Six Former New York Rangers Including Former Head Coach Reunite In The Most Unexpected Way Possible
Photo credit: NHL
Fate has interesting ways of drawing people together. Six former New York Rangers they've all landed in the KHL, playing hockey in the second-best league in the world, in the unlikeliest of places.
The KHL is a strange spot. One of the newest teams in the league has relocated from Beijing to Shanghai, and had a facelift, with their rebranding from the "Red Star" to the "Dragons".
New digs, new home, and new faces to join the journey, as we report on a story that seems out of a movie. Six former Rangers players, and a coach, have found themselves in the second-best league in the world, on the newest team in the KHL.
The Shanghai Dragons.
Six Former New York Rangers Join The Shanghai Dragons
The place you'd least expect is where they all ended up.
Joining the Dragons for the 2025-26 KHL season is former Head Coach Gerard Gallant, who took the Rangers to the Eastern Conference Finals twice in his two years here (2021-23)
Assistant Mike Kelly has joined his staff in the KHL, including two of his former Rangers players in Ben Harpur and Greg McKegg.
center Greg McKegg (2019-20 and 2021-22) and defenseman Ben Harpur (2022-23). The other ex-Rangers are defenseman Adam Clendening (2016-17) and center Ryan Spooner (2018). Harpur signed with Shanghai this week, and McKegg joined the team in early October and was scoreless Tuesday in his first game, a 7-6 shootout loss to Spartak.
.The team hasn't played in China since 2019-20 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, they've been playing in St. Petersburg, Russia, and plan to return to Shanghai for the 2026-27 KHL season.
Gallant has turned the ship around for the plucky team, who have seen its ebbs and flows in the league as a franchise.
The former Rangers head coach has seen better days and isn't happy about his snub from another gig in the NHL, but he has chosen to honor his contract with the Dragons until it's fulfilled.
Gallant's .662 points percentage in his two full seasons is second-best in Rangers history, behind only Mike Keenan (.667), who coached them to the Stanley Cup championship in 1993-94, his lone season in New York. Keenan, who turned 76 on Tuesday, is also the first man to coach a Stanley Cup champion and a Gagarin Cup winner in the KHL (with Metallurg Magnitogorsk in 2014).
Will this be a good enough showing for NHL General Managers that he's the right man for a future job? It's difficult to discern at the moment.
Previously on NY Rangers Insider
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