Day: April 11, 2012

Submitted by: ThirtyFive

The 2011-12 New York Rangers regular season was the franchise’s 85th. It would have been the 86th, had the NHL not lost a full season due to a lockout which cancelled all the games of the 2004-05 season. So, despite the fact that the Rangers celebrated their 85th anniversary since the franchise’s establishment in 1926 last season, this is a good time to take a look back at all those years, and see where the franchise came from, where it stands now, and how it got here. But this isn’t a historical overview, not in the traditional sense. This is not about how the team was formed, who were the players and coaches, and things like that. Sport is about a lot of things, but one of the most important aspects of sport is statistics. Numbers are very significant to any sport. With that in mind I decided to take a look back at the 85 New York Rangers seasons from a statistical point of view, trying to weigh how the team performed over periods of time. It may surprise some that this past season was almost the best the Rangers have ever had.