Norstrom Osborne Noonan Lidster/Norstrom/P Ferraro/Kovalev B. Richter Goneau Armstrong Assigned/DNP Rucinsky Betts
--Mattias Norstrom (5, 14): Well, the poor boy never got a chance to establish himself in either number, so we'll do the weird thing--14 gets parentheses because he was assigned 5 at the time of the Cup win.
--I've decided to put parentheses around Mark Osborne's 20, despite my gut telling me not to; his two tours of duty being so far apart, I almost feel guilty discounting that second one. Repeat, almost.
--On 11/16/96, for the first time, one of the 29 returns wearing a different number. Brian Noonan returns wearing #28 as opposed to his Cup-winning #16. Henceforth, the official rule here for the Stanley Cup champions is: parentheses around the ''other'' number (eg, here, 28) until he's played more in the new number than the old. And since he's gone again [3/9/97, one day shy of 1000 days after the Cup], 28 is parenthesized forever. At least until Noonan comes back...
--On 10/7/95 with the start of the season I returned 14 and 6 to their previous owners. Off the top of my head, I can't remember similar situations to Norstrom and Lidster getting their numbers back after someone else wore them (except for Pierre Larouche, who lost 10 when he was sent down to Hershey to start the '85-'86 season...but he last wore 10 in '84-'85, the year before this list begins...). So I put them in again, listing them twice. Just so you know. This in fact happened again at the start of the 1996-97 season with Peter Ferraro returning to 17, and in 2003 with the return of Alexei Kovalev.
--This one Cup related: Barry Richter did not play a game in 1993-1994. Everyone else on that team did play at least once during the regular season or playoffs, in the number found starred here (We think, anyway--see the main list for the Joby Messier question). Richter was assigned number 3, and never wore it (he was assigned 33 in 1994-95, but did not play that season either. In training camp 1995 he wore 29 in the game I saw, but was listed in the program as number 3) He finally played in NY in 1996, wearing 29. And now he's gone. Barry, we hardly knew ye...
By the way, it took five years, a month, and six days for another Ranger (Chris Tamer) to wear 3 after the departure of James Patrick. Go fig. If 34 wasn't sacred, 3 sure shouldn't have been...
-- Originally an exception, Daniel Goneau's parentheses around the later 36 and 39 became the rule, because they were of considerably shorter tenure than his stay in 16.
-- In the spirit of the McKnightmare, found on the truly Amazin' Mets By The Numbers, we present 2000-01 AHL MVP Derek Armstrong, an Army whose numbers are legion.
Derek Armstrong was Rangers property for three seasons. He played eight games for New York. Over those eight games, Armstrong wore four numbers.
"Army," now playing for the L.A. Kings, wore No. 18 in his three games in 1998-99. By the time he returned near the end of the 1999-2000 season, Mike York had 18; Armstrong was assigned No. 37. When recalled in January 2001, he wore a more respectable No. 17 for a two-game stint, but by the time he got back in April 2001, Colin Forbes had that number, so he got No. 21. Eight games, four numbers, and all of that isn't even counting the No. 22 he wore in training camp 2000.
-- Just in case: There must have been a situation somewhere in this list where a player was assigned a number but did not play. I can't remember it, though. In the meantime, goalie Scott Meyer wore No. 41 as a backup goalie late in 2001-02. Incidentally, the Rotating Backup Goalie of 2001-02 (mostly to keep Hartford set) produced goalies sitting while wearing 40, 41, and 42, three numbers that hadn't been worn in about a decade. (41 and 42 -- the latter was Jason LaBarbara in the last game of the season -- actually weren't worn, of course.)
Other substantial cases of players assigned a number without playing:
--On Nov. 1, 2003 at Montreal, Martin Rucinsky's No. 26 sweater suffered massive trauma in the first period and had to be stitched up. Rucinsky returned to action wearing a No. 41 sweater with no nameplate, though his regular sweater was repaired in time for the second period. Rucinsky thus became the first Ranger to wear 41 in game action since Peter Fiorentino in his only NHL game, Oct. 23, 1991, versus Los Angeles. Jed Ortmeyer played Nov. 15, 2003, in 41, becoming the first player assigned 41 to wear it since then.
--Blair Betts was assigned No. 15 when acquired from Calgary late in 2003-04. He was recovering from a shoulder injury and never wore the number. When the NHL resumed Oct. 5, 2005, he wore 19.
Or here for the Rangers page or here for the Cumulative numerical roster
Mike Fornabaio---mmef17@yahoo.com