January 25, 2008
Last Night's Action: #2 Goes To The Rafters
Photographs of Brian Leetch's number being retired at Madison Square and Leetch acknowledging the crowd by Frank Franklin II/AP
Beloved former Ranger Brian Leetch only made one mistake, mentioning Jim Dolan in his speech and the Rangers only made one mistake, letting Marian Hossa get free to score a goal. Hossa’s goal early in the second period put Atlanta in front and threatened to ruin Brian Leetch Night, but the Rangers recovered.
Michal Rozsival scored midway through the third period to tie things up and Brendan Shanahan started the shootout with a goal that Henrik Lundqvist made stand and the Rangers had a 2-1 win.
But, the story was Leetch, the former defenseman who saw his sweater raised to the rafters of MSG. While Mark Messier cried, Leetch gave an impassioned speech and also announced that Adam Graves will have his number retired in the 2008-09 season.
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Mark Messier is always crying! He's always so emotional!
It's "Brendan" Shanahan - who, by the way, is a supastar
Greatest Ranger ever. Period. He was highly underrated defensively. It's a shame, had the Rangers never traded him he might still be playing. Mr. Leetch, thank you for the memories. I will NEVER forget that summer of '94.
Come on, just look on Yahoo Sports or something to make sure you're getting names right. It's not rocket science.
BTW - the other two hockey teams were in action last night.
@AKHobbes
Nicely said. As an organization I hope the Rangers rue that trade. Not only would it have been helpful to keep him in the lineup instead of in Boston, he could have trained a lot of the young defensemen on the team now. I could even see the possibility of him lacing up for the playoffs last year if he was never ushered out of town by management.
Always my favorite Ranger--wish he never wore another sweater than ours though.