by the Rangers organization. Over the next three seasons, Smith continued to shape the team through trades and free-agent signings, acquiring several players from the Edmonton Oilers dynasty of the 1980s, including Kevin Lowe, Adam Graves, Esa Tikkanen, Jeff Beukeboom, Craig MacTavish and Glenn Anderson. Messier became one of the most popular athletes in New York, winning the Hart Memorial Trophy in 1992, and the Rangers grew into an elite team. The Rangers won the Presidents' Trophy as the team with the NHL's best regular season record twice, and in 1994 won their long-awaited fourth Stanley Cup championship. Neil Smith remains the only GM in the modern era to win a Stanley Cup with the Rangers. Fall of the Rangers The next few years saw the team struggle to stay in contention, but having traded away many of its prospects for the Stanley Cup run, the team had to increasingly rely on aging veterans acquired through expensive free agency. A major dispute between Smith and hard-driving coach Mike Keenan ended when Keenan left for the St. Louis Blues after the championship season. Unfortunately, none of the coaches that succeeded Keenan could motivate the highly-paid stars that played for the Rangers in the mid to late 1990s. Attempting to once more bring in an older superstar to re-ignite the magic of 1994, Neil Smith signed Wayne Gretzky in 1996, reuniting him with his old teammate Messier. During the 1996–97 playoffs the Rangers earned their way into the Eastern Conference Finals, where they were beaten by a bigger and younger Philadelphia Flyers squad. The reunion would last only a year, however, as Messier left amid an acrimonious dispute with the organization. With his departure the Rangers sank into mediocrity; though Smith acquired a succession of veteran players with expensive contracts and drafted a host of promising young players, the team continued to underperform and miss the playoffs until Smith's departure from the organization following the 1999–2000 NHL season. The Rangers did not again reach the playoffs again until 2006, nor did they win another playoff series, nor mere postseason game until a decade later when they swept the Atlanta Thrashers during the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals in 2007. Short tenure with the New York Islanders On June 8, 2006, Smith was introduced as the New York Islanders' general manager, making him the only person in NHL history to serve as general manager with