List of New York Rangers seasons

An arena set up for ice hockey. Spectators surround the rink, and players in blue and white jerseys can be seen on the ice.
Madison Square Garden is the home arena of the Rangers.

The New York Rangers are an American ice hockey franchise that competes in the National Hockey League (NHL). One of the NHL's "Original Six" teams,[1] the Rangers play in the Metropolitan Division of the Eastern Conference. Since 1968, the team has played its home games in Madison Square Garden.[2] In 96 completed seasons (excluding the lockout-canceled 2004–05 season), the team has won four Stanley Cup championships and has qualified for the playoffs sixty-two times. As of the end of the 2023–24 season, New York has won 3,037 regular season games, the fifth-highest victory total among NHL teams.[3]

The Rangers were founded in 1926, and won their first Stanley Cup title in 1928, making them the first U.S.-based NHL franchise to win the Cup.[4] Over the next 12 seasons, New York reached the Stanley Cup Finals five times and won twice, in 1933 and 1940. The Rangers then entered a period of decline; from 1943 to 1966, New York missed the playoffs 18 times. During that time, the Rangers reached the 1950 Stanley Cup Finals, where they lost to the Detroit Red Wings. In the 1970s, the Rangers made the Stanley Cup Finals twice, but were defeated by the Boston Bruins in 1972 and by the Montreal Canadiens in 1979. Thirteen years later, in the 1991–92 season, New York won the Presidents' Trophy by leading the NHL in regular season points with 105.[5] The team, however, was eliminated in the second round of the playoffs.

After missing the playoffs in the 1992–93 season, the Rangers accumulated 112 points in the 1993–94 season and won their second Presidents' Trophy.[5] With a seven-game victory against the Vancouver Canucks in the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals, the Rangers ended a 54-year Stanley Cup drought. After reaching the Eastern Conference finals in 1997, the Rangers did not return to the playoffs until 2006. In the 2013–14 season, the Rangers reached the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in 20 years, defeating the Canadiens in the Eastern Conference finals in six games before losing to the Los Angeles Kings in the Stanley Cup Finals. New York earned its third Presidents' Trophy with a then-team record 113 points in 2014–15,[5] but was eliminated in the conference finals in seven games by the Tampa Bay Lightning. In 2023–24, the Rangers won their fourth Presidents' Trophy with a team-record 114 points, but the Florida Panthers defeated them in the conference finals in six games.

  1. ^ Burnside, Scott (February 23, 2007). "Do Original Six teams still matter in the NHL?". ESPN. Archived from the original on October 25, 2012. Retrieved December 7, 2008.
  2. ^ 2008 ESPN Sports Almanac, p. 586.
  3. ^ "List of all the NHL Teams & Other Hockey Teams". Hockey-Reference. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on May 28, 2017. Retrieved June 2, 2024.
  4. ^ Anderson, Dave (May 14, 1995). "Sports of The Times; At Boston Garden, There's Much More Gold Than Green". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved October 19, 2012.
  5. ^ a b c "Silverware: Presidents' Trophy Winners". Hockey Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on June 26, 2015. Retrieved September 28, 2017.