Jimmy Vesey’s second Broadway appearance was an enormous success, with the prodigal winger earning a two-year mid-season contract extension after earning a spot on the lineup after a boot camp trial.
Vesey II was not surrounded by the crowds that marked his rookie season as Blueshirt in 2016-17 after he signed as an unrestricted free agent from Harvard with high expectations in the top six.
As a substitute, the number 26 took on a supporting role, despite the 29-year-old playing up and down the line-up and was rarely in the fourth row, where he competed with Dryden Hunt and Julien Gauthier in the camp.
Vesey’s success story is an exception to the rule of the Rangers having fun with a Broadway encore. Many returned only for a cup of coffee (or a glass of their favorite drink). Just about all had smaller roles with smaller profiles the second time around.
All three of the young works of the 1979 finalists who traveled to Colorado in the Barry Beck trade – Pat Hickey, Lucien DeBlois and Mike McEwen – returned. Ron Duguay had Act II. Real Lemieux, who was out of shape the first time around, got a brief second probability where he also didn’t impress.
Bronco Horvath was a Ranger each before and after he became a serious NHL player in Boston. Two Czechs – Petr Nedved and Jan Hlavac – took two tours. Doug Soetaert ended his profession here after 13 games in half a decade after his departure.
Defenders Larry Brown, Matt Gilroy and Mike McMahon got here and went, as did Jean-Guy Gendron. Sandy McCarthy returned as filler in the post-2004 deadline purge to fill the franchise’s ravaged roster that was at its weakest since World War II.
Seriously, in the best of seven between the 2018 Purge Blueshirts and the 2004 Purge Rangers, 2018 is amazing.
Looking further back, Phil Goyette, a pillar of the club’s quest for respectability and prominence in the Sixties, was brought back to center by Rod Gilbert and Vic Hadfield when Jean Ratelle broke his ankle in the 63rd game of the 1971-72 season. At 38, it went as expected – 1-4-5 in eight regular season games, 1-3-4 in 13 tournament games. No. 20 (who wore No. 9 this time) retired after the playoffs.
Young Mike Murphy, who never must have been traded, was in some way traded twice by then-GM Emile Francis, who unexpectedly reclaimed the St. Louis in late 1972-73. He then sent him away for good in lower than two months in 1973-74, including him in a cope with Los Angeles that earned Gilles Marotte one of Kot’s most disastrous moves.
Again. Few influenced their return. You say “Alex Kovalev?” I say “disaster”.
Top 10 Redux Rangers
Here’s The Post’s rating of the top 10 second acts on Broadway:
1. Dave Balon: Traded to Montreal at 26 with Gump Worsley in June 1963 as part of a blockbuster that brought Jacques Plante, Goyette and Donnie Marshall to Recent York. Having scored 16 goals in 117 games on his first try, Balon returned in 1968–69 and have become the original left wing of the Bulldog Line with Walter Tkaczuk and Billy Fairbairn. He scored 83 goals in 245 games (including consecutive 30-goal seasons) before being sent to Vancouver on a deal for Gary (Okie) Doak in early 1971–72.
2. Moore House: Perhaps the Rangers’ handiest and invaluable fourth-line player of all time. A bit like Barclay Goodrow in its ability to provide anywhere in the lineup. In 2005-06, he ran a reasonably high-profile HMO lineup with Jed Ortmeyer and Ryan Hollweg before ending up in Pittsburgh right after his rookie season, allegedly resulting from contract issues. Eight teams later, Moore returned in 2013 for 3 years that included a visit to the finals in 2014 and the Presidents’ Trophy in 2015.
3. Esa Tikkanen: He was an integral part of the 1994 Cup winners after being acquired from Edmonton at the end of the previous season in exchange for Doug Weight, the championship minus the ouch factor. He returned at the end of the 1996–97 season to play a serious role in the club’s progress to the Conference Finals, scoring three goals in five first round games against Florida, including an additional time winner in games 3 and 5, then scoring 4 goals in five non-match games a win over the Devils in Round 2. The second encore, which earned him a spot on Broadway after getting a job at camp rehearsals in 1998–99, ended after 15 games.
4. Petr Nedved: He fled the city after a 12 months of joining in 1994-95 as part of a compensation package from St. Louis in the Mike Keenan manipulation affair, the first Recent York resort to wear number 93 returned as part of a cope with Pittsburgh around Thanksgiving 1998, the 12 months Alex Kovalev left for Pittsburgh. Nedved became one of the faces of the club after an extended play-off drought, but was also one of the club’s best players, posting 328 points (138-190) in 432 games during his second round. It was handed over to Edmonton during the 2004 purge as part of a cope with Steve Valiquette, a deal MSG viewers still pay for – that is, profit – all these years later.
5. Orlando Kurtenbach: Perhaps the best and most feared player in franchise history, the center played 11 games for the Blueshirts at the age of 24 in 1960-61 before the Bruins picked him up in an intra-league draft. The Rangers reclaimed it the same way in 1966-67, and Big Kurt was a staple of Francis’ group in the late Sixties. One of the young chips in the middle, which included Don Luce, Syl Apps, Jr. and Juha Widing for Ratelle, Tkachuk and Goyette, Kurtenbach was drafted by Vancouver in the 1970 draft before becoming the Canucks’ first captain.
6. Marcin Rucinski: Three-time player, originally acquired from Dallas in a deal that sent Manny Malhotra in 2001-02 after which as a free agent in 2003 and 2005 (after leaving first as a free agent after which traded to Vancouver for the rights to RJ Umberger), Rucinsky was a invaluable part of the team’s 2005-06 season (16-39-55 in 53 games), which ended the franchise’s seven-year playoff drought.
7. Brand Messier: Returning as captain for the 2000–01 season after literally burying the hatchet during a press conference with Garden president Dave Checketts, Messier’s second tour resulted in 4 consecutive playoff defeats before retiring after his twenty fifth season in the 2003–04 season. But the second tour No. 11 restored respect for a band that had essentially lost all of its identity after The Captain was pushed out the door after 1996-97.
8. Nick Fotio: The People’s Selection lost to the Whalers in the 1979 WHA expansion project, which GM Fred Shero and his partner Mickey Keating completely botched. Fotiu spent two years in Hartford before returning for five more seasons for his hometown team, thus gaining the opportunity to throw one other hundred pucks into the blue seats after warming up.
9. Vesey: Not for the first season, the next two are ahead of us.
10. Sean Avery: It didn’t help that Avery was back to play for coach John Tortorelli, who hated almost every part about himself, and it’s definitely true that number 16 didn’t even have the impact it had when embraced by Jaromir Jagr and Tom Renney on his first stint, which included playoff victories over Atlanta and the Devils and a feud with Martin Brodeur. But he was quite a vital part of two playoff teams in his second outing before Tortorella helped arrange his exile at the start of the 2011-12 season. There was one opening night of the 2010-11 season when the winger assisted on all of Derek Stepan’s goals in his NHL NHL debut.