The beginnings of the Rangers-Islanders rivalry began modestly to say the least. So one-sided were the games early in the Battle of New York, that it took the Islanders over a year to get their first win over the established Rangers. Win No. 2 didn’t come until the last game of their third year of existence.
That didn’t matter, because the upstarts from Nassau County not only reversed the rivalry, but quickly grew into one of the league’s greatest dynasties. It took the Rangers years to recover from the Islander uprising and it came with the guidance of a former Islander draftee and scouting assistant. As the Rangers and Islanders prepare for their historic game at Yankee Stadium in the NHL Stadium Series, The News looks at one of the greatest rivalries in the game.
*Bryan Hextall’s OT goal gave the Rangers a 3-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals on April 13, 1940 as the Blueshirts won their third title in their first 14 seasons.
* The Brooklyn/New York Americans suspended operations after an 8-3 loss in Boston on March 17, 1942. They planned to restart the franchise after World War II, but never did, leaving the NHL with the “Original Six.” For its first 16 seasons the team was known as the New York Americans. In its last season, the team held practices at the Brooklyn Ice Arena and were known as the Brooklyn Americans even though they still played home games at Madison Square Garden. The Rangers were the only team in town for the next 30 years.
* With the fledgling World Hockey Association seeking to take residence at Nassau Coliseum with the New York Raiders, the NHL selected Long Island as a site for its third round of expansion to keep “the competition” away. A local beverage company owner and clothing manufacturer who grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn named Roy Boe — already the owner of the New York Nets of the American Basketball Association — and his group of inverstors came up with the $6 million franchise fee and $4 million territorial fee to the Rangers and gave birth to the New York Islanders on Dec. 30, 1971.
* Boe made Bill Torrey the team’s first general manager on Feb. 15, 1972. Torrey established a foundation with ex-Rangers Earl Ingarfield as a scout and Phil Goyette as the team’s first head coach.
*On May 11, 1972, the Rangers lose Game 6 and the Stanley Cup Finals, 3-0, to Bobby Orr and the Big Bad Boston Bruins at the Garden. It was the second straight 109-point season for the star-studded team that featured stars Rod Gilbert, Jean Ratelle and Brad Park with Ed Giacomin in net.
* Rangers take first exhibition match, 6-4, on Sept. 27 at the Couliseum and the first regular season meeting with the Islanders, 2-1, in Uniondale on Oct. 21, 1972. They also take the season series, 6-0, by a combined score of 25-5.
*Defenseman Arnie Brown (1964-71) became the first ex-Ranger to pull on an Islanders sweater after four-player deal with Detroit on October 4, 1972. The first trade between the two teams took place on Nov. 14, 1972 as Rangers deal RW Ron Stewart for cash.
By the count of The News, 68 players wore the jersey of both the Islander and Rangers and there was only two trades between the tow teams.
* Islanders finished inaugural 1972-73 season with 12-60-6 record, one of the worst in league history. The Rangers finish 47-23-8 and were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs in six games by the Chicago Blackhawks.
* Former bespectacled Red Wings, Blackhawks, Maple Leafs and Blues defenseman Al Arbor began the 1973-74 season behind the bench, but little changed for the hapless Islanders. It took eight games for Arbor to get his first win, a 3-2 decision at home against the Rangers on Oct. 27, 1973, in which “the next Bobby Orr” Denis Potvin scored his first two NHL goals. Also, the quick fists of Bobby Nystrom bloodied Ranger vet Vic Hadfield, one of the league toughest fighters and, in 71-72, the team’s first 50-goal scorer. The Rangers won the last five games against the Isles that season.
* The Islanders showed continued improvement in 1974-75 but still struggled with the Rangers until after four losses and a tie, beat the Blueshirts, 6-4, at the Garden on April 6, 1975 in the last game of the season. The Islanders even make the playoffs for the first time and meet the Rangers in the first round.
* The veteran-laden Rangers trailed the Islanders 3-0 at the Garden going into the third period of Game 3 of the three-game first-round series and get two goals by Bill Fairbairn and one from Steve Vickers to stay alive. J.P. Parise scored 11 seconds into OT as the Islanders eliminate the Rangers, 4-3, on April 11, 1975 and advance to play the Pittsburgh Penguins. Their reputation for clutch postseason play continues as the Islanders become the second team (Toronto did it first against Detroit in the 1942 Finals) to come back from a three-game deficit to win a series after beating the Penguins, 1-0, on April 26, 1975.
* They never-say-die Islanders nearly did it again in the third round by erasing a 3-0 deficit to the eventual two-time champs Philadelphia Flyers, only to lose Game 7, 4-1. In Game 5, Islanders top cop Clark Gillies destroyed Broad Street Bullies linchpin Dave (the Hammer) Schultz at the Spectrum with a series of right hands. On the verge of dropping to the ice, Schultz was saved by teammates Andre (Moose) Dupont, Bob (Hound Dog) Kelly and Ted Harris. Gillies skated away with a satisfied smirk on his face.
* After falling just short of making the Stanley Cup Finals for the third year in a row, the Islanders selected Mike Bossy with the 15th selection of the 1977 NHL draft. Bossy, an average skater but a naturally gifted goal-scorer out of Laval of the Quebec Major Junior league, was passed over by 13 teams including the Rangers — twice! The Blueshirts take RW Lucien DeBlois, who notched a career-best 34 goals with Winnipeg in 1983-84 and was a valuable chip in the bluckbuster trade for Barry Beck in 1979, with the eighth pick in ’77. Five spots later the Rangers take flamboyant C/RW Ron Duguay, who was as good a playboy as he was a playmaker and became the darling of female fans in six seasons on Broadway. Neither careers of the top Ranger picks measured up to that of Bossy, arguably one of the greatest snipers of his generation.
* The Islanders get eliminated in seven-game quarterfinals by Tiger Williams, ex-Ranger Jerry Butler and the rough, tough Toronto Maple Leafs in 1977-78. One year later, the Rangers meet up with the Islanders again, but this time in the 1978-79 Cup semifinals. John Davidson stands on his head and the Blueshirts eliminate the heavily-favored Isles in six games. Animosity for the Islanders was ratcheted up, particularly in the Garden blue seats, after slick Swedish center Ulf Nilsson breaks his ankle on a Denis Potvin hit in a 3-2 Rangers victory on Feb. 25, 1979. Many Ranger fans believed Nilsson would have been the crucial factor against the Montreal Canadiens in the Finals that season as the Rangers were beaten in five games by the Habs. Potvin to this day has not been forgiven by Ranger fans for what they believed was a border-line clean check on Nilsson. The chant went up at the Garden: Potvin sucks! You can still hear the anti-Potvin refrain at the Garden even though many young fans don’t even know how it all began. (Well, now you know.) Nilsson never regained the form that made him a WHA star who scored over 100 points in each of his four seasons with the Winnipeg Jets. He was signed away from the rival league by the Rangers along with linemate Anders Hedberg for $2.4 million in the summer of 1978.
* Bobby Nystrom broke over the Philadelphia blue line on a 2-on-1 and darted for the net before he shoveled home John Tonelli’s pass over a fallen Pete Peeters in net at 7:11 of OT as the Islanders defeated the Flyers, 5-4, in Game 6 of the 1979-80 Stanley Cup Finals at Nassau Coliseum on May 24, 1980. A dynasty was born. The Islanders dispose of the game Rangers in each of the next three seasons en route to four straight Cup titles with Finals victories over the Minnesota North Stars, Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers.
* The Rangers closed the gap on the Islanders in 1983-84 and finished the season 42-29-9, good for 93 points but only fourth place in the Patrick Divison. They meet the first-place Isles (50-26-4,104 points) in the postseason again.
* After the Rangers fail on two chances to get the puck out of their zone, steady defensive defenseman Ken Morrow puts a low slapshot through Pat Flatley’s screen and past Glen Hanlon at 8:56 of OT to give the Islanders a 3-2 win in the classic Game 5 of the five-game Patrick Division semifinals at the Coliseum on April 10, 1984. The game was memorable for the Rangers too. Defenseman Ron Greschner, beset all season with back problems and deemed too slow by coach Herb Brooks, was in the lineup after Barry Beck seperated a shoulder on a Flatley check in Game 4 and skated circles around Denis Potvin before a highlight-reel deke and goal that put the Rangers up 1-0 in the first period. Don Maloney sent the game to OT on a disputed goal after Smith makes a save on Mark Pavelich’s shot from the slot, but the rebound is knocked down and into the net by an inconclusive Maloney high-stick with 39 seconds left in the third.
* The Isles disposed of the Washington Capitals and Montreal Canadiens in the next two rounds, but the “drive for five” was stopped by Edmonton and a host of young, swift-skating future-Rangers that featured Mark Messier, Wayne Gretzky and Glenn Anderson. The brash Oilers win Game 5 of the Finals, 5-2, on May 19, 1984 at Edmonton’s Northlands Coliseum and Messier was named playoff MVP. The dynasty was over. In five years, the Islanders had won 19 straight playoff series and Nassau Coliseum came to be known as Fort Neverlose in the Daily News by cartoonist Bill Gallo.
* Neil Smith was hired as Rangers GM in the summer of 1989, replacing the disastrous (Trader) Phil Esposito. Smith, just 35 years old, came with an Islanders pedigree. He was drafted by the Islanders in the 13th round of the 1974 NHL draft as a defenseman out of Western Michigan University. Sensing a limited future as a player in the league, Smith was hired as a scouting assistant to then-Islanders chief scout and assistant GM Jim Devellano.
* Rangers and Islanders met in playoffs for the seventh time in the first round of the 1989-90 season. The Rangers won the series easily but Game 1 at the Garden is marred by crunching check by James Patrick on Islanders star Pat LaFontaine, who is knocked unconscious by an elbow to the face with Chris Nilan hooking him at the same time from behind. LaFontaine was taken off the ice on a stretcher and then things got ugly. In the closing seconds of the game the Isles sent their muscle on the ice as fighters Mick Vukota and Ken Baumgartner took the last faceoff. The Rangers, who had the last change, sent out noted fighters Kris King, Nilan and Mark Janssens, but curiously, born-again Christian and avowed pacifist defenseman Jeff Bloemberg as well. In what was surely retaliation for the LaFontaine injury, Vukota pummeled Bloemberg, who turtled and refused to fight back as a 5-on-5 melee ensued.
The hard feelings did not stop with there. After the game, LaFonatine was diagnosed with a moderate concussion, but not before the star center’s trip to the hospital was, according to the Islanders trainers, unnecessarily delayed because Garden officials insisted he be examined by a house doctor. Islanders staff also reported that LaFontaine’s ambulance was rocked and pounded by fans as it left the Garden.
* On March 5, 1994, Sergei Zubov’s goal in the last minute gave the Rangers a 5-4 win, their first on the Island since a 4-1 triumph on Oct. 28, 1989. The Rangers also swept the Islanders in the first round of 1993-94 playoffs on their way to their first Stanley Cup since 1940.
* A between-period Christmas promotion in a game between the Islanders and Flyers on Dec. 23, 2003 turned into a full-scale brou-ho-ho. After the first period about a thousand fans dressed as Kris Kringle were allowed to parade on the ice, when one mischievous holiday reveler took off his red overcoat to reveal a blue Rangers jersey with Matthew Barnaby’s 36 on the back. The Islanders faithful quickly knocked the bad Santa down and attempted to remove the rogue sweater. Finally, Islanders personnel arrived to break things up and forced the crazy Claus to remove the blue shirt before he continued in the merriment. What did then-Islander Arron Asham think of the incident? “Awewsome,” he said.
* June 8, 2006: Neil Smith is introduced as new Islanders GM, the first person to hold the position for both area teams. July 18, 2006: Smith is fired as Islanders GM after an argument with owner Charles Wang over authority on personnel and staffing decisions.
* The Rangers and Islanders completed their first trade since 1972, as 19-year-old defenseman Jyri Niemi was sent to the Blueshirts on May 25, 2010 for a sixth-round pick in the 2010 draft. The two teams nearly consumated a blockbuster in June of 1999 when the trade was called off after of all things a disagreement arose about how many Islanders games were to be shown on Fox Sports New York the next season. FSNY was operated by the owner of the Rangers, Cablevision. The deal would have sent sniper Ziggy Palffy and defenseman Rich Pilon to the Rangers in exchange for forwards Niklas Sundstrom and Todd Harvey, plus a first-round pick, a minor leaguer and $2.5 million.
