New York Americans The New York Americans were a professional ice hockey team , the third expansion team in the history of the National Hockey League ( NHL ) and the second to play in the United States . Franchise history . In 1923 , Thomas Duggan received options on three NHL franchises for the United States . After selling one to Boston grocery magnate Charles Adams , Duggan arranged with Tex Rickard to have a team in Madison Square Garden . Rickard agreed , but play was delayed until the new Garden was built in 1925 . In April of that year , Duggan and Bill Dwyer , New York ' s most - celebrated prohibition bootlegger , were awarded the franchise for New York . Somewhat fortuitously given the shortage of players , the Hamilton Tigers , who had finished first the season before , had been suspended from the league after they struck for higher pay . Dwyer duly bought the collective rights to the Tiger players for $ 75 , 000 and moved them to the newly built Madison Square Garden . The Tigers franchise was suspended and never returned ; the NHL does not consider the Americans to be a continuation of the Tigers . The New York Americans and Pittsburgh Pirates became the second and third American - based teams in the NHL . They followed Adams ' Boston Bruins , who began the previous season . As with the Pirates , the choice of " Americans " as a nickname may have been influenced by a local strong baseball team , specifically the New York Yankees , but Rickard also wanted to market the American character of the team , which was playing a sport acknowledged as Canadian . Success didn ' t come easily for the Americans . Even though their roster was substantively the same that led the NHL in Hamilton the previous year , in the Americans ' first season , 1925 - 26 , they finished 5th overall with a record of 12 - 22 - 4 . However , they did prove a success at the box office ; so much so that the following season Garden management landed a team of its own , the New York Rangers , despite promising Dwyer that the Amerks would be the sole hockey team in the Garden . The Amerks were forced to support the bid due to a clause in their lease with the Garden . The 1926 - 27 season saw the Americans continue to struggle , finishing 17 - 25 - 2 . Part of the problem was that they were placed in the Canadian Division , resulting in a large number of train trips to Montreal , Toronto and Ottawa . Meanwhile , the Rangers won the American Division title . The next season would see the Americans fall even further from grace by finishing last overall with a record of 11 - 27 - 6 and would see the Rangers capture the Stanley Cup in only their second year of existence . The 1927 - 28 NHL season saw the New York Americans sign star goaltender Roy Worters from the Pittsburgh Pirates . He would lead the team to a 19 - 13 - 12 record in the 1928 - 29 NHL season , good enough for second overall . Worters had an incredible 1 . 21 goals against average , becoming the first goaltender to win the Hart Trophy as the most valuable player in the league . Standing on Worters ' shoulders , the Americans would make the playoffs for the first time , but would be unable to beat the New York Rangers in a " total goals " series . The Rangers had extreme difficulty scoring against Worters , but the futile Americans were unable to score against the Rangers , too . The Rangers ended up winning the series in the second game one to nothing in overtime . The next season saw the Americans go from second best to worst overall . Worters had an atrocious 3 . 75 goals against and the team ended up with a 14 - 25 - 5 record . Worters would rebound for the next season , with a 1 . 68 goals against average . That was good enough to give the Americans a winning record . However , they lost a playoff berth since Montreal Maroons had two more wins ; wins are the NHL ' s first tiebreaker for playoff seeding . The following season ( 1931 - 32 ) saw some developments that would change the way the NHL played the game . In a game against the Bruins , the Americans iced the puck 61 times . At that time , there was no rule against icing . Adams was so angry that he pressured , to no avail , for the NHL to make a rule against icing . So , next time the two teams met , the Bruins iced the puck 87 times in a scoreless game . It wasn ' t until a few years later that the NHL made a rule prohibiting icing , but those two games were the catalyst for change . Overall , the Americans were struggling on and off the ice . With the end of Prohibition , Dwyer was finding it difficult to make ends meet . After the 1933 - 34 NHL season , having missed the playoffs for the fifth straight year , the Americans attempted a merger with the equally strapped Senators , only to be turned down by the NHL Board of Governors . During the 1935 - 36 NHL season , Dwyer finally decided to sell the team . As fortunes would have it , the Americans made the playoffs for the first time in six years that season , but would bow out in the second round against Toronto . No buyers were found for the team and Dwyer abandoned it , causing the NHL to assume control for the 1936 - 37 NHL season . Dwyer sued the NHL , saying they had no authority to seize his team . A settlement was reached where Dwyer could resume control provided he could pay off his debts . After the 1936 - 37 season , Dwyer could not do so , and the NHL took full control of the franchise . The league - controlled team would fare no better than before , finishing last with a record of 15 - 29 - 4 . The only bright spot was Sweeney Schriner , who led the league in scoring that year . With Red Dutton now running the team for the 1937 - 38 season , the Americans signed veterans Ching Johnson and Hap Day and acquired goalie Earl Robertson . These new acquisitions greatly helped the team as they finished the season with a 19 - 18 - 11 record and would make the playoffs . In the playoffs , they would beat the Rangers in three games , but go onto lose against the Chicago Black Hawks in three . The next two seasons ( 1938 - 39 and 1939 - 40 ) saw the Americans make the playoffs for the second and third straight times . These times , though , they would not make it past the first round . The following season , 1940 - 41 , they missed the playoffs with a horrible record of 8 - 29 - 11 . Canada had entered World War II in September , 1939 , and many of the team ' s Canadian players left for military service . While the league ' s other teams were similarly hard - hit , Dutton was still bogged down by lingering debt from the Dwyer era . This debt , combined with the depletion of talent and wartime travel restrictions , forced Dutton to sell off his best players for cash . The Amerks were clearly living on borrowed time ; it was only a matter of when , not if , they would fold . At wit ' s end , Dutton changed the team ' s name for the 1941 - 42 NHL season to the Brooklyn Americans . He had every intent on moving the team to Brooklyn , but due to a lack of a decent arena , the Brooklyn Americans continued to play their home games in Manhattan at Madison Square Garden while practicing in Brooklyn . They barely survived the season , finishing with a record of 16 - 29 - 3 . After the season , the Amerks suspended operations for the war ' s duration . However , in 1946 , the NHL reneged on promises to reinstate the Amerks and Maroons ( who had shut down in 1938 , but had been sold to Philadelphia interests ) and canceled both franchises . Although Dutton had every intention of returning the Amerks to the ice after World War II , NHL records list the Amerks as having " retired " from the league in 1942 . The NHL would not expand beyond its remaining six teams until the 1967 - 68 season . Dutton , however , blamed the owners of Madison Square Garden ( who also owned the Rangers ) for pressuring the NHL to not reinstate the Americans . Dutton was so bitter that he purportedly swore the Rangers would never win a Stanley Cup again in his lifetime . This " curse " became reality as for more than fifty years , the Rangers went without a Cup . The Rangers wouldn ' t win another Cup until 1994 , seven years after Dutton ' s death . The last active New York Americans player was Pat Egan , who retired in 1951 . The last active Brooklyn Americans player was Ken Mosdell , who retired in 1959 . Coaches . Head Coaches for the New York Americans :