How The Rangers Got Here: Two Toms and a Butterfly

Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect? Not the crappy movie with Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, and the guy who played one of the Bash Brothers in the Mighty Ducks movies. I’m talking about the actual butterfly effect. 

No? Well let me break it down for you.

The butterfly effect is a concept that is an offshoot of chaos theory. A meteorologist named Edward Lorenz theorized that tiny variations in weather patterns could lead to massive changes in outcome over time. In short, he suggested that a butterfly flapping its wings in one location could alter an air pattern enough that, over time, it would culminate in a tornado touching down in another location. People, as they do, have taken this theory and run with it, expanding it to other areas of life from business to politics to personal relationships. For example: My son hit a home run in a little league tournament. That home run can be traced back to a Metro North train conductor not properly throwing out his trash in 2008. Here’s how:

• Train conductor from Metro North throws out his Stop & Shop rotisserie chicken but doesn’t close the lid on his trash can
• His dog gets into the trash and eats the chicken, and other things, making him sick
• The dog throws up on the floor
• When the conductor gets up the next day, he has to clean up the dog puke
• This slows him down and makes him late for work
• Because he’s late, my train into NYC gets a late start
• Because my train is late, I get to work late
• Because I get to work late, I have to stay late
• Because I have to stay late, I wind up grabbing dinner on my way home
• Because I grab dinner on my way home, I’m in the right place at the right time to meet the woman who would become my wife and the mother of my children
• Thus our son is born and would go on to hit that home run

Is this legit? I don’t know. A rooster crows in the morning and the sun rises, but I don't believe that the rooster made the sun come up. That being said, it’s a fun theory to work with and we’ve seen it deeply ingrained in pop culture over the years. Anyone who watches anything Marvel related will recognize it from their multiverse storylines where there are infinite outcomes for every action we take and each of those outcomes leads to its own unique timeline. It’s even possible that in some of those timelines I actually am the general manager of the New York Rangers and where the Rangers are a dynasty. It’s worth noting that in none of those timelines are Rangers fans satisfied with that outcome.

Anyway, how do we apply the butterfly effect to the Rangers, and what the hairy butt does any of it have to do with Tom Thibodeau and Tom Wilson? I’m so glad you asked.

If you really want to get nuts with this, we could go all the way back to the inception point of the team and say that from that day on, this was all destined to happen. You could look at 1994 and the takeover of Paramount by Viacom which led to the sale of MSG, the Rangers, and the Knicks to the Dolan family. There are lots of different possible inflection points, but we’re going to jump into the Delorean and fire up the old flux capacitor for the Spring of 2021, because it is here that the Two Toms come into the picture.