the road), 6 are against teams below them in the standings — 3 with the Islanders and one each with the Devils, Boston and Pittsburgh. They play two against a team higher in the standings (Ottawa) and two against the Philadelphia Flyers, whom they are battling for first place in the division.
"We have to get back to the efficient, smart, economical, hard-working team that we were before the Olympics," Renney said. "We have to bring urgency to our game because of what we're in pursuit of."
After those seven empty seasons without playoffs (eight, if you count the season-long lockout in 2004-5), Jaromir Jagr has put the Rangers back on the hockey map and resurrected some glorious Rangers names, names that many of their long-frustrated followers, and Jagr himself, may not have even known.
"What he's done for the franchise, the city, the fans," Renney said. "His tentacles reach really far."
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