1. You can bet your official Cosby Rangers windbreaker that the Blueshirts will open their 2025-26 100th anniversary season with a new captain. (Because they have to.)
2. Whether it's the favorite, Vinnie Trocheck, or J.T. Miller or Adam Fox, The Maven wants to know whether the players will call the shot or management. (Maven says Chris Drury makes the dramatic decision.)
3. As for the alternate captains, why not perennial Ranger Adam Fox, robust Will Cuylle and Breadman Panarin? (If players were making the pick, Maven says it would be Fox.)
4. Of course, there's always the very-very-very unlikely possibility that there won't be a captain after all, and whaddya think of that? (I'll tell you what I think – No Captain=No Playoffs.)
5. You can bet that there'll be a ton of Rangers books out next fall to hail the Rangers 100th anniversary. But my pal Bryan Reilly will have the only truly unique -- and even now since it's currently available. (Are you guessing?)
6. O'Reilly's magnificent work – "The Last Original Ranger" – is a novel. Granted, it's fiction but it also doubles as a true-to-life history of the 1926-27 Blueshirts. (I just finished my second reading. Pal Bernie Rhode just finished it and still is raving over TLOR.)
7. And speaking of extraordinary Rangers' authors, no one comes even West New York, New Jersey close to Sean McCaffrey. (I said, NOBODY!)
Characters You Won't See At The Garden Anymore
Nowadays, when you go to a <a href="https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/new-york-rangers" target="_blank">Rangers</a> game, you get more than just a game; you get a show.
8. Brother Sean has written not one, not two, not three but FOUR "Tricks Of The Trade – A Century-Long Journey Through Every Trade Made In Rangers History." (It took The Maven a century just writing the title.)
9. To get every trade covered, Sean published four completely separate volumes. (And four completely separate covers. This guy doesn't fool around!)
10. I have to step away from the Rangers for now and deliver one of the all-time critiques of his own team by a Stanley Cup-winning coach. It was uttered by Florida's Paul Maurice after his Panthers won their second straight Cup. Call it "original," I call it sensational.
11. "Have you ever shotgunned a beer? Have you ever been to church? Would you shotgun a beer in Church? Okay, that doesn't make you a hypocrite. There's a context and a place for all things. They're really, really nice people, and then the puck drops. Sometimes you say a prayer, sometimes you shotgun a beer, that's kind of like our team." (You can't make this up!)