If a reason is needed, beyond the fact that Brad Park is one of the greatest two defensemen in franchise history and thus deserves to have his No. 2 retired and raised to the top of the Garden’s pinwheel ceiling beside his peer, Brian Leetch’s, there is this:
It would mean the world to a generation of Rangers fans who have watched their team for 50 or 60 years and have one Stanley Cup to show for it. How about that one?
How about the franchise, now led by a gentleman from Connecticut who grew up rooting for the Blueshirts and later became captain of the team, giving a little bit back to its fan base by honoring the last of the five pillars of Emile Francis’ beloved teams the way Rod Gilbert, Ed Giacomin, Jean Ratelle and Vic Hadfield have already been recognized?
This is not a plea to president and general manager Chris Drury that is based on sentiment alone. If you ever saw Park wearing the Blueshirt, you would know that. I don’t care that he played only 465 games for the Rangers before being sent away to the Bruins in the trade, 46 years ago this very Sunday, which signaled the End of Times. Why should anyone? It is not as if he walked out on his own.
“I cried,” Park said just last week about the trade when we were sharing memories over the phone of Giacomin’s iconic return to the Garden in 1975, five days before Park and Ratelle were told to turn in their ID badges. “And then I got mad.”
Before he cried, before he got mad, before he and Ratelle led the Bruins to the Cup final in 1977 and 1978 (and before Phil Esposito did the same for the Rangers in 1979), Park had a five-year stretch in New York (from 1969-70 through 1973-74) in which he was named to the first All-Star team three times and the second team twice, while finishing as the runner-up to Bobby Orr for the Norris Trophy four times and finishing third in the balloting once.
I happened upon a tweet a few days ago promoting either a podcast or a network show that included bullet points about the topics that would be covered. One of them was “Rules for Retired Numbers.” I did not listen, sorry, other things to do, but the first rule about retired numbers is that there are no rules for retired numbers. The second rule is to refer to the first.
That is why Adam Graves’ No. 9 is retired and why Bobby Nystrom’s No. 23 is retired, and why, in Washington, Yvon Labre’s No. 7 has been honored. It is why Alan Hamilton’s No. 3 is retired in Edmonton and Keith Magnuson’s No. 3 has been honored in Chicago.
There is never a wrong reason for a franchise to retire a number any more than there is a guideline for doing so beyond greatness, beyond impact, beyond the connection with the fan base. Beyond history. Park checks every box.
But there is more. Park is 73 years old; Giacomin, 82; Ratelle, 81; Emile, 95; Hadfield 81; Gilbert gone at 80. The silver generation has only so many more days. So does the generation of Blue Seaters and the fans in the greens and the swells in the reds who loved those teams with all of their hearts. There is not only no good reason to wait, there is no time to wait, either.
Park has earned this honor. He is one of the two greatest defensemen in franchise history, a member of the Hall of Fame and one of the NHL’s Greatest 100 as selected four years ago. It is time to reunite Park with Gilbert, Giacomin, Ratelle and Hadfield at the top of the Garden.
It is time for this No. 2 to be celebrated in New York. He has earned it. And so have the generations of Rangers fans who do not have the opportunity to celebrate franchise championships but have earned the privilege of saluting franchise icons.
The Sabres’ return for Jack Eichel was in many ways commensurate with the return gained for Rick Nash in July of 2013 when the Blue Jackets dealt him to the Rangers with about as much leverage as Buffalo had in this case.
Nash, as you recall, had a no-trade clause that he refused to waive for any team other than the Rangers after asking to be moved at the onset of a rebuilding, the way that Eichel — without a no-trade clause, but with pending serious neck surgery on the horizon — told the Sabres he wanted out.
Buffalo got a couple of players, Alex Tuch and Peyton Krebs, who hopefully for the sake of the downtrodden upstate franchise will be part of a young winning core the way that Eichel and Sam Reinhart were not. The Sabres also got a presumably late first-rounder, as Columbus did, in addition to Brandon Dubinsky, Artem Anisimov and Tim Erixon, from the Rangers in 2013.
And the Golden Knights, who from Day 1 have been all about weaponizing the liters of cap space the franchise was granted coming into the league in a manner the Kraken seemingly have no interest in copying, have their franchise center … if Eichel makes a complete hockey recovery from his upcoming disk replacement surgery.
You know what I remember most about Marian Gaborik, who announced his retirement from the NHL on Thursday following a career in which he scored 407 goals in 1,035 games?
The way The Great Gabby — who recorded 19 goals and 33 points in his first 22 games as a Ranger in 2009-10 on his way to the first of two 40-plus goal seasons in his nearly four years on Broadway — would twirl and hitch his stick in his hands before faceoffs the way Wyatt Earp might have handled his pistol before going to work against Curly Bill Brocius.
That’s what.
Do I have this right? Through the Candy Canes’ 9-0 start they put on the line Saturday night at Florida, Tony DeAngelo has been on the ice for one goal against at five-on-five while racking up a plus-11? Holy Sheltering, Rod Brind’Amour.
I am not an especially devout believer in karma, but if you wanted to convince me, you might have to say nothing more than: “Marc Bergevin.”
That wasn’t McJesus scoring that goal in Edmonton on Friday. That was McMoses parting the Blueshirt Sea, doing to the Rangers what Mario Lemieux once did to Shawn Chambers, times four.