Steve Vickers - A Rookie Season to Remember

Eight different players have won the Calder Trophy, which is awarded annually to the NHL's Rookie of the Year, as a member of the Rangers throughout the franchise's history. One of those eight players wore No. 8 for more games than any Ranger in franchise history and began his Rangers tenure with a rookie season to remember.
Just over 50 years ago, Steve Vickers arrived at the Rangers' Training Camp in Kitchener, Ontario unsure if he would be going back with the team to New York for the start of the 1972-73 season. "In 1971-72, I had to go play a year in the minors," Vickers recalled. "Even though I was a first round pick (in 1971), Emile Francis wanted all of the players to spend a whole year in the minors.
"I played in Omaha, Nebraska," said Vickers, who scored 36 goals for the Omaha Knights of the Central Hockey League (CHL) in 1971-72. "I wasn't happy at the time, but looking back, it was probably the best thing for me, because I became a man, grew up a little bit, and was able to work on my game.
"When I came to the Rangers' Training Camp the following year, I wasn't thinking that I was going to make the team by any stretch of the imagination. I knew I had to work hard, and I had a good pre-season."

Vickers scored a goal in his NHL debut on October 7, 1972 at Detroit, but it wasn't until a month into the season that he established a place in the lineup and with linemates who would help him realize his full potential. The famed "Bulldog Line", which originally featured left wing Dave Balon, center Walt Tkaczuk, and right wing Bill Fairbairn, provided the Rangers teams of the early 1970s with essential secondary scoring, exceptional penalty killing, and tenacious forechecking ability to retrieve pucks in the corners. After Balon was traded to the Vancouver Canucks early in the 1971-72 season, Francis had difficulty finding a replacement for him on the line.
That is, until Francis decided to put Vickers on the line with Tkaczuk and Fairbairn.
In the first full game that the trio was intact, each player scored a goal and had a multi-point game in the Rangers' 7-2 win over the California Golden Seals on November 11, 1972. That game ultimately turned out to be a precursor for what was to come for Vickers and his linemates.
The following night, Vickers recorded his first NHL hat trick while playing in his 15th career NHL game as the Rangers defeated Los Angeles, 5-1. In the Rangers' next game on November 15, 1972 against Philadelphia at MSG, Vickers tallied another hat trick, with Fairbairn assisting on all three goals, as the Rangers defeated the Flyers, 7-3.
Vickers had become the first Ranger, as well as the first NHL rookie, in the modern era (since 1943-44) to register a hat trick in two consecutive games.
"I didn't know at the time that it had never been done before," Vickers said. "Walt and Billy were very unselfish players and they got me the puck."
Less than a week after his record-setting performances, Vickers suffered a knee injury that would sideline him for a month. However, he still finished the season with 30 goals, becoming the first Rangers rookie in the modern era to score 30 goals in a season.
For all of the individual accomplishments Vickers had during his rookie season, the memory from that season that stands out the most to him half a century later is the Rangers' Quarterfinals series against Boston. Although he had not played with the Rangers the season prior, he was well aware that the Rangers had lost to the Bruins in the 1972 Stanley Cup Final, and that the opening round matchup against Boston in 1973 provided a chance for revenge.
"We played them in their own barn and won the first two games," Vickers recalled about the Rangers' 6-2 win in Game 1 of the series, which was his Stanley Cup Playoff debut, and the team's 4-2 win in Game 2, in which Vickers tallied his first career Stanley Cup Playoff goal, assist, and point.
"We blew them out, and we ended up beating the champs in five games. In the fifth game, I got another hat trick. It was a really good year for me, and I wished they all could have been that good."
Vickers' hat trick in Game 5 in Boston was part of the Rangers' series-clinching 6-3 win, and he scored the first goal of the game 38 seconds into the contest, as well as the final goal of the series with 2:09 remaining in regulation. The hat trick remains the only one that a Rangers rookie has scored in a Stanley Cup Playoff game in franchise history.
Although playoff games don't factor into the voting for awards such as the Calder Trophy, Vickers' strong performance against the Bruins (five goals and one assist in five games) cemented the fact that he was the NHL's best rookie in 1972-73 season. On May 29, 1973, Vickers was officially named the winner of the Calder Trophy.
When he was recently asked about the significance of winning the award, Vickers joked, "it meant $1,500", which was the bonus he received at the time. He then elaborated by saying, "it meant that I didn't mess up, I had a place on the team, and that I would be there for a while."
To say that he would be in New York for a while was an understatement. "Sarge" played 10 seasons with the Rangers and still ranks among the top 10 players in franchise history in goals, assists, and points. Vickers set the Rangers' single-game record for points with seven, which he established on Feb. 18, 1976 against Washington and still holds today.
A humble man, Vickers downplayed the significance of his seven-point game by pointing out that it had only been a few weeks prior that Darryl Sittler established a single-game league record with 10 points.
Vickers scored at least 30 goals in each of his first four NHL seasons, and he is the only Rangers player who has accomplished the feat. In addition, Vickers' 246 goals over his 10 seasons are the most that any player has scored with the Rangers within their first 10 NHL seasons in franchise history. He replaced Vic Hadfield on the G-A-G Line for the 1974-75 season, and he was named to the NHL's Second All-Star Team as he established career-highs with 41 goals and 89 points. Later in his career, although his role had changed, he was still a key contributor in helping the Rangers advance to the Stanley Cup Final in 1979.
For all of his accomplishments as a Ranger, what Vickers treasures most is that he only played for the Rangers. When he was in Toronto on Jan. 25 as part of the Rangers' Alumni Road Trip, he was proudly sporting a blue Rangers blazer, which he received for being a career Ranger and playing at least 10 seasons with the team.
"That's why I have this blazer," Vickers said. "I never wanted to move."