The Rangers have won 31 of their first 47 games — they reached the All-Star break with the most points in the Eastern Conference — and after each one of those victories, they’ve awarded a fedora they brought back from Europe to a deserving member of the team. (Lots of teams have traditions like this. The Blues, for instance, have recently begun awarding a goofy hot-dog hat after each win.) Anyway, receiving the Broadway Hat (as the Rangers call their fedora) isn’t quite the same thing as being selected as the game’s first star. Sometimes, the hat has gone to the player who simply had the best game. But other times, it’s gone to a player who has, say, scored a significant goal (like the first of his career, or his first as a Ranger).
So who’s received the hat the most this year? Unsurprisingly, it’s Henrik Lundqvist: He’s been the recipient five times. But the Rangers do a pretty good job of spreading the thing around: No one else has received it more than twice, even though three Rangers (Lundqvist, Marian Gaborik, and Derek Stepen) have been named the No. 1 star in a victory at least four times. In all, twenty different players have won the hat.
Meanwhile, there are eleven players who have skated in at least one game this season, but haven’t been awarded the hat. Most of those players haven’t been with the team all year, but there’s one surprising name on the list: Ryan McDonagh, a top-pair defenseman who’s played in all 47 games so far and is second on the team in average ice time and eighth on the team in points. (If you’re curious, on the night McDonagh scored the overtime winner in Calgary, the hat went to Brandon Prust, who scored a shorthanded goal against his former team.) Here’s the complete list of players who’ve appeared in at least one game and haven’t worn the Broadway Hat:
Sean Avery
Brendan Bell
Stu Bickel
Erik Christensen
Andre Deveaux
Tim Erixon
Ryan McDonagh
Kris Newbury
Marc Staal
Wojtek Wolski
Mats Zuccarello