The Rangers were well on their way to first place, but GM Neil Smith’s team needed more toughness as the trade deadline approached.
This isn’t 1994. That was three seasons ago, in 1991, when Roger Neilson, in his second year on the bench, was joined by Mike Gartner, Darren Turcotte, Tony Amonte, Bernie Nicholls, Ray Shepherd, John Ogrodnick, James Patrick and Brian Leitch. He led a club that included . Young Thie Domi had been signed at the beginning of the season.
The Blueshirts, who had finished in first place the previous year for the first time since 1942, held a nine-point lead over the Penguins as the deadline approached with the club going 7-3-3. Their record on deadline day was 34 wins, 22 losses, and 12 draws.
Joey Coker, then 26 years old and the most feared pugilist in the league, was acquired from the Red Wings, where Smith had served as chief scout before coming to New York. On March 5, the Blueshirts traded Kevin Miller, Jim Cummins, and Dennis Vial to Detroit for Kocul and defenseman Per Joos.
The Blueshirts quickly faltered, losing eight in a row, but won two of their final 12 games (2 wins, 9 losses, 1 draw) and slipped into second place, three points behind the Penguins, with a record of 36 wins, 31 losses, and 13 losses. is. They then lost in the first round to Washington in six games.
Kocur’s trade has long been cited as one that looked good on paper but didn’t pay off in practice. There is talk that this contract has completely changed the chemistry of the team. It has served as a kind of cautionary tale, passed down from generation to generation.
Current Rangers GM Chris Drury said after Wednesday’s game against Columbus at the Garden that the No. 1 club has just two games left to evaluate its own personnel before the March 8 deadline for this season. It’s coming and you may be aware of this.
But when I spoke to the only living Rangers general manager to hoist the Cup, Smith disputed that narrative. He suggested that the incident was not due to a chemical issue, but rather had something to do with the fact that Kocur was suspended for a total of seven of the 12 games after the deadline for two separate incidents. .
“Obviously things didn’t work out that year, but I would never say the trade was bad when Joey was on the Cup team,” Smith said by phone Wednesday morning. “But more than that, I had no understanding of how chemistry had developed.
“Kevin Miller was a good player, but I didn’t take any essential players out of our lineup or our team.”
Miller, 25 at the time, was the middle brother in an NHL family that included older brother Kelly and younger brother Kip. Before he was transferred to Detroit, he had 44 points in 63 games (17 wins, 27 losses).
Kelly Miller, of course, also played for the Rangers, and was sent to Washington on New Year’s Day 1987 by Phil Esposito in his first year as GM, along with Mike Ridley and Bob Crawford in exchange for Bobby Carpenter, the worst trade in franchise history. I joined one of the. .
“The third game with Joey, there was an incident in Chicago where he punched Eddie Belfour and he got suspended for four games, so he disappeared right away,” Smith said. “We held a hearing [league VP] Brian O’Neal and I remember the feeling that Joey was being suspended just because he was Joey Coker. “Number 26 again?” he said. ”
Shortly after, Kocul was assessed his fourth major stick-related penalty of the season for spearing Pittsburgh’s Ulf Samuelsson in a game that finally saw the Blueshirts fall from first place on March 17th. He was suspended for three games.
Kocul appeared in just five games for the Blueshirts. He was suspended for the first game of the playoffs. He wasn’t very good. Chemistry stories were highly overrated.
