We’re going to take you back to the spring training field at Al Lang Stadium in St. Petersburg in 1965, when Casey Stengel, the manager of the Mets, was introducing one of his catchers to the press.
“This is Greg Goosen,” the Ol’ Perfesser said. “He’s 19 years old, and in 10 years he’s got a chance to be 29.”
Which is to say, being young is not everything. It is a lot, you can take that from me, but it is not everything.
The same is true in the sport near and dear to your hearts, as anyone who has watched the likes of David Liffiton, Maxim Galanov, Peter Smrek, Bryce Lampman, Maxim Kondratiev and Thomas Pock take a stab at playing the blue line can confirm.
It is not enough merely to be young. Anyone can be young. Everyone was, once. It is not enough for the Rangers to merely be young at the back end. See directly above.
But what the Rangers have with a defense that features 24-year-old Adam Fox, 23-year-old K’Andre Miller, 24-year-old Ryan Lindgren and 21-year-old Braden Schneider is not simply a young corps that is going to be 10 years older in a decade, but a young corps with the potential to collect multiple Norris Trophies, and not all of them accruing to Fox.
K’Andre Miller and Adam Fox have helped the Rangers become one of the stingiest defenses in the NHL.Icon Sportswire via Getty ImagesAt first, second and third blush, this is a group that can grow to be special — if the cap will allow. Talent abounds in Fox and Miller. Toughness abounds in Lindgren and Schneider. Someday, perhaps even sooner than anticipated — when Schneider inevitably moves into the top four while changing places with Jacob Trouba — this can be a quartet that poses with the Cup.
Jeff Gorton was the general manager responsible for bringing all four to New York, trading a couple of second-rounders for Fox’s rights (and birthright to play for the Rangers); trading for Lindgren as part of the package in exchange for the Rick Nash rental; trading up to select Miller 22nd overall in 2018; and trading up to select Schneider 19th overall in 2020.
Rangers fans, say, “Thank you, Gorts.”
Chris Drury is the general manager who has the profoundly difficult duty of managing to keep the group in New York for the foreseeable future despite the cap pincers closing in on him and his team.
Miller is due this summer for a second contract. Lindgren is due the following summer for an extension as a restricted free agent with arbitration rights. Schneider is up for a second contract in 2024.
Rangers fans, say, “Good luck, Dru.”
This is a special group, but perhaps not unique in franchise history. Let’s take a look at three other times the Blueshirts’ blue line was bursting with youth and talent.
• The 1993-94 Stanley Cup champions: The answer to, “But there’s no Adam Fox in this group,” is, “But there is Brian Leetch…and, by the way, Sergei Zubov.”
A Stanley Cup champion at the age of 25, Brian Leetch went on to become the best defenseman in team history en route to the Hall of Fame.Getty ImagesLeetch, the greatest defenseman in franchise history, was 25 when he lifted the Conn Smythe Trophy on June 14, 1994. Zubov, as lethal a weapon as the franchise has ever had back there, was 23. Both are in the Hockey Hall of Fame. This is about as high a bar as a unit can set, though Zubov would somehow only play one more season on Broadway before being traded to Pittsburgh in one of the franchise’s biggest blunders.
But Leetch and Zubov are only two. So let’s add 23-year-old Alexander Karpovtsev, a rookie for the Cup ride, to the mix. Karpovtsev would play an important role for the 1996-97 team with Wayne Gretzky that went to the Cup semis, going straight up against Eric Lindros in the Eastern Conference Finals.
• The Ooh-La-La Gang: The young and charismatic 1978-79 group that upset the first-overall Islanders in the Cup semifinal Battle of New York, before losing the final to Montreal, had been together on the blue line for a couple of years as a result of a blend of personnel moves by former GMs Emile Francis and John Ferguson.
The youth on this unit was almost startling. Ron Greschner was 24, Dave Maloney was 22, Mike McEwen was 22, Mario Marois was 21 and Dave Farrish was 22. In a time when clubs generally dressed five defensemen, Farrish became a customary scratch, leaving Greschner, Maloney, McEwen and Marois to be looked after by Carol Vadnais, who was 33.
This was a group that was intact in 1977-78 (and in 1976-77 other than for Marois), which meant a Rangers club rebuilding in the middle of the decade once had three 20-year-olds (Maloney, McEwen, Farrish) and a 22-year-old (Greschner) soaking it all in.
Ron Greschner helped the Rangers emerge from the doldrums of the mid-1970s to upset a vaunted Islanders team in the 1978-79 playoffs.Getty Images• The Black-and-Blueshirts: When Ryan McDonagh was promoted from the AHL in the middle of the 2010-11 season, the Rangers had a blue line filled with youth and potential, much like the current one. No, there was no Fox, but there was a McDonagh, not as advanced at an early age as No. 23, but an emerging force at both ends of the ice.
In 2010-11, McDonagh was 21. He joined a group that included 24-year-old Marc Staal, 23-year-old Michael Sauer and 20-year-old Michael Del Zotto. Dan Girardi was a comparative fossil at age 26. It was a group with unlimited potential to become dominant.
They didn’t, of course, and we know why.
Sauer’s career came to a crashing halt in the middle of the following year after sustaining a concussion on a hit from Dion Phaneuf. No. 38 never played again. Staal’s progression was stunted after first being concussed on a hit from his brother, Eric, midway through 2010-11 and then being struck in the eye by a shot in March of 2013.
Called up to the Rangers at the age of 21, Ryan McDonagh helped the franchise reach the Stanley Cup Final in 2014 before winning two Cups with Tampa Bay after a trade to the Lightning in 2018.Getty ImagesLet that group be a reminder: The future is not guaranteed.
Standings are a state of mind
In the wake of Sunday’s disappointing loss to Montreal, the Rangers are a collective 6-4-1 against the six worst teams in the NHL. They’ve lost to the 32nd-overall Blackhawks at the Garden. They’ve lost to the 31st-overall Ducks in Anaheim. They’ve lost to the 30th-overall Blue Jackets in New York (though beat them in Columbus on Monday). They have lost to the 28th-overall Sharks at MSG in overtime. They just lost at home to the 27th-overall Canadiens.
On Sunday, the Canadiens became just the latest bottom-dwelling team to surprise the Rangers this season.Getty ImagesPoint, counterpoint: The Bruins, who have lost five games in regulation all season, suffered three of those defeats to the Senators, Coyotes and Panthers, all below the playoff cutline.
