Rangers-Devils: A simmering rivalry gets some playoff heat

Mark Messier and Ken Daneyko were good friends growing up in Edmonton, Alberta. Messier was a few years older, but always supported his younger skating friend. He eventually ended up at Daneyko’s wedding party and their close friendship continued after they made it to the NHL

That is, until 1991, when Messier was traded to the Rangers.

“When he came to New York, everything changed,” said Daneyko, a three-time Stanley Cup-winning defenseman who spent his entire 20-year career with the Devils. “All friendships were put on hold because there was too much at stake. We hated them, they hated us, and the fans don’t like each other either.”

The rivalry between the Rangers and the Devils hasn’t always been white hot. It took time to develop and cool down when a team was left behind, but it’s long been a smoldering fire waiting to be fanned.

“The way that rivalry starts is from the playoff series,” said Patrick Kane, who won three Stanley Cup championships with Chicago before being traded to the Rangers in February. “I know these teams haven’t faced each other in the playoffs in a while, but it’s still a great rivalry.”

The last time these teams faced each other in the postseason, the series ended on Adam Henrique’s overtime winner for the Devils, a shot past Henrik Lundqvist in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals on May 25, 2012. It was also the last game of Chris Kreider’s unique rookie season. He came straight from Boston College to the Rangers and was thrown straight into the NHL playoffs, where he scored five goals in 18 games without appearing in a single regular season game.

Three of those goals came against the Devils, but they weren’t what Kreider remembered when asked about the series.

“Losing,” he said. ‘That’s what I remember. I mean, it’s a totally different situation now. Different teams, different players. It’s apples and pears.”

The grunting battle will resume Tuesday night at the Prudential Center in Newark, with Kreider and new cast members providing the fuel.

“It will definitely reignite the rivalry,” said Rangers coach Gerard Gallant. “I mean, there’s always been rivalry, but when you play teams in the playoffs, it definitely helps.”

The teams’ arenas are approximately 14 miles apart and are separated by the Hudson River. Their fans mingle at games, in bars, at work, and sometimes within families. Both fan groups infiltrate each other’s arenas, and the last time the teams met, in Newark in March, half the building appeared to be wearing Rangers blue.

“If I had to decide, there would be a little less here,” said Devils forward Erik Haula. “But it makes it intense for everyone.”

They have faced each other six times in the playoffs, with the Devils winning two of the last three matchups (in 2012 and 2006) and the Rangers winning the first three, including the best of all: the epic 1994 Eastern Conference Finals.

“There were Hall of Famers all over the ice,” recalled Daneyko. “It was one of the best playoff series in hockey history.”

It ended with one of the most famous broadcasts in pro sports, when Howie Rose shouted, “Matteau, Matteau, Matteau!” on WFAN radio, forever adding Stéphane Matteau’s winning goal to the lexicon of legendary sports moments. Rose then yelled that the Rangers had “one more hill to climb, baby,” meaning the Stanley Cup Finals where they defeated the Vancouver Canucks for their first title since 1940, ending decades of agony for the franchise and its wipe out fans.

“There was a lot more to that goal than who was going to play for the Stanley Cup,” Rose said.

A Rangers fan since 1966 when he was 12, Rose said that to understand the significance of that goal you have to go way back, way before the Devils arrived in New Jersey in 1982 (when they moved from Colorado after starting out in Kansas City, Mo.). A decade earlier, the Islanders were the new team in the New York metropolitan area, seemingly created to torment Rangers fans by winning four straight Stanley Cups from 1979-80 to 1982-83. Islanders fans rubbed it in their faces with incessant chants of ‘1940’.

“It infuriated Rangers fans beyond what anyone could understand today,” Rose said. “That’s the backstory. Now you have another team coming to New Jersey, and the last thing a Rangers fan could tolerate was seeing another team come into this market and get on and over the Rangers.

In their first playoff encounter, in the first round in 1992, the Rangers defeated the Devils in seven games. In 1994, the Devils had a new color scheme and a better team to match the very talented Rangers.

Coincidentally, the 1994 Rangers had 52 wins and 112 points, tied with this year’s Devils. And the 1994 Devils had 47 wins and 106 points, matching the winning total of today’s Rangers, who earned one more point, 107. Today’s teams are so evenly matched that betting shops rank the Rangers as the only even-money “underdog ” have made. on the playoff field.

“I like all those guys, but I’m sure they would all say the same thing,” said Jimmy Vesey, a Rangers winger who played for the Devils last year. “It’s the playoffs. It’s serious, and there are certainly no friends.”

In 1994, the Devils won Game 5 at Madison Square Garden, but Messier declared before Game 6 that the Rangers would win. In one of the most remarkable feats in team sports, he backed it up. The Devils were leading 2-0 with less than two minutes to play in the second period, when Messier assisted Alex Kovalev’s goal. Messier himself scored three goals in the third.

“An all-time great took the lead: that was our learning curve for what came a year later,” said Daneyko, referring to the 1995 Devils Championship. “Were we ahead of the curve? Absolutely. Did we pinch our sticks, our heels tightened up and let the Rangers take over? Yeah.”

In an all-ages Game 7, the Devils trailed 1–0 with less than 10 seconds to play, when Valeri Zelepukin equalized – the Devils’ second time to score after drawing the goaltender in the series. The teams fought their way through an excruciatingly tense and scoreless first overtime. Then, 4 minutes and 24 seconds after the second, Matteau rushed behind the net and, with his teammate Esa Tikkanen leading the way, slipped the puck off Martin Brodeur’s glove, prompting Rose’s chilling call.

Watching the replay on their monitor, Sal Messina, Rose’s stand partner, wondered if it might have been Tikkanen who scored the historic goal. Rose swallowed silently.

“I think to myself, oh no, I’m either going to be the biggest pushover in NHL history,” Rose recalls, “or I’m going to have to go into a studio and overdub, ‘Tikkanen, Tikkanen, Tikkanen!'”

From Tuesday, some new players may join Matteau, Messier, Daneyko, Brodeur, Lundqvist and Henrique in the rivalry pantheon.

Perhaps it’s the Rangers’ Jacob Trouba throwing a devastating open-ice hit on an unconscious opponent, like Scott Stevens did with the Devils. Maybe Jack Hughes scores a hat-trick for the Devils, or Kane does it in his first playoff appearance with the Rangers. Or maybe a name no one expects, like Matteau in 1994, becomes part of a new history.

Haula, Haula, Haula. Or Vesey, Vesey, Vesey.

“I expect it to be a classic,” said Daneyko. “I think it will be seven games and it will be epic.”