The Rangers’ Other No. 11 Gets His Day of Honor (Published 2018) (2024)

Vic Hadfield made No. 11 fashionable at Madison Square Garden decades before another Ranger made it eternal.

Now the two No. 11s — Hadfield, the first Ranger to score 50 goals in a season, and Mark Messier, who led the team to the Stanley Cup title in 1994 — are forever linked with red, white and blue banners in the rafters at Madison Square Garden.

Messier’s No. 11 was retired in 2006, two years after his final N.H.L. game. On Sunday afternoon, Hadfield became the 10th Rangers player to have his number honored.

“This is such an honor,” Hadfield said before watching his banner rise to join those of his longtime Ranger linemates Rod Gilbert and Jean Ratelle. “To be up there with Jean and Rod is very special.”

For nearly 25 years, the number has been synonymous with Messier, the captain who helped end the team’s 54-year championship drought in 1994. But 30 years before Messier pulled on the No. 11, Hadfield, a bruising forward, began a 13-season career with the Rangers that ended in 1974. A dominant force on the left wing, Hadfield teamed with Ratelle at center and the high-scoring Gilbert on right wing to form the so-called Goal-a-Game, or GAG, line.

Hadfield could score; he could fight; he could essentially assume any role necessary in an era when stars skated together for years. Like Messier, Hadfield also was the captain of the Rangers — for three seasons, including 1971-72, when they reached the Stanley Cup finals.