Rangers' Cup runneth over with ex-Oilers

Sporting News, The, June 13, 1994 by Larry Wigge

Rangers General Manager Neil Smith puts a lot of stock in history and winning tradition. That's why there are so many former Oilers on his team.

There are 26 Stanley Cup rings -- and counting -- among former Oilers Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson, Esa Tikkanen, Kevin Lowe, Craig MacTavish, Jeff Beukeboom and Adam Graves.

"Last year, someone in the organization told me, 'Enough Oilers,'" Smith says. "I said, 'What should I get then, Sharks and Senators?'"

Just ask Vancouver General Manager-Coach Pat Quinn if he would mind having more former Oilers than just Geoff Courtnall and Martin Gelinas. "I'd take a boatload of them," he says. "They're winners. But we're also in the same division, and Glen Sather wouldn't trade them to me."

Getting players with a winning tradition is Smith's way of turning the clock back to the mid-1980s, when the Oilers won five Cups in seven years, and bridging the long gap between the Rangers and their last Cup in 1940.

Graves was having lunch with goaltender Mike Richter last week when he saw Anderson walk past the restaurant. "There goes one of the best money players in the game," Graves said. "Before this series is over, he'll score at least one big goal."

It didn't take long for Graves prediction to be fulfilled. That night, Anderson scored a shorthanded goal that proved to be the winner in a 3-1 Game 2 victory, and two nights later, he tipped in a first-period shot that gave the Rangers a 2-1 lead in an eventual 5-1 Game 3 victory. Anderson had scored only one goal in 16 playoff games entering the series.

"Glenn has the ability to be in the right place at the right time," Messier says.

Before those goals, however, criticism of the Rangers' late-season Mike Gartner-for-Anderson trade was still being heard in every interview session with Coach Mike Keenan.

"People kept asking why I kept playing Anderson when he wasn't scoring," Keenan says. "But he was contributing in other ways. They just couldn't see it."

Says Anderson: "I must admit I've got a little more incentive against the Canucks, having grown up six blocks away from the Pacific Coliseum. I'm taking this series a little more seriously because it could be my last one in Vancouver."

Anderson's NHL career could be nearing an end, and he may be headed for Europe next season. But Quinn, for one, says people who don't know Anderson and Messier and the rest of the former Oilers shouldn't question their contributions, especially when so much is on the line.

"Would I like to see them disappear for this series? Darn right," Quinn says. "You can't combat experience. If you don't have it, you have to have a skill level great enough to help you overcome it."

And there are no better players to have on your team with the Stanley Cup on the line.

"If you're going to war, you want people at your side who you've been to war with before," Lowe says.

Those names are easy to fine. They are engraved on the Stanley Cup.

No untouchables

Bryan Murray refused to pay the price for either Oilers goaltender Bill Ranford or ex-Oiler Grant Fuhr - and it cost him his job.

Murray didn't sound like a man who was about to lose his job when he said last week that Sergei Fedorov was the only untouchable on the Red Wings roster.

"If you go through the 15 trades I made and pick the one that didn't work, I guess that's the one," Murray says, referring to his March trade of goaltender Tim Cheveldae to Winnepeg for goalie Bob Essensa. "When I came here, I thought we had a plan. I thought we agreed that we would go with young players and let them develop.

"Had I known I had to win this year, I would have done a couple of things, but not massive changes. If they keep these young prospects, this team will be good for a very long time."

But good isn't what Owner Mike Ilitch wants. That's why he paid big bucks to bring Scotty Bowman in as coach. that's why he probably will name Bowman and former G.M. Jimmy Develano to replace Murray. And that's why he plans to put a blank check in front of Ranfords' face when he becomes a free agent July 1.

Ilitch's bottom line is winning championships, not lossing in the first playoff round to the Sharks.

Icy bits

Here's why the Whalers will not be leaving Hartford soon: The deal Peter Karmanos and the Compuware Corporation from Farmington, Mich., signed to buy the team from Richard Gordon for #47.5 million guarantees it will remain in Hartford for at least four more seasons. It can only be moved if the Whalers lose $30 million in that span -- and then only if the Whalers pay the state of Connecticut $5 million. But with former goaltender Jimmy Rutherford running the show -- and that means no more foolish Paul Holmgren trades and probably no more Paul Holmgren period -- the Whalers will become a winner, just as Rutherford turned the Windsor-Detroit junior team into a successful operation.... Holmgren twice asked permission to talk to Maple Leafs minor league coach Marc Crawford as a potential replacement for Pierre McGuire, but wsa turned down by Toronto G.M. Cliff Fletcher, who is working on a contract extension for Pat Burns. Fletcher does not want to lose Crawford unless he's certain Burns will be back for three or four seasons. Rutherford also likes Tom Renney, who coached the silver medal-winning Canadian Olympic team.