By February 12, Ott Heller was ready to rejoin the Rangers. Twelve games and a little over a month after he’d broken his shoulder, he was mended, eager to play in one of the weekend games, Saturday in Montreal or maybe back home at the Garden Sunday against Brooklyn. Well, mostly mended: as Lester Rice wrote in New York’s Journal-American, “old reliable himself” was still a little weak in the left hand.

In his absence, the Rangers had gone 9-3, and that had them in first in the standings, two points up on Boston. The Bruins, of course, had just lost their top line to the war: Milt Schmidt, Bobby Bauer, and Porky Dumart had left the team at the end of January to report for duty with the RCAF. New York, meanwhile, couldn’t stop scoring: “Frankie Boucher’s Rangers,” wrote Jim Hurley from The New York Daily Mirror, were “shaping up with each passing game as perhaps the greatest scoring machine that hockey has ever known.” They had 12 games left to play in the regular season: if they could average three goals a game, they’d tie the Bruins’ 1929-30 record for team goals, 179. Manager Lester Patrick wasn’t worried about records, he said, and he didn’t want his players thinking about them, either — they just had to win.

“We’ll use Ott sparingly at the start,” Boucher was saying. “He’s kept himself in splendid condition by skating and practicing at every opportunity, but after all he’s been out of action for five weeks, and will have to take things easy for a game or two, until he feels he is ready to take his regular turn.”

They’d carry five defencemen, Boucher said: Neil Colville wasn’t going to return to his place on the forward line. “The truth of the matter,” said Boucher, “is Neil doesn’t want to wear wings any loner. He like the job back of the blue line so much he wants to live out the remainder of his career there. It will seem strange to some folks perhaps to have the Rangers carrying five defenders when we are building a reputation on attack, but I think it’s a good idea.”

According to the Daily Mirror, Heller’s injury hadn’t affected his standing as a contender for the Hart Trophy: he still had “a good chance” of being voted the league’s MVP. Oh, he was set to be fêted too:

Plans are now under way to stage the postponed “Ott Heller Night” during the Rangers-Canadiens game at the Garden next Tuesday.

Hexes, I guess, be damned.