Ron Greschner remembers his Madison Square Garden debut like it was yesterday.

He’d been called up to the New York Rangers on Oct. 30, 1974. He got to practice on Nov. 1. He played his first NHL game on Nov. 3 against the Buffalo Sabres and Gilbert Perreault, who Greschner called a top-three player in the league at the time.

Brad Park had started on defense, and Greschner jumped on to replace him. Perreault was coming down the ice.

“Here's a guy coming down the ice, one of the best players in the league,” Greschner told amNewYork he was thinking at the time. “My first game, he's going to go around me. I'll be back in the minors tomorrow, and I'll be retired on the fifth of November.”

The fourth iteration of the Garden, then just six years old, had terrible ice. It worked in Greschner’s

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