Here are the Answers to yesterday’s quiz.

1. Fred Shero coached the 1978-79 Rangers.

2. The Rangers lost to the Montreal Canadiens in the Stanley Cup Finals.

3. They beat the Kings, Flyers and Islanders in the playoffs.

4. Anders Hedberg and Phil Esposito led the team in points, with 78.

5. Esposito led the team in goals, with 42.

6. Nick Fotiu led the team in penalty minutes, with 190.

7. Don Maloney scored 26 points in 28 games after he was called up from the minors during the 1978-79 season.

8. Mike McEwen (58 points) and Ron Greschner (53) were the two Rangers defensemen with more than 50 points.

9. Wayne Thomas and Doug Soetaert backed up John Davidson.

10. Walt Tkaczuk was the only player to appear in the 1972 and 1979 Stanley Cup Finals while playing for the Rangers.

This is the 30th anniversary of the underdog 1978-79 New York Rangers, who made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals. See how much you remember about this team. The answers will be posted tomorrow.

1. Who coached the 1978-79 Rangers?

2. What team did they lose to in the Stanley Cup Finals?

3. What teams did they beat in the playoffs to reach the Finals?

4. Who led the team in points during the regular season?

5. Who led the team in goals during the regular season?

6. Who led the team in penalty minutes?

7. What rookie was called up during the regular season and recorded 26 points in 28 games?

8. The team had two defensemen with more than 50 points. Who were they?

9. Who were the two backup goalies to John Davidson?

10. Who was the only player on the team who also played for the Rangers in their last Stanley Cup appearance in 1972?

First of all, we’ll miss Petr Prucha a lot. He always worked hard, and his 90-pound bag-of-bones body was thrown around the ice like a ragdoll, but he always got up, dusted himself off and forechecked like a bastard, and would even get into a fight or two. We’ll kind of miss Nigel Dawes. But we won’t miss Dmitri Kalinin. See ya in the funny papers, Dmitri. But all three are free agents to be and weren’t in the Rangers long-term plans.

They’ve been replaced by Sean Avery, Nik Antropov and Derek Morris. Antropov and Morris, both somewhat of career underachievers, will be free agents also, so the trades consisted of rentals for rentals. Is Avery better than Dawes? Yes. Is Antropov better than Prucha? Yes. Is Morris better than Kalinin? Yes. (Is anybody better than Kalinin? Yes.) So the Rangers improved themselves, and didn’t mortgage the future, unless Prucha turns into a consistent 30 or 40 goal scorer (highly doubtful). They sent Toronto a second-round pick and a conditional …

As expected, Sean Avery is headed back to the New York Rangers.  

The notorious agitator was claimed off re-entry waivers from the Dallas Stars today and comes at a half-price discount.  New York will be on the hook for half of the remainder of the four-year, $15.5 million contract Avery signed with Dallas during the offseason.  

Of course, with zero interest around the league and the team’s payroll already precariously close to the salary cap, the dollar figures hardly amounts to a bargain. It’s another gamble by General Manager-for-life Glen Sather, whose penchant for rolling snake eyes has peppered his nine-yes, NINE-year tenure in New York.

Earlier this season, while serving as an analyst for Canada’s TSN, new Rangers coach John Tortorella stated that Avery “doesn’t belong in the league.”  So we’ve got that going for us.

In all seriousness, I’m curious to see what sort of impact Avery has on this lineup. I think the disruption he could potentially cause in the locker room has been overstated. …

It took three games, but the Rangers may finally be getting used to John Tortorella’s new aggressive style of play. In the first two games under their new coach, they did just about everything right except for one little detail: score goals. But last night’s explosion against Colorado took care of that. Yeah, yeah the Avs stink, but so does Toronto and the Rangers lost twice to them this week, so who cares who they beat, as long as they won. Tortorella may not be a miracle worker, and they only have one win (against a crappy team) since he came aboard, but here are some positive changes we’ve seen so far:

1. He’s instituted a whole new system (or is it the old system from the beginning of the season?), attacking and controlling the puck. He’s opened up the offense, which the forwards have to be happy about. And the defense hasn’t suffered because of it. The defensemen have actually played a whole lot better.

2. Wade …

Here are the answers to yesterday’s quiz.

1. Rod Gilbert was the first Ranger to have his number retired, on October 14, 1979.

2. John Davidson wore 00 in 1978.

3. Tom Laidlaw (1981-87) was the last player to wear #2 before Brian Leetch.

4. Glen Sather wore #6 when he played for the Rangers from 1971-73.

5. The last Ranger to wear #9 was Pavel Bure in 2002-03.

6. The highest number a Ranger has worn besides #99 is Petr Nedved’s #93.

7. Brandon Dubinsky wore #54 before switching to #17.

8. Ken Hodge wore #88 in 1977-78.

9. Ron Duguay wore #10 (1978-83) and #44 (1987-88) for the Rangers.

10. Besides #77, Phil Esposito briefly wore #12 when he first came to the Rangers.

In honor of Harry Howell’s and Andy Bathgate’s numbers being retired, here’s a quiz devoted to Rangers numerology. The answers will be posted tomorrow.

1. Who was the first Ranger to have his number retired?

2. Who is the only Ranger to have worn 00?

3. Who was the last player to wear #2 before Brian Leetch?

4. What number did Glen Sather wear when he played for the Rangers?

5. Who is the last Ranger to wear #9?

6. Besides Wayne Gretzky’s #99, what is the highest number a Ranger has ever worn?

7. What number did Brandon Dubinsky wear before he changed to #17?

8. Besides Eric Lindros, who else wore #88?

9. What two numbers did Ron Duguay wear for the Rangers?

10. What other number did Phil Esposito wear with the Rangers besides #77?

The Tom Renney era is over. The Rangers coach was given the ax today (along with assistant Perry Pearn). Out of all the people responsible for the disaster that the 2008-09 Blueshirts have become, Renney is probably the least culpable. I’d put James Dolan (does even know he owns the team?), Glen Sather and the players all ahead of the now-former coach on the who’s-to-blame list.

Renney brought respectability back to the Rangers after they missed the playoffs for seven straight seasons. In his three full seasons as coach, Renney guided the team to the postseason all three years. Sather blundered his way through free agency the last few years, with the regrettable signings of Scott Gomez, Chris Drury and Wade Redden, not to mention smaller mistakes like Patrick Rissmiller (remember him?).  The team president is the one who saddled Renney with the poorly constructed squad that doesn’t have enough players that can score or enough defensive-style players to play a defensive-style game.

Renney surely has made mistakes, and is …

Is there anything new you can say about this team? Let’s recap the season: The first month they shot into first place by working hard, controlling the puck, forechecked aggressively and had great goaltending. In phase two of the season, their total game slipped, but Henrik Lundqvist was there to cover up their mistakes. They were still winning games, but all the warning signs were there. And now they’ve just completely fallen apart. They can’t score, their defensive breakdowns are numerous and they don’t play with any heart or passion. If they fall behind, they give up. And they’re sinking like a stone in the standings. Playoffs? Who are we kidding?

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s give a tip of the hat to Andy Bathgate and Harry Howell. The two Hall of Famers deserve to have their numbers retired (somehow I doubt we’ll be honoring Scott Gomez or Chris Drury like this some day). The Rangers are doing the right thing with all these recent ceremonies honoring the greats of their franchise, but what …

Overpaid-Completely-Sucking-O-Meter

Glen Sather: He put this mess together, and mysteriously seems to have his job for life. It looks like he’d have to kill somebody to get fired.

Wade Redden: A disaster. He’s -10 for the year, and only five more seasons to go.

Scott Gomez: -11, 1 power play goal

Chris Drury: What leadership? -10

Michal Rozsival: -13

Tom Renney: The players are mostly to blame, but Renney keeps putting the same players on the power play and does nothing to motivate this bunch of deadbeats. Unfortunately, you can’t fire all the players, so it’s time for a new coach.

Dmitri Kalinin: Another free agent blunder by Sather. -9

***

The-Few-Guys-Actually-Doing-Their-Jobs-O-Meter

Henrik Lundqvist: Single-handedly won a number of games. The Rangers would be out of the playoff picture without him (and may soon be out of it with him).

Marc Staal: The team’s best player besides Lundqvist.

Blair Betts: Second best PK in the league, and he’s a big reason why.

Ryan Callahan: 13 goals and always finishes his checks.

Paul Mara: -2, which for this defense is second best to …

Let’s start with the quote of the week, by Chris Drury after Friday’s pounding: “There’s no way to sugarcoat it. It was embarrassing, it was humiliating, it was awful.” Good observation, Chris. The team just flat-out gave up. Has there ever been a team that can fall apart so quickly and so often? How can a defensive-minded team give up 10 goals? After drinking myself into a stupor in the third period (I invented a new drinking game – every time Dallas scores a goal, you chug a beer), I realized what the Rangers problem is: They’re not Adam Graves-like enough.

With the retirement of Graves’ #9 fresh in everybody’s mind, it’s not hard to compare this year’s version of the Blueshirts to the team of Gravy’s era. The 2008-09 Rangers are the anti-Adam Graves. Graves was tough, gritty, passionate, did whatever it took to win games and actually scored goals (Graves scored more goals in the 1993-94 season than the whole team will score …

This week was chock-full of events. Congratulations to Pittsburgh for winning their record sixth Super Bowl. That makeshift stage that was set up for Roger Goodall to hand over the Lombardi Trophy looked an awful lot like a spaceship. Once the trophy ceremony was over with, I thought they were all going to blast off and not be seen again until next season. That’s how you go out a winner. It was Dream Week for the Knicks. Well, at least it was a dream for Kobe and LeBron. And best of all, it was Adam Graves Night on Tuesday. This week’s Hot Stove Player of the Week doesn’t need a prize. He’s Adam Graves. He’d just give it away to charity anyway.

Winner

Adam Graves: Should they just make Gravy a saint and get it over with? He had his #9 raised to the rafters at the Garden on Tuesday. He scored 329 career goals (280 as a Ranger in 10 seasons), assisted on 287 for a total of 616 points. …