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Author: Neil Keefe

BlogsRangers

Rangers Finally Headed in Right Direction

The Rangers might not be a playoff team, but they’re finally headed in the right direction, which didn’t seem possible a year ago at this time.

I got on an early-morning, day-after-Thanksgiving Amtrak to Boston to watch the Rangers play against the league-best Bruins. The decision to battle through a hangover and a stomach full of heavy holiday food as if I were battling Zdeno Chara for position in front of the net to travel a few hours and a few hundred miles to watch the rebuild Rangers play the contending Bruins felt regrettable the second the train left the station. It had been just over a month since the Bruins ran the Rangers out of their own Garden with a 7-4 road win in which the Bruins looked like were from a different league. Now here I was, not in the best conditions, voluntarily traveling to see a potential repeat of that game.

For the last six weeks, the Rangers have been a much different team since that late-October loss, going 10-4-2 in that time (mostly without Mika Zibanejad who was hurt in the October loss to Boston) with impressive wins over Tampa Bay, Nashville, Carolina (twice), Pittsburgh and Washington. The Rangers have, at times, looked like a team which was able to skip the early, depressing phases of a full rebuild by miracously acquiring the No. 2 pick in the 2019 draft and landing the best available free agent in the offseason, and at other times, have looked like the team with the youngest average age in the league, backboned by an inexperienced defense. It’s the Rangers team that beat Tampa Bay and Nashville in back-to-back games, upset Washington and came back from four goals down in Montreal to stun the Canadiens that made me want to get on that train, full knowing that the team which laid a pair of eggs against Ottawa in November might make an appearance.

The Rangers jumped out to a 1-0 lead in Boston and increased it to 2-0. But with the seemingly impossible way two-goals leads have been getting blow in the league this season coupled with the Bruins having not lost a home regulation game since Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, the Bruins were down but far from out. After receiving a lucky bounce in which Henrik Lundqvist put the puck in his own net, the Bruins were on the board in the final two minutes of the second, and less than five minutes into the third, the game was tied. The Rangers wasted a 5-on-3 in the second and a four-minute power play in the third, and when David Quinn sent the unusual combination of Ryan Strome, Pavel Buchnevich and Adam Fox out in overtime, a loss was inevitable. Seconds after those three hit the ice, the goal horn was going off and “Zombie Nation” was blaring.

It was a crushing loss considering the two-goal lead and the two advantageous power-play opportunities, but from a big-picture perspective, it was a well-earned point on the road against the best team in the NHL a month after that same team embarrassed the Rangers. Even better for the big picture was the Rangers’ ability to bounce back with a 4-0 win game less than 24 hours later in New Jersey against their well-rested rival.

A year ago, the Rangers also played on the day after Thanksgiving in what was a 4-0 loss the Flyers. That Rangers team went on to lose 42 of their remaining 62 games, finishing with the fifth-worst record in the Eastern Conference and the least amount of regulation wins in the NHL. It was an expected outcome in the first full season of the rebuild and a glimpse into what might be a very long road to getting back to the playoffs. It felt like the Rangers were in the beginning of an extended dark era with no real timeline for when the next time their season might have an 83rd game. The final years of Lundqvist’s career were wilting away like the rose in the glass case in Beauty and the Beast and the Rangers were going to have to succesfully hit on an unprecedented amount of draft picks for several years to escape their lack of talent.

The chance to draft Kaapko Kakko, sign Artemi Panarin and use Winnipeg’s own first-round pick to acquire Jacob Trobua quickly changed the Rangers’ fortunes and future. Those three offseason acquisitions combined with the reliable Mika Zibanejad, a breakout season from Strome, Tony DeAngelo and Pavel Buchnevich finally realizing their potential, the already-arrived offense of 21-year-olds Fox and Ryan Lindgren, Filip Chytil’s 0.50 goals per game and Lundqvist beating the crap out of Father Time has sped up the rebuild and has the Rangers on the playoff bubble through 30 percent of the season.

I expected to see a lot more games like the late-October loss to Boston this season than I expected to see games like the late-November loss to Boston and the quick turnaround win over New Jersey. I expected the Rangers to certainly be more enjoyable to watch than they were last season and for a few surprising upsets along the way, but I didn’t expect this kind of success, this often, even if the season is only two months old. Each game feels like a playoff game as this roster has little margin for error and each win feels like a major accomplishment in a division with the Capitals, Islanders, Flyers, Hurricanes and Penguins in windows in which they’re expected to play deep into the spring.

This nearly six-week run which started back on Oct. 24 with an offensive barrage in a 6-2 win over Buffalo could very well come to an end and the other shoe could drop, leaving the Rangers alongside Ottawa, New Jersey and Detroit in the standings, where they were thought to end up before the season began, but I don’t see it. I don’t see this Rangers team going back to the basement of the conference or the league. They might not be a playoff team, but they’re finally headed in the right direction, which didn’t seem possible a year ago at this time.

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BlogsNFLNFL Picks

NFL Week 13 Picks

Since deciding to only root for the Giants to lose this season, the season has become much more enjoyable. There’s no getting upset or frustrated because there’s no expectation to win, just lose, and the

Since deciding to only root for the Giants to lose this season, the season has become much more enjoyable. There’s no getting upset or frustrated because there’s no expectation to win, just lose, and the Giants are as good at losing as any team in the league. Now with seven straight losses, the Giants currently hold the No. 3 pick in the 2020 draft. It’s about as good of a scenario as you can ask for for your team to be in when you know they aren’t going to the playoffs anyway and when they stopped playing meaningful games six weeks ago.

(Home team in caps)

Chicago -3.5 over DETROIT
The Bears did everything they could to lose to the Giants and they still won. That’s how bad these Giants are. The networks keep including the Bears in the “In the Hunt” graphic when displaying the current playoff picture, but they couldn’t be less in the hunt at three games out with five games to play. They might be able to pick up a game this week with a win over the Lions, who have lost seven of eight, and the Vikings in Seattle, but picking up another two over the last month is going to be nearly impossible. The Bears are finished. Now they have to figure out who is going to play quarterback for them in 2020.

DALLAS -6.5 over Buffalo
The Cowboys had a chance to upset the Patriots in Week 12 and take a 1 1/2-game lead in the NFC East. Instead, they lost because they’re the Cowboys and the Patriots are the Patriots and now they are more than likely going to lose the NFC East given their schedule and the Eagles’ schedule. If the Giants have to suck, the next-best thing is the Cowboys sucking, and they do. They will get their Thanksgiving win, but then the downward spiral will begin.

ATLANTA -7 over New Orleans
Last week, the Saints blew a two-touchdown lead to the Panthers and needed a missed chip shot to have a chance to win the game in the final seconds. Two weeks before that, they were blown out by a one-win Falcons team in the Superdome. The Saints are trending in the wrong direction like they were at this time last season. The Falcons might be awful and battling for draft position, but I’m sure they would also like to take away New Orleans’ first-round bye as one last hurrah before the entire Falcons’ coaching staff is fired.

BALTIMORE -6 over San Francisco
I normally like to pick against the team that has to make the cross-country flight, but I don’t like to give six points in a game between two of the league’s top teams. In this game, I have to given how much the 49ers rely on their defense for offensive support and how little the Ravens’ offense cares about the opposing defense.

CAROLINA -10 over Washington
Had the Panthers moved away from Cam Newton prior to the start of the season, they would still be in the playoff picture and battling for a wild-card berth. Instead, they will have to settle for a .500-ish season and experience and growth for their young quarterback.

New York Jets -3.5 over CINCINNATI
The Bengals have a two-game lead on the No. 1 pick with five weeks to go. It would be a major upset if they were to pick anywhere other than first this spring and the only way that upset could happen is if they were to win a few games. The Jets, on the other hand, are in the middle of putting together an unnecessary winning streak which will only give their fans the idea that they can somehow win out and sneak into the playoffs at the No. 6 seed. All the Jets are doing is moving themselves down in the draft yet again. Mediocrity at its finest.

INDIANAPOLIS -2.5 over Tennessee
The Texans will lose to the Patriots this week and that will be their fifth loss. The Colts and Titans both have five losses, so whichever teams win this game will be tied record-wise with the Texans for the division lead with four games to play.

JACKSONVILLE -1 over Tampa Bay
Two 4-7 teams playing a meaningless game. Give me the home team and the better defense. The much better defense.

Philadelphia -9 over MIAMI
The Cowboys’ expected loss to the Patriots kept the Eagles within one game of the Cowboys with five games to play. The Cowboys have the Bills, Bears, Rams, Eagles and Redskins remaining while the Eagles have the Dolphins, Giants, Redskins, Cowboys and Giants again. The Eagles are going to win the division if they can beat the Cowboys at home in Week 16 and they might win it anyway with this cupcake schedule. Then Jason Garrett will be fired, and I will have to spend the early days of 2020 worrying about the Giants hiring him.

Green Bay -6.5 over NEW YORK GIANTS
This line is surprisingly low because of the Week 12 scores. But don’t let those scores fool you. The Packers are still a good team and the Giants are a joke.

Cleveland -2 over PITTSBURGH
A three-game winning streak has the Browns back in the playoff picture, sitting one game out of the No. 6 seed. That 6-seed? The Steelers. Neither of these teams are any good and whichever AFC team wins the 6-seed and has to go to Arrowhead is going to get blown out anyway. But what I’m rooting for here is for the Browns to continue to their run and then fall short of the playoffs in the final week or two of the season.

Los Angeles Rams -3 over ARIZONA
A year after the Rams went to the Super Bowl thanks to a non-pass interference call and then proved they didn’t belong in the Super Bowl once there, they are going to miss the playoffs completely unless they’re able to run the table over the last five weeks or at worst go 4-1. Their schedule: at Arizona, Seattle, at Dallas, at San Francisco, Arizona. It’s going to be a difficult task, but it’s doable.

KANSAS CITY -10 over Oakland
The Chiefs aren’t going to have home-field advantage in the second round of the playoffs or the AFC Championship Game, so they’re once again not going to the Super Bowl. Last season, they couldn’t win the AFC with home-field advantage in the AFC Championship Game and they had a much better team. But the Chiefs still have to win to hold on to their one-game division lead over the Raiders and at least keep their home game for Wild-Card Weekend.

Los Angeles Chargers -2.5 over DENVER
All season I waited for the Chargers from last season to emerge and all season they just kept losing. Now with seven losses, it would take an absolute miracle for them to reach the postseason. Instead of the “Chargers are a contender” storyline from this time last season, the new narrative is “What should the Chargers do with Philip Rivers?”

New England -3 over HOUSTON
The Patriots always beat the Texans. That’s not going to change anytime soon.

SEATTLE -3 over Minnesota
I made the mistake last season of picking Kirk Cousins to lead the Vikings to a win in Seattle. I’m not going to make that same mistake again.

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BlogsRangers

It Will Always Be Weird Seeing Mats Zuccarello in Another Uniform

I can still see Mats Zuccarello standing at center ice waiting to begin his shootout attempt in his first NHL game with Sam Rosen setting the stage. “In his first NHL game, here he comes,

I can still see Mats Zuccarello standing at center ice waiting to begin his shootout attempt in his first NHL game with Sam Rosen setting the stage.

“In his first NHL game, here he comes, in against Dan Ellis, to keep it alive … slows down … fakes … SCORES!”

A skilled, undrafted Norwegian forward, Zuccarello’s shootout success in the AHL had become a major selling point in New York, where the Rangers desperately needed help in obtaining the extra point. And in his NHL debut, the eventual fan favorite started building his fan base.

It was upsetting to see Zuccarello get traded last season to Dallas and it was beyond weird seeing that familiar smile light up wearing victory green, silver, black and white after assisting on a Tyler Seguin goal in his Stars debut. For as weird as it was seeing Zuccarello play for the Stars last season, it was just as weird seeing him wear a different shade of green in his return to Madison Square Garden on Monday night.

Nearly two years ago, Zuccarello watched as the core of the Rangers continued to be destroyed with Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller joining Ryan Callahan, Anton Stralman and Dan Girardi in Tampa Bay and Rick Nash being sent to Boston. Entering the 2018-19 season, Zuccarello’s impending free agency made him a coveted trade asset for the Rangers and the idea of him being separated from the Rangers and his best friend Henrik Lundqvist literally started to ruin his life off the ice and diminish his play on it.

There was still hope the front office and Zuccarello could come to terms on an extension at some point last season, but when the news broke on prior to the trade deadline that he would be a healthy scratch, it became clear Zuccarello had played his last game as a Ranger. There was still a sliver of hope the Rangers could re-sign him in the offseason, but as a soon-to-be 32-year-old who likely wouldn’t be part of the next competitive Rangers team, coupled with the fact the Rangers let him go in the first place, it was always highly unlikely.

It took an incredible amount of poor personnel decisions, bad big-money contracts, horrible trades and nonsensical negotiating tactics for Zuccarello to end up in Dallas and now Minnesota. It should have never ended the way it did for Zuccarello in New York and had the Rangers been able to knock off the Devils in 2011-12 or been able to hold a two-goal lead or win an overtime game against the Kings in 2013-14 or hadn’t lost Game 7 at home to the Lightning in 2014-15 then none of this would matter now. The Rangers would have accomplished their goal, they wouldn’t have wasted Lundqvist’s prime and they would have won in the small timeframe they had to win. Instead, those three seasons are remembered as what could have been rather than what was.

Like Lundqvist and the other staples of this recent Rangers team, Zuccarello deserved better than to watch the best years of this core be wasted by jettisoning out the wrong players, and most egregiously, extending the wrong defensemen. Zuccarello deserved better than to spend the 2017-18 season on a team built as if it could still win and he deserved better than to play his last season for the Rangers on a team secretly hoping it would be bad enough to pick at the top of the draft.

Unlike his Dallas debut when a Rangers blue undershirt could be spotted below his shoulder pads clashing with the Stars’ color scheme, there was no hint of Zuccarello being an ex-Ranger on Monday. That is until he watched a highlight video of his own Rangers career on the big screen as the building gave him an extended standing ovation, eventually leading to him leaving the bench for the ice to salute the crowd. There he was, the fan favorite and former core member, in another uniform, thanking the Garden for thanking him. And there he was, watching the Rangers pick up a comeback win against his Wild, a win he could have and should have been a part of.

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BlogsYankeesYankees Offseason

Yankees Release Jacoby Ellsbury, Worst Contract in Team History

The Yankees finally gave up on trying to salvage anything from the disastrous $153 million Jacoby Ellsbury contract.

I have been waiting for this day since the day the Yankees regrettably and unnecessarily signed Jacoby Ellsbury. I never wanted the Yankees to sign Ellsbury. No Yankees fan did. No one thought the Yankees’ decision to bid against themselves and give a 30-year-old outfielder, whose game is based on speed, a seven-year, $153 million contract was a good idea. No one outside of Boston.

The worst contract in the history of the Yankees was one that never made any sense. This wasn’t the Yankees competing against several other contenders to add Carl Pavano or even Jaret Wright after the 2004 ALCS collapse. This wasn’t the Steinbrenners overruling Brian Cashman to give A-Rod a 10-year, $275 million after his second MVP season in three years. This wasn’t the Yankees continually upping their offer to CC Sabathia to put so much money in front of him that he would have to say no to California. This wasn’t the Yankees giving A.J. Burnett $82.5 million because he led the league in strikeouts once (with an above-4 ERA). This wasn’t the Yankees stepping in and stealing Mark Teixeira away from the Red Sox with an eight-year, $180 million deal. This was the Yankees deciding to pass on their own homegrown, All-Star talent to sign essentially a one-year wonder to a seven-year, $153 million contract (with a $5 million buyout for an eighth season, which we can’t forget) when NO ONE ELSE was bidding.

Given the contract and performance, Ellsbury is the worst player in the history of the New York Yankees. Pavano is not a counter argument. There is no argument. And all of the weird injuries and issues aside, Ellsbury made more in his first two seasons with the Yankees than Pavano did in his four. Ellsbury will get paid $26 million in total from here on out to not play for the Yankees thanks to a $5 million buyout on an option that was never going to get picked up. But at least he won’t be weakly grounding out to the right side, hitting for no power, stealing no bases and blocking prospects with real baseball talent from reaching the majors.

In six seasons as a Yankee, Ellsbury played in 520 of a possible 972 regular-season games (53.5 percent) and missed the entire 2018 and 2019 seasons. He hit an anemic .264/.330/.386 and averaged a .716 OPS with 9.8 home runs, 49.5 RBIs and 25.5 stolen bases when he played. He was benched for the 2015 AL Wild-Card game, and then in the 2017 postseason, he went 0-for-9 with three strikeouts and two walks, sharing time with Chase Headey as the designated hitter before losing that part-time job the way he lost his full-time one in center field to Aaron Hicks.

The idea that having Ellsbury and Brett Gardner hitting first and second at the top of the order was what the Yankees needed after the disastrous 2013 season was such a bad idea that it makes choosing Gary Sheffield over Vladimir Guerrero look good. Like that Sheffield-Guerrero decision, maybe this decision also wasn’t Brian Cashman’s call after the 2013 season since ownership had to watch the Red Sox win their third World Series in 10 years while the Yankees put together the 2006 All-Star team with Ichiro, Travis Hafner, Kevin Youkilis, Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay. If it weren’t for Alfonso Soriano’s MVP-like return in the middle of the summer to string Yankees fans along until early September, maybe the front office would have done something more drastic than signing Ellsbury, Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran. Maybe they would have also signed Shin-Soo Choo to a seven-year, $140 million deal. (Unfortunately, that’s not a joke as Cashman and Co. did offer Choo a seven-year, $140 million deal.)

I never thought I would find a hitter streakier than Gardner, but Ellsbury was that, except his hot streaks would last a quarter of the time of his cold streaks. Yes, the Yankees’ plan was to put the two streakiest hitters in the game back-to-back at the top of their lineup in hopes that hot streaks would occur at the same time. Why would you want to do that? If you know the answer then maybe you can also tell me why you would want two Brett Gardners on the same team? And then maybe you can also tell me why would you want to pay the real Brett Gardner $13 million per year and the bad Brett Gardner $21.1 million per year?

The Yankees couldn’t get out of their $153 million mistake. They coudln’t pay Ellsbury to play for another team through a trade like they did with David Justice or A.J. Burnett or Brian McCann because at pennies on the dollar, he wasn’t healthy or wanted. The only way out was to finally release him now that the insurance coverage has run out and maybe there is a team dumb enough to sign him to the league minimum and see if he has anything left, which he doesn’t. He’s not going to become the player he was for one season of his 13-year career. That one season also happened NINE YEARS AGO! He’s not going to be rejuvenated and revitalized with a change of scenery and more playing time because he isn’t good. He’s not going to come back to hurt the Yankees. If he does land a job somewhere, he will most likely play like a Hall of Famer against the Yankees when he faces them because every ex-Yankee does, but he’s not going to be the missing piece of another contender, and he’s not going to get some big hit or make some big play against the Yankees that ruins their own championship aspirations. Because in a game of that magnitude, Ellsbury will be on the bench, like he was for the 2015 Wild-Card Game and like he was for nearly the entire 2017 postseason aside from a few DH at-bats, in which he went 0-for-9 with three strikeout and two walks.

Ellsbury’s comical injury saga of 2018 and 2019 was a fitting end to his Yankees tenure. He had no place on this team this past season other than to give the Yankees front office an out when they choose to not sign Bryce Harper, citing a “crowded outfield” as their reason, and he had no place on this team in the upcoming season even if a series of unfortunate injuries or a rash of underachieving decimated the team. Even having him in spring training as a potential depth player is an insult. There was no longer a need to try to salvage even one cent of his remaining contract.

2013 was an embarrassment. 2014 was a disappointment. 2015 was great until the trade deadline and awful after it. 2016 sucked until after the trade deadline. 2017 was unexpected and the most fun I have had as a Yankees fan since the moment before Derek Jeter’s ankle was ruined in Game 1 of the 2012 ALCS. 2018 was enjoyable for the first three months of the season before a second half of .500 and embarrassing postseason ruined the year. 2019 ended disappointingly, but even with the disappointing end to the last two seasons, the Yankees are back to playing like the pre-2013 Yankees where winning a World Series every season was an attainable goal. If the Yankees don’t win a championship again in 2020 it will be a disappointment like it was for eight years after 2000 and again for three years after 2009. Ownership likes to apologize to the fans when the goal of winning a championship isn’t met and they promise to do better and do the things necessary to win moving forward. Getting rid of Ellsbury was doing better and doing something necessary. If he were to ever get healthy, it didn’t matter if he were the last man on the bench or the 25th man on the roster. His presence would serve as a reminder and holdover from the run of disappointing seasons from 2013-2016 and the bad contracts that led to those disappointing seasons.

The money finally became just money for the Yankees and protecting prospects who may or may never actually help the Yankees at the major league level was more important than continuing to roster a lost cause. It’s just money, and it was just $26 million at this point. The other $127 million-plus had already been wasted. Sure, the Yankees could have used the Ellsbury contract to sign Cano, or give 765 New York City high school students $200,000 towards college, or give a $100 ticket or food credit at the Stadium to 1.53 million Yankees fans, or done anything other than give a one-year wonder on the wrong side of 30 a seven-year contract to play Major League Baseball. But they did and now they will pay him to not play for them if he ever plays again at all. The worst Yankee in history is no longer a Yankee.

***

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

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BlogsPodcastsRangers

Rangers Podcast: Erik Erlendsson

Erik Erlendsson of Lightning Insider joined me to talk about the recent history between the Rangers and Lightning.

The last six years of Rangers-Lightning trades and free agency have caused me to root heavily against the Lightning in the playoffs. If Ryan Callahan, Dan Girardi, Ryan McDonagh, Brian Boyle, Anton Stralman and J.T. Miller couldn’t win in New York, I didn’t want to see them win somewhere else. But now with McDonagh and Kevin Shattenkirk as the only ex-Rangers on the Lightning, my fear of them winning has faded.

Erik Erlendsson of Lightning Insider talk about the Lightning’s recent blowout win over the Rangers, getting over last season’s first-round sweep after the historical regular season, the play of Kevin Shattenkirk, the recent history of Lightning-Rangers trades, the Lightning legacies of Dan Girardi and Ryan Callahan and expectations this season.

Rangers Podcast: Erik Erlendsson (17:31)

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