The Rangers On The Rampage

Rod Gilbert adjusted the knot in his custom-made tie, combed his long dark hair and buttoned his double-breasted burgundy sports jacket. A black eye, the mark of one of teammate Vic Hadfield's slap shots, detracted little from his striking good looks; a painful bruise on the back of his leg—from another Hadfield shot—could not keep Gilbert from smiling. "You're going to have to start scoring without my help," he said to Hadfield. "I'm going to stop standing in front of the net when you shoot."

"When I shoot," said Hadfield, "the safest place to be is right in front of the net."

Gilbert laughed as he walked past Hadfield and out of the New York Ranger dressing room. He could hardly have been in a better mood. The Rangers were winning, Rod was fighting for the National Hockey League scoring title, and a stunning dark-haired girl was waiting for him. Beautiful girls have long been a part of Gilbert's life, but the victories and the personal glory are new and pleasant additions. "I've never enjoyed a season more," he said. "In other years the last few weeks of the season got to be a drag. Now time is going by so fast that I can hardly keep track of the games."

Those who do keep track know that the Rangers, led by Gilbert and his longtime friend and linemate, Jean Ratelle, are playing the best hockey in the league. In their last 17 games they have won 11, tied four and lost only two, a streak that has carried them into second place in the East Division behind the Montreal Canadiens. They are still in a tight race with Boston and Chicago, and some New York fans, conditioned by years of disappointment, point out that even a mild slump could drop the Rangers back into fourth. But the club is playing so well now that first seems just as possible as fourth, and second—a height New York has not attained in 10 years—appears very likely.

At midseason, many Ranger followers would have been happy to settle for fourth. The Rangers were near the bottom of the division and losing steadily to the other established clubs. In fact, they would have dropped deep into last place if they had not managed to win almost every game from the expansion teams. As bad as they looked, however, the Rangers had one important asset. Emile Francis, the general manager and coach, had built a team with depth, and he had managed to maintain that depth while the expansion draft was severely depleting the reserves of every other club except Montreal. As the long season progressed, that one factor changed the complexion of the East Division race.

Detroit and Toronto were the first to collapse as older stars weakened and no new ones arrived to replace them. Boston, the early leader, fell back largely because of injuries to one man, Bobby Orr. And Chicago, with the best individual stars but possibly the least depth of all, was forced to place a huge burden on Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull; the Black Hawks may well tire through the final weeks and the playoffs, as they have often done in the past.

The Canadiens, with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of fast and talented young players, were the first to take advantage of the problems of the other teams. In three weeks they spurted from last to first and began to pull away. The Rangers took a little longer to get going and, while they may not be able to catch Montreal, their own streak has been almost as impressive.

Strangely, the New York resurgence may have begun with what seemed like a crushing blow. On the night of January 10 in Chicago the Rangers, who were finally beginning to play well, faced the Hawks, who had won nine home games in a row. Midway in the first period, Hadfield raced into a corner for the puck, somehow lost his balance and plunged headfirst into the boards. He lay still for several minutes, then was carried off on a stretcher as a pall settled over the game. An hour later the players' worst fears—a head injury—were alleviated; but they also found that Vic had a broken right shoulder and would be lost for at least a dozen games.

An injury to a top-scoring threat and rugged fighter like Hadfield can hurt any team; it could have been especially damaging to a struggling fifth-place club. Francis knew that if he could not put an adequate replacement on the line with Gilbert and Ratelle, he would lose much of his scoring strength; he gambled that little Camille Henry could do the job. Henry was once a prolific scorer, but he is now 35 and he missed all last season after a dispute with the Black Hawk management. Francis had taken a chance by bringing him out of retirement, and he took an even bigger one by asking him to fill in for Hadfield.

Henry scored two goals that night to gain a 3-3 tie with the Hawks and went on to play very well while Hadfield was out. More important, it was his presence that seemed to bring Gilbert and Ratelle out of a long slump. "Cammy did a great job," says Ratelle, "and he made us change our style. He was slower and smaller than Vic, so Rod and I had to set up more plays and go into the corners more to get the puck." Once they began digging and hitting, Gilbert and Ratelle also began scoring. "Cammy helped a lot," says Gilbert, "and we were getting into our best condition at that time, too. We really started to go."