NEW YORK—Almost immediately after the New York Rangers fired John Tortorella on Wednesday, the idea with the storybook appeal was in the air: Mark Messier as the next Rangers coach.

The Game 6 guarantee, the admired captain, the hockey messiah who led the Rangers to the 1994 Stanley Cup, their only one in the last 73 years. Is there really a chance he will be the man behind the Rangers’ bench when the 2013-14 season begins?

Yes, there is a chance. But it is not likely and it could be risky. General manager Glen Sather is more likely to choose someone from the ranks of available former NHL coaches, like Alain Vigneault, Lindy Ruff, Paul Maurice, Marc Crawford or Guy Boucher; an AHL coach ready to move up, like Dallas Eakins of the Toronto Marlies; or the candidate with the most appeal, Phoenix Coyotes coach Dave Tippett, who could leave that club if its future in Arizona remains uncertain.

Sather asked Messier once before if he would like to coach the Rangers, in the summer of 2002 after the firing of Ron Low, the first coach Sather hired as the team’s GM. At the time, Messier was in his second stint as a Rangers player, and he turned down the offer.

“Glen has been asking me to do that for a long time,” Messier said a few months later. “I’m under no illusion that because I’ve played the game and been involved and won before that that automatically translates into a coach.”

Fast forward to 2013, and the likelihood of Sather’s asking Messier again seems to have diminished. Messier, 52, has been the special assistant to Sather since 2009. But he was never named an assistant general manager, suggesting that he is not on a front-office track. The successor to Sather as general manager will probably be one of his two current assistants, Jeff Gorton or Jim Schoenfeld.

Nor has Messier gained any significant coaching experience. He coached what amounted to Canada’s C team to a third-place finish at the Deutschland Cup and a second-place finish at the Spengler Cup in 2010.

Instead, Messier’s postretirement career has been oriented toward special projects in areas he seems invested in: a line of hockey helmets aimed at reducing head injuries, and converting the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx to a national-level hockey, figure skating and curling facility.

Certainly Sather respects Messier, who was a compelling on-ice and dressing-room leader when Edmonton won five Stanley Cups between 1984 and 1990, when Sather was coach and general manager. When Sather took over the Rangers in 2000, he brought back Messier to New York from Vancouver to play for four more years and did not pressure the aging captain to retire, even though Messier’s continued presence seemed to be holding back the team.

It might be less far-fetched for Sather to ask another old Oiler and Ranger to step behind the bench: Wayne Gretzky. He coached the Coyotes for four seasons from 2005 to 2009, although they missed the playoffs each season. Gretzky also was the executive director of the Canadian men’s Olympic team in 2002, when it won a gold medal in Salt Lake City, and in 2006 in Turin, Italy.

Gretzky attended Game 3 of the Rangers-Bruins series at Madison Square Garden. But he has essentially been out of hockey since the NHL took over the Coyotes in 2009 and decided, in a vote of league owners, not to pay $8 million he was owed by the bankrupt club.

If he does not pick Messier or Gretzky, Sather’s options are more conventional. He will be looking for someone who can ignite the Rangers’ best offensive players and power play, and give meaningful ice time to the developing forwards like Chris Kreider and J.T. Miller without punishing them for defensive errors.

Vigneault may be the best fit, having coached the high-powered Canucks until earlier this month, a seven-year stint that included a trip to the 2011 Stanley Cup finals.

Ruff coached the Sabres for 15 seasons, including a trip to the 1999 Cup finals. Maurice coached three NHL clubs, leading the Carolina Hurricanes to the Cup finals in 2002. He just returned from a season coaching in Russia for Metallurg Magnitogorsk of the Kontinental Hockey League.

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Crawford won the Stanley Cup in 1996 with Colorado but has had little success since, and Boucher was acclaimed as a tactical genius after AHL success and a strong 2010-11 season with Tampa Bay. But he was fired by the Lightning last March, with the team on its way to missing the playoffs for a second straight season. Eakins has coached the Marlies for five seasons, getting them to the Calder Cup finals last year.

Tippett is admired for getting the bankrupt Coyotes to the playoffs in three of his four seasons there. His contract expires June 30, and if he has not signed a contract extension by then, he will be free to speak with other teams.

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