Newsday’s Steve Zipay reports the New York Rangers plan the retire the jerseys and numbers of Adam Graves, Andy Bathgate and Harry Howell in early 2009. Presumably, Pavel Bure and Eric Lindros will have to wait a bit longer for their honors.
In two ceremonies that will bring the number of jerseys in the rafters to eight, the Graves’ sweater will be retired in a ceremony on Tuesday, Feb. 3 before the game against the Atlanta Thrashers and Bathgate and Howell will be saluted on Sunday, Feb. 22, before the Rangers host the Maple Leafs.
Graves, 40, had learned of the plans to retire his jersey when Brian Leetch, his former teammate on the 1994 Cup championship team made the surprise announcement during the ceremony to retire his No. 2 sweater on Jan. 24. But the Bathgate and Howell plans had been kept under wraps until yesterday.