There are many reasons why the Blueshirts will be champs in the end but one important point is to compare Chris Drury's club with a championship team from the past.
They don't call me The Maven for nothing.
Being 91 years old -- 92 on March 31 -- I've studied hockey longer than any journalist on the planet.
I bring this up not to brag -- who needs that? -- but rather to substantiate my point that the Rangers will win the 2024 Stanley Cup.
Chris DruryThere are many reasons why the New York Rangers will be champs in the end but one important point is to compare Chris Drury's club with a championship team from the past. And I happen to intimately know that club because -- in the late 1940's -- it was my favorite team.
The current rampaging Rangers are a direct disciple of the NHL's first three-Cup (1947, 1948, 1949) dynasty.
What Leafs boss Conn Smythe did then, Drury is doing now -- blending capable veterans with eager youngsters such as Big Al Lafreniere, Kaapo Kakko and K'Andre Miller, among others.
Here's exactly what Smythe said when he built the first of three Cup teams during the 1946-47 season:
"I should have figured it out years ago," Conn declared. "Youth is the answer in this game."
"Only the kids have the drive, the fire, and the ambition. Put the kids in with a few old (pappy) guys who still like to win and the combination is unbeatable."
How right he was. This spring Toronto will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the three Cup run.
Now see how closely The Drury Plan is following the Smythe scheme.
Young defensemen such as Adam Fox and K'Andre Miller form the bedrock of young defenders.
Leafs coach Hap Day leaned on the likes of Jimmy Thomson, Gus Mortson and Bill Barilko who wound up winning four Cups in five years.
The recent additions of Adam Edstrom and Matt Rempe -- along with Big Al Lafreniere and Kaapo Kakko --remind me of Smythe's prize-winning kid forwards that included Wild Bill Ezinicki, Howie Meeker, Vic Lynn and Ted (Teeder) Kennedy.
After Toronto upset the defending champion Canadiens in the spring of 1947, Smythe had this cogent post mortem:
Smythe: "If you want to know why we won, I'll give you three reasons. First, there was the coaching of Hap Day, who ran the team and made the decisions; second there was the play of our old champions, and by that I mean the veterans of other championship clubs; third there was the play of the kids who wanted to be champions."
In the current Rangers case, the counterpart of Hap Day is Peter Laviolette.
Everything about that glorious Leafs dynasty is in place for the contemporary Blueshirts.
All the New Yorkers have to do now is follow the Smythe formula.
Oh, yeah: one other thing: AND WIN!