I was only a year old when the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994, so I never experienced that run in real time. But as I’ve grown up following the team, I’ve made it a point to study that era and understand how it all came together. Appreciating the past has made the present and future more meaningful. Still, even knowing the ultimate result was a championship at Madison Square Garden, there are certain moves from that season that I can’t help but question. One of the more puzzling of them is the trade of Mike Gartner at the 1994 deadline.
To understand why it was so significant, it helps to go back to the beginning of Mike Gartner’s career. He started as an underager in the WHA with the Cincinnati Stingers in 1978–79, skating on a line with Mark Messier and finishing second to Wayne Gretzky for Rookie of the Year honors. When the WHA folded, Gartner joined the Washington Capitals for the 1979–80 season. He recorded an assist in his NHL debut on October 11, 1979, against the Buffalo Sabres and quickly established himself as one of the league’s most consistent scorers.
As a rookie, Mike Gartner led the Capitals with 36 goals, won the team’s Rookie of the Year and MVP awards, and was voted Most Promising Player by the fans. Over the next decade, he tormented opposing teams, including the Rangers, averaging 40 goals per season. When he was traded to the Minnesota North Stars on March 7, 1989 (along with Larry Murphy for Dino Ciccarelli and Bob Rouse), he left Washington as the franchise’s all-time leader in goals, assists, and points.
Mike Gartner’s stay in Minnesota was brief. After scoring 34 goals in 67 games with the North Stars, he was traded to the Rangers on March 6, 1990, for Ulf Dahlen, a draft pick, and future considerations. The Rangers were acquiring one of the game’s elite goal scorers, and he made an immediate impact, scoring two goals in his debut against the Philadelphia Flyers and adding 11 goals and 16 points in the final 12 games of the season.
In New York, Mike Gartner continued to produce at an elite level. In 1991–92, he made history by recording his 500th goal, 500th assist, 1,000th point, and playing in his 1,000th game, all in the same season. He also became the first Ranger to score at least 40 goals in three consecutive seasons. That year, he scored four goals in the NHL All-Star Game and was named All-Star Game MVP. In his first full season with the Rangers, he scored 49 goals, narrowly missing 50. Over 322 games in New York, he totaled 173 goals and 286 points.
Beyond the numbers, Mike Gartner was known for his blazing speed. At the 1996 Super Skills competition, he set a record in the Fastest Skater event with a time of 13.386 seconds (standing start), a mark that stood for 20 years until Dylan Larkin broke it in 2016 with a running start. Connor McDavid later posted a faster standing-start time in 2017.
By the 1993–94 season, Mike Gartner was still a highly productive winger (during a season where he scored his 600th career goal). Yet on March 21, 1994, with the Rangers pushing toward a championship, he was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs for Glenn Anderson, a minor leaguer, and a draft pick. The move was driven largely by head coach Mike Keenan, who believed he needed more grit and playoff experience and preferred Anderson, a proven Cup winner from Edmonton. General manager Neil Smith ultimately made the deal.
The trade worked in the short term. Anderson played an important role in the Rangers’ march to the Stanley Cup. But it also meant that Gartner, a core contributor, never lifted the Cup with the team he had helped mold into a contender. Ironically, he almost got to the Finals that spring with Toronto, as the Maple Leafs advanced to the Western Conference Finals before losing to the Vancouver Canucks.
Mike Gartner would go on to play in Toronto until 1996, then was traded to the newly relocated Phoenix Coyotes. He scored the first goal and the first hat trick in Phoenix franchise history on October 7 against the Boston Bruins. After two seasons in Arizona, he retired in August 1998.
He finished his career with 708 goals, eighth all-time at the time of his retirement, becoming just the fifth player in NHL history to reach 700. He led his team in goals nine times, scored 30 or more goals in each of his first 15 NHL seasons (an NHL record), and produced 24 goals and 42 points in 35 regular-season games following midseason trades during his career.
Despite his remarkable consistency, Mike Gartner never played in a Stanley Cup Final, never won a major NHL award, and was never named to a postseason All-Star Team. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Capitals retired his No. 11 in 2008.
Looking back, the Rangers’ decision to move Mike Gartner in 1994 remains complicated. The trade for Anderson helped aid the franchise’s first championship in 54 years. But it also marked the departure of one of the most prolific scorers in team history, a player who, in many ways, embodied consistency. Even with the Cup banner hanging at MSG, it’s hard not to wonder what might have been if he had stayed.