Best of the decade posts:
Ranking the seasons part 1
Ranking the seasons part 2
Best regular season game
Best playoff game
Best playoff moment
Worst moment
As the 2010’s come to a close, there have been a lot of good memories for the Rangers. The decade was one of the best in Rangers history, with seven playoff appearances, nine playoff series wins, two Eastern Conference Finals appearances and one Stanley Cup Finals appearance. As we round out the close of the decade, I polled the BSB writers for their top moments. Here’s who we thought the best player was. Henrik Lundqvist is the gimme here, so aside from him.
Tyler: Besides the obvious in Lundqvist, you have to give this to Zuccarello. Yes, Gaborik put up 2 40-goal campaigns, but then was really traded when his value was at his highest to bring in Brassard a la what we did with Brassard to get Zibanejad 3 years later. Zuccarello’s play however as a Ranger from day one showed he was going to be a fan favorite and boy was he. Consistently put up 50 points in his sleep every year and let’s not forget that after forgetting how to TALK, he put up a 26-goal season that should have gotten him the Masterton that year and I will die on that hill. Jagr was old still playing hockey…whoop die doo.
Rob L: I mean who can compete with the first 30 games of Adam Fox? Joking. Up front, it’s Kreider for me. Probably a boring answer but he’s been so good for so long. On Defense, I’ll go McDonagh in an equally boring answer. NYR has been mostly offensively focused since Renney left, and having McDonagh play 20-25 minutes a night made it pretty easy to mask depth problems.
Pat: Rick Nash. Period. End of story.
Rob C: The Rangers were a team won because of depth and not elite skill. There are a lot of choices here, but I’m going to go with Rick Nash. When healthy, Nash was 35-40 goal per season player who was effective in all three zones. It’s easy to point to some of his tough playoff runs as a criticism, but the truth is that the Rangers might not have made the playoffs in every full season that Nash was a Ranger without him.
Becky: Mats Zuccarello – and not because he was actually the best, but because he spanned most of the decade as a Ranger and defined the team consistently. I always liked him, but never loved him, and still felt so strange when he left last year, despite it making sense from a front office point of view. He’s the guy I’ll always wish well.
Dave: This is very difficult. As Rob said, there was very little elite skill on the teams this past decade, and the Rangers won with depth. So I have to go with most skilled, and the player(s) that could take a game over. For me that has to be Marian Gaborik and Rick Nash, and yes I’m cheating by picking both. In the two full seasons Gaborik played, he scored 42 and 41 goals, the first 40-goal scorer for the Rangers since Jaromir Jagr. He put up 22 in 62 while injured the season in between those 40-goal campaigns, and then had a rough exit in an oft-injured 2012-2013 campaign. So good though when healthy. Ditto Nash, who might be the most unappreciated Ranger ever. Concussions really robbed us of his potential, but man was he good when healthy: 21-21-42 in the lockout season (44 games), 42-27-69 in 2014-2015, and just a force on the ice. Concussions suck, is what I’m saying.
Use this as your open thread for today. Happy Holidays everyone!
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