Editor’s note: This is the last in a four-part, season-long series looking back at the New York Rangers’ four Stanley Cup wins as the team celebrates its centennial season. Read Part 1 about the 1928 championship here, Part 2 about the 1933 title here and Part 3 about the 1940 squad here.Following one of multiple benchings by New York Rangers coach Mike Keenan during the 1993-94 regular season, decorated defenseman Brian Leetch received a surprise phone call from fellow Norris Trophy winner Chris Chelios.“What’s going on with Iron Mike?” asked Chelios, then playing for Keenan’s former team, the Chicago Blackhawks. “He called me the other night, and he’s trying to trade me for you. I don’t want to leave here. Do you want to leave New York?”“No!” Leetch emphatically replied.Tension would circle the Rangers throughout what became the most memorable season in the franchise’s 100-year history, which culminated with a seven-game series win over the Vancouver Canucks in the Stanley Cup Final. Keenan was at the center of it, with the abrasive bench boss creating constant turmoil and pushing his accomplished team to the edge of dysfunction. By the time the 1994 NHL playoffs began, though, Leetch was resolved to ditch the drama and move forward.“When the playoffs started, I felt free,” the Hall of Famer recently said. “I was like, ‘This could be my last year in New York, so let’s just go play your game.’”For the first two rounds, that’s precisely how it went. The Blueshirts swept the rival Islanders, then blew through the Washington Capitals in five games. Leetch registered points in all nine games, totaling 17 to lead the team.But the player-coach friction that he thought he’d left behind came crashing back in an epic Eastern Conference final against the New Jersey Devils. The Athletic spoke to several players and involved parties about a moment that threatened to derail a championship season, as well as the fallout and ways that a veteran-laden team rallied to overcome it to attain what still stands as the Rangers’ most recent championship.‘This is the f—ing playoffs’The upstart Devils were loaded with emerging talent, including future Hall of Famers Martin Brodeur, Scott Niedermayer and Scott Stevens, and played a swarming, lockdown style using coach Jacques Lemaire’s signature neutral-zone trap. They finished second to the Rangers for the best record in the league and were considered the primary adversary in New York’s quest to end its 54-year championship drought.“The intensity of that series would match, if not exceed, (that of the Stanley Cup) finals,” Keenan said. “It was competitive and razor-thin.”With New Jersey in mind, Keenan, hired the previous spring after the Rangers surprisingly missed the playoffs, had spent much of the 1993-94 season hounding general manager Neil Smith to add bigger, stronger players with postseason experience.“He didn’t feel that the team was good enough with the players we had,” Smith said. “And I knew who he didn’t like.”The needling didn’t prevent Smith from aggressively fortifying the roster with in-season trades. He used players Keenan wanted to move on from, most notably skilled forwards Tony Amonte and Mike Gartner, to acquire veterans Glenn Anderson, Steve Larmer, Craig MacTavish, Stephane Matteau and Brian Noonan. The deals made the Rangers deeper, but Keenan’s forceful nature began to sour the GM-coach relationship.“The problem was the way he goes about things,” Smith said. “(But) I didn’t want any excuses for us not to win the Cup.”The Rangers were marching toward that goal when conflict bubbled back to the surface. Carrying a 2-1 series lead into Game 4, which was played at Brendan Byrne Arena near the swamps of East Rutherford, N.J., the team was outshot 11-3 during the first period while surrendering goals to the Devils’ Stéphane Richer and Bill Guerin. The latter prompted Keenan to pull starting goalie Mike Richter in favor of backup Glenn Healy.“When he made the goalie change, was that to motivate the team? Was that to punish Mike, who had gotten us there?” Healy asked. “I don’t know that answer, but I know I wasn’t the elixir. I can tell you that. I was there to stop the bleeding. I was like that guy from Monty Python with no arms and legs going, ‘So you call a draw, do you?’”The Healy-for-Richter swap raised eyebrows, but what came next was even more shocking. Early in the second period, Smith realized he hadn’t seen Leetch on the ice in a while. Noonan was benched, too, with captain Mark Messier also being held off for a brief spell.“It was just horribly frustrating,” Smith said. “You’re like, ‘This is the f—ing playoffs. What are you doing?’”