Reijo “Rexy” Ruotsalainen was an under-sized defenseman and one of the best skaters the Rangers have ever had. The Finnish Ruotsalainen could glide gracefully forwards, laterally, or in reverse, all at top speed and with the puck on his stick. He could also fake and deke his way around d-men and goalies or blast a heavy shot from distance. His biggest fan might have been Herb Brooks, Rangers bench boss for the first three and a half of Ruotsalainen’s five seasons in New York. “If there is someone, anyone, in the NHL who has better technical abilities than Rexy, I’d like you to show him to me,” Brooks once said.1 Brooks gave complete freedom to Ruotsalainen to creatively use his skating and puck skills to generate offense, reasoning that requiring Ruotsalainen to play within a strict system would be like “asking Picasso to paint my garage door.”2
Ruotsalainen was the team’s most offensively productive d-man all five years he spent with the club. He was never accused of being great defensively. The Rangers often paired him with the hulking Barry Beck who would stay home to defend while Ruotsalainen roamed. Beck said, “Rexy is such a dominant player. It’s too bad they don’t have a rover for a sixth man like they used to…as long as he gets to freewheel, he’ll be okay.”3 Brooks again: “Rexy plays all five positions at once. I don’t know where he comes from, where he’s going, or how he got there. I’m always shouting ‘Rexy, No! – Great play!'”4
His offensive prowess and defensive shortcomings naturally led to consideration of playing him up as a forward. Brooks decided to do just that for the 1984-85 season and Rexy started the year on the top line with Mark Pavelich and Anders Hedberg. Rexy and the similarly sized and skilled Pavelich had great chemistry on and off the ice. The New York Times referred to Pavelich as Rexy’s “closest friend.”5 The new plan started off with a bang as Ruotsalainen popped in two goals in the season opener, one of them set up by Pavs. Unfortunately, Pavelich broke his leg in the second game of the season. Rexy remained as a wing for a few more games but was back on defense by early November. The offense still came no matter the position Ruotsalainen was asked to play.
When Pavelich returned to action on December 30, Rexy moved back to wing, and the pair wasted no time combining for another goal that night. Brooks was fired in late January, and GM Craig Patrick, now also interim coach, said Ruotsalainen would remain on the wing.6 At some point in February, Patrick changed his mind and Rexy went back to defense for good. (I have not been able to nail down exactly when that final switch was made nor what Patrick’s reasoning for the move was.) Ruotsalainen only ended up playing between 20-26 games as a forward in 1984-85, which was his most productive season offensively.
Craig Patrick did a lot right as Rangers GM (such as drafting James Patrick, John Vanbiesbrouck, Mike Richter, and Brian Leetch), but he made a major miscalculation when he hired Ted Sator as the new Rangers coach in the summer of 1985. Sator demanded that even talented puck handlers stop carrying the puck over the blue line and instead just give it away with a dump in. Between that and many other questionable moves, Sator alienated the team in no time flat. Pavelich walked away from the team in March, 1986, and Rexy later said that he just about quit right along with his friend.7 Ruotsalainen stuck it out through the remainder of the season, but had no interest in returning to play for Sator. He spent most of the next 11 years playing in Switzerland, Sweden, and Finland, but also made his way back to the NHL for two stints in 1987 and 1990 that both included championship runs with Edmonton.
See the video below for a couple of Ruotsalainen goals, and click here for a full 30 minutes of Ruotsalainen Rangers highlights.
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