NHL

Ex-Rangers GM: ’94-95 lockout hurt NHL

Lockouts do have consequences.

Former Rangers’ general manager Neil Smith has told The Post Friday that Gary Bettman’s first lockout, the one that followed hard on the heels of the Rangers’ only Stanley Cup in 72 years, spoiled the NHL’s best chance to overtake the NBA as No. 3 among major sports.

It has long been a subject of outside conventional wisdom, but Smith’s is expert testimony, from inside the same umbrella as the Knicks.

“We were in a great era and this was unthinkable that we would lose games. The NBA was not at its best at the time. We had a real opportunity to gain ground from the No. 4 spot we’d always been, to claw away at becoming No. 3,” Smith said.

“We had gotten, as a sport, so much momentum in the summer of ’94. The No. 1 reason was the Rangers winning the Stanley Cup in the biggest market after such a long drought. That pushed interest in hockey.

“We were in an era where we had exciting teams in big, big markets. New York, Chicago had been to the finals and won a [1991] Presidents’ Trophy, Mario Lemieux was in his prime, Pittsburgh was a great franchise, and the L.A. Kings and Wayne Gretzky had gone to the [1993] finals against Montreal, which ignited interest in hockey on the West Coast, when also, the Canadiens won a championship which reinforced Canadian kookiness about hockey.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that the air got let out of the balloon by the lockout. It’s undeniable that the lockout of ’94 lessened hockey’s chance of climbing the ladder.’’

The third NHL lockout is in its 22nd day, and the sides met yesterday in Toronto, but without progress towards a new collective bargaining agreement.

Smith is now president, general manager and governor of the Greenville (S.C) Road Warriors of the ECHL and a TV commentator. He admits that as management in 1994, he supported Bettman’s first lockout. But he knows what it did.

“I’m a pretty loyal follower. If Gary Bettman said this is how we should do business, I was supportive. I don’t remember going against anything,” Smith admitted. “I was in the thick of things with management and the NHL side of things, so I was current minute-to-minute. But everyone outside was saying to me: ‘Wow, you had that great series with Vancouver, Hockey is going great and now there is no hockey, so people are going to be able to forget pretty quickly.’”

Smith also said the Rangers were derailed by the lockout.

“Selfishly, I was pretty unhappy at not being able to enjoy the first half of the season. We didn’t go to see the President until March 17. That was one of the top things I was looking for, but you didn’t know you’d have to wait until St. Patrick’s Day,” Smith said. “We would have had a better season,” he said. “We were waiting to raise the banner, which didn’t get raised until around Jan. 21. You win on June 14 and wait until Jan. 21 to put the banner up?” Smith said. “It’s harder to get everybody serious about a 48-game schedule with ‘Hey, we have to defend our Stanley Cup’ that long afterward. … We barely squeaked by Florida for a playoff spot. We knocked out Quebec, which won the Stanley Cup the next season as Colorado, and got swept by Philadelphia and that burgeoning Eric Lindros. “We would have been better.”

And that was the shortest of the two prior lockouts. Now the Kings’ banner-raising is delayed for who knows how long? If anyone noticed the Cup that was won in June, they can now return to watching the Lakers and Clippers play.

Free-agent defenseman Matt Gilroy signed a AHL deal yesterday to play for the Connecticut Whale, the Rangers’ top farm team,. The 28-year-old Long Island native could sign an NHL deal to return to the Rangers after the lockout. He first signed with the Rangers out of Boston University in 2009, left the Rangers for Tampa in 2011, and was traded to Ottawa last February.