The Rangers fan base certainly will not need to familiarize itself with the new play-by-play tandem on MSG Network.
Nor will the duo need to familiarize themselves with each other.
After ceding the broadcast booth in Tuesday’s season-opening loss to the Penguins to ESPN, longtime radio announcers Kenny Albert and Dave Maloney officially will take over for the retired duo of Sam Rosen and Joe Micheletti in Thursday’s game in Buffalo.
“It’s pretty exciting for me. It’s a role I never thought I’d be in,” the 69-year-old Maloney told The Post in a phone interview. “I’m following in some pretty big footsteps in JD [former analyst John Davidson] and Joe, but working with Kenny for so long, from that standpoint, this is just perfect.”
Maloney was drafted in the first round of the NHL draft by the Rangers in 1974, playing 11 seasons for the organization before starting his radio career while recovering from an injury during the 1984-85 season. He worked various announcing jobs before becoming the Rangers’ primary radio analyst in 2005.
Maloney was paired for the past two decades on the radio with Albert, who had been hired for play-by-play duties in 1995, previously had been paired with Sal Messina and former Rangers forward Brian Mullen.
“It’s such an honor, because the Rangers basically have only had two play-by-play announcers [on TV] for the past 50 years, in Jim Gordon and Sam Rosen,” Albert told The Post from Las Vegas, where he was slated to call Wednesday’ game between the Golden Knights and the Kings for TNT. “To have Dave with me only makes it more special.”
Albert, whose NFL play-by-play duties had him in London on Sunday for Vikings-Browns, and Maloney actually bid a farewell of sorts during their final broadcast of last season.
The 57-year-old Albert had already been named as Rosen’s successor, but Micheletti had not yet announced his retirement.
“It got somewhat emotional for us, after working 20 years together and over 1,000 games on the radio side,” Albert said. “But little did we know that Dave would be shifted to the TV side, as well. And I couldn’t be happier about that.”
Both announcers noted the obvious differences between calling games on radio and TV, but their rapport and familiarity with each other should make for a seamless transition.
“I’ve always felt that it was like the old Rod Stewart song, ‘Every Picture Tells a Story,’ ” Maloney said. “All I know is I could not have fallen into a better situation.
“Kenny, when I watch him do his other sports, his partners are so good because he just lays it all out there and you can see there’s a rapport with his partner. To get to work with a guy that I like so much and is so good at what he does, I could not have drawn this up any better.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
