45. Tomas Sandström

The Rangers selected 18 year-old Swede Tomas Sandström in the second round of the 1982 draft. By the 1984-85 season, Sandström was a rookie on Broadway and thrilled to be teammates with his idol Anders Hedberg. His idol was impressed too: “(Sandström)’s just a terrific skater for a person his size. He’s explosive, mobile, and can really fire the puck. He’s got a long, long career ahead of him,” Hedberg said of the rookie. Teammate Mike Allison also sang Sandström’s praises that season: “He’s explosive, strong, goes both ways so well, doesn’t shy away from the comers, and he works hard.”¹

Sandström seemed to arrive in the NHL fully formed and led the Rangers in goals in his rookie year. He also wasted no time displaying an impressive knack for pestering and frustrating opponents. Scoring goals and being a pain in the ass for the other team remained his calling cards throughout what was indeed a long career.

The coaching carousel spun wildly during Sandström’s time with the Rangers. In less than six seasons, he played for Herb Brooks, Craig Patrick, Ted Sator, Phil Esposito, Michel Bergeron, and Roger Neilson. Sator was behind the bench during Sandström’s 1985-86 sophomore season. Sator managed to quickly alienate many Rangers, including at least Reijo Ruotsalainen, Mark Pavelich, and Sandström. Sator reportedly had a “penchant for privately berating players,”² and Sandström was brought to tears after at least one meeting with the coach. ”(Sator) wants us to do something different,” a despondent Sandström said. ”We’re trying to please him.”³ It was a miserable start to the season. The team kinda-sorta recovered en route to a middling 36-38-6 record. Sandström managed 21 adjusted goals, which somehow led the team.

Ridiculously, 16 of the 21 NHL teams qualified for the playoffs that 1985-86 season, so the mediocre Rangers were rewarded with a guaranteed shellacking by the powerful Flyers in the first round. Philly had won 18 of the last 19 games against the Blueshirts, including a first-round sweep in the ’85 playoffs. But New York stunned the Flyers with a game one victory aided by three Sandström assists. The Rangers, led by the goaltending of John Vanbiesbrouck, went on to shock even themselves by winning the series. ”Did I ever think this would happen?” asked Don Maloney after the deciding game. ”God no.”⁴

The magic continued with a second-round upset of the Capitals. The first game of that series went to overtime and ended after Sandström “made an exquisite thread-the-needle pass to advance the puck to Brian MacLellan”⁵ who beat Pete Peeters five-hole. In addition to contributing four points in the six-game series, Sandström goaded the Caps into taking at least one costly penalty. With the Rangers trailing by one goal in game five, Sandström somehow enticed Rod Langway to punch him in the head, and Sandström was careful to not retaliate. With Langway in the box, the Rangers power play went to work and tied the game. Sandström later potted the game-winner. In the conference finals, the Rangers ran into a 20 year-old kid named Patrick Roy who was steamrolling his way to the Conn Smythe trophy.

Sandström’s 1986-87 regular season was somehow both injury-shortened and the most productive of his Rangers tenure. Despite missing almost a full month, first with a hip issue and later with a broken ankle, Sandström led the team in goals for the third straight season with 35 adjusted. (Sandström’s linemate Walt Poddubny tied for the team lead.) Sandström recorded four hat tricks during his Rangers career, and they all came during a 19-game, 23-goal heater between December 31, 1986 and March 4, 1987. The team was again mediocre overall, but was still rewarded with a playoff berth. For the third consecutive year, they faced the Flyers in the opening round. There was no upset this time around.

Sandström never stopped walking and sometimes crossing the line pestering, slashing, and spearing opponents. ”He distracts people better than anyone I know,” said Denis Potvin of the Islanders. ”But he makes you mad because he’s so fast so that when you retaliate, you end up getting called for the penalty.” Sandström said, ”I guess I want to let them know I am here. But I don’t think I’m dirty.”⁶ Early in the 1987-88 season, Dave Brown of the Flyers unleashed a ferocious crosscheck to Sandström’s jaw and neck that sent an obviously concussed Sandström to the hospital and earned Brown a 15-game suspension. The Flyers were not exactly contrite after the attack; Mark Howe said, ”If (Sandström) didn’t instigate, we wouldn’t be doing these things back to him.” Ron Hextall added, ”I can’t feel sympathy for Sandström. He spends the whole game slashing and spearing people, but all the officials see is the retaliation.” It was not only opponents that felt this way about Sandström; The Hockey News columnist Jay Greenberg called Sandström “as dirty a player as I’ve ever seen.”⁷ Rangers teammate James Patrick admitted Sandström was “no angel,” but pointed out a crucial distinction between Sandström’s style of needling and truly dangerous acts like Brown’s.⁸ Amazingly, not to mention stupidly, Sandström was back in the lineup the next game after the attack by Brown.

Sandström did not lead the team in goals in 1987-88 nor 1988-89, but he remained a key offensive contributor both years. An increase in assists in 1988-89 helped Sandström pace all Rangers forwards in overall offense that season. He was named to the All-Star team in 1987-88 and made his fourth and final playoff appearance with the Rangers in 1989. The team was quickly swept by Pittsburgh, but Sandström (and Brian Leetch) led the team with five points in the series.

The team and Sandström got off to a good start in 1989-90 but both soon fell into a long slump. A frustrated Sandström started getting pulled into and burned by the extra-curricular activities that he had previously been so adept at steering in the Rangers’ favor. In late 1989, The New York Times wrote Sandström “has been consumed by distractions lately, and it has been his temper and not his slap shot that has exploded more often than not. ‘I should skate away when people try and pull me into that stuff,’ Sandström said of the verbal sparring and stick swinging that he has been a part of in recent games. ‘But it’s tough. What am I supposed to do? Disappear?'”⁹

Soon after, GM Neil Smith did make Sandström disappear by trading him and Tony Granato to the Kings in exchange for Bernie Nicholls. Sandström and new 1989-90 bench boss Roger Neilson never got on the same page. ”I’ll say I was mixed up sometimes,” said Sandström after the trade. ”I don’t want to give excuses, but I often didn’t know what was going on. I know that I did the best I could in the five and a half years I was with the Rangers. It’s over, I guess, and life goes on.”¹⁰

Skip ahead to 0:54:10, 1:11:19, and 1:46:15 in this video to watch Sandström collect his first hat trick with the Rangers: