5 random players you forgot were on the New York Rangers

2. Marty McSorley

Broadway could have been a storybook setting for McSorley to complete a hat trick of teams he skated for opposite Gretzky. Even more so on the heels of a lengthy Hollywood chapter.

But it was not to be, and neither was a memorable McSorley stint in Manhattan, period. Unlike the Rangers, the rest of his seven NHL employers dressed him for more than 10 regular season games.

His rise to notoriety started in earnest when he joined the aforementioned Oilers dynasty in progress. After savoring the 1987 and 1988 Stanley Cup, McSorley went south with Gretzky as part of the trade of the century to Los Angeles.

That package was reportedly no accident. On the 25th anniversary of the deal, former Kings owner Bruce McNall told nhl.com’s Tal Pinchevsky, “Wayne said to me, ‘Make sure you get McSorley.'”

His eight years in SoCal alongside Gretzky were highlighted by the Kings’ first Cup final run in 1993. They were interrupted only by his short second stint with Pittsburgh in 1993-94 and each player’s late-season trade elsewhere late in 1995-96.

Gretzky finished that campaign in St. Louis, then signed with McSorley’s latest team, the Rangers, over the summer. But this time the celebrated enforcer missed a chance to team up with him under a third crest.

In New York, McSorley stuck around only for 1996’s nine-game homestretch, then four playoff contests. He uncharacteristically did not even incur a penalty during his one postseason series with the Rangers.

And when Gretzky arrived for the next training camp, McSorley was back on the Pacific Coast as a San Jose Shark. Apparently the Blueshirts brass did not receive the same arm-twisting as McNall.