Neil Keefe

Jan 28, 2015

Podcast: Mike Hurley

A lot of people don’t like Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, but even as a Giants and New York sports fan, I have never understood it.

Super Bowl XLIX is almost here and that means we can actually watch and talk about actual football rather than have to hear about deflated footballs and speculate on what might or might not happen in the game. Sunday it set up to be a great day and a memorable one for Seahawks fans and those who consider themselves a 12th Man, like myself.

Mike Hurley of CBS Boston joined me talk about what Media Day is like, why people hate Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, how to balance being a fan and a media member, the idea of the 12th Man and why the Seahawks are going to win the Super Bowl.

Blogs • Giants • NFL

Jan 28, 2015

A Giants Fan for Seahawks

A trip to Seattle for the NFC Championship Game made me realize the 12th Man does exist and I’m becoming an honorary one for Super Bowl XLIX.

The loudest thing I had ever heard at a road stadium was when Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS went to extra innings. Curt Schilling, Derek Lowe and Tim Wakefield emerged from the Red Sox dugout and began to walk to the bullpen as “Lose Yourself” blared throughout Fenway Park and every Red Sox fan in attendance, still high off the Red Sox’ two-run rally to tie the game in the eighth inning, went absolutely wild. And at that moment, I knew the Yankees were going to lose the game. I didn’t think they would lose the series with Games 6 and 7 to be played in the Bronx, but I knew that eventually on that Monday night, they would lose. Five hours and 49 minutes after the game started, the Yankees lost.

***

I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I went to Seattle for 36 hours for the NFC Championship Game. I had no idea when I boarded a packed plane from Newark headed to Seattle at 7 a.m. on a Saturday (32 hours before the game) that my girlfriend and I would be the only ones not completely decked out in Seahawks gear. We were surrounded by 12th Man and Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch jerseys. Surrounded by cheerful faces of people, who couldn’t be happier to be in the city of Newark at the crack of dawn on an Alaskan Airlines plane for the next six-plus hours. I had a feeling I was dealing with a different breed of fans when I walked down the aisle to find my seat and saw an elderly married couple sitting in first class, eating breakfast with matching 12th Man jerseys on with smiles on their faces as wide as Vince Wilfork.

I lived in Boston for five years and through two Red Sox (2004 and 2007), one Patriots (2004) and one Celtics championship (2007-08). The only thing that kept me from drinking my way through every day was Super Bowl XLII when I watched the Giants avenge what had happened to the Yankees and to me in October of 2004. But even during Boston’s historical run when every person in the city seemed to be wearing a David Ortiz or Manny Ramirez or Tom Brady or Tedy Bruschi or Paul Pierce of Kevin Garnett jersey, I had never seen people this nutty. And I think “nutty” is the perfect word for Seahawks fans. They aren’t crazy or insane, they are just nutty.

I never understood the “12th Man”. I mean I have always understood what the Seahawks and their fans were trying to do, but I never understood how or why everyone bought into the idea of it. I thought it was weird to see fans wearing a “12th Man” jersey instead of a real player’s jersey and found it awkward to hear fans refer to themselves as 12s, while Pete Carroll and his players referred to their fans as 12s. It was odd to see “12” flags around the city and “12” banners hanging from buildings and storefronts. I have no problem with any fans thinking or acting like they are part of the team by using “we” when talking about their team, but thinking of yourself as a person or player on the field because of the noise generated? That always seemed a little strange. Nothing could possibly be as loud as CenturyLink has been made out to be even with everyone in attendance consuming an exorbitant amount of alcohol.

***

Seattle on Seahawks game day (or at least on game day when that game happens to be the NFC Championship Game) looks like Dillon on Panthers game day in Friday Night Lights. Most places were closed and those that weren’t had handwritten signs hanging in the window to let you know they would be closing at noon, which was coincidentally when the Seahawks would eventually be kicking off to the Packers.

But it makes sense since Seattleites only really have the Seahawks. Their basketball team moved to Oklahoma City and when it comes to the Mariners, they haven’t reached the playoffs since 2001 when the Yankees ended what was a 116-win regular season for the Mariners, and 11 years later, the Yankees traded for the face of their franchise in Ichiro. The Seahawks are all they have. Well, the Seahawks, Felix Hernandez, Robinson Cano (eff you, Seattle) and fat jokes about Jesus Montero. And I guess we can throw in Starbucks, non-stop rain and being the home to Pearl Jam to beef up their resume. But that’s it.

On the morning of the NFC Championship Game, the non-stop rain was still there. I had seen rain from right before the plane was about to land through my first day in Seattle and now 24 hours later, it was still raining. It wasn’t raining hard, but it was raining. Not until we left the hotel and began our walk to the game did the sky open up and in seconds turn me from “Hey, I’m going to the NFC Championship Game!” to “I need to go back to the hotel, order a pizza and watch the game on TV.” I was soaked. My jeans were stuck to me, my coat had absorbed enough water that it felt like the lead vest they give you when you get an X-ray and my decision to wear sneakers rather than boots proved immediately costly as my socks had become useless and now detrimental to my day. Fortunately, as we hid in Pike Place Market for a few minutes, the sun emerged for the first and only time of the weekend and stayed out long enough for us to walk to CenturyLink Field.

SEA … HAWKS! SEA … HAWKS! SEA … HAWKS! SEA … HAWKS! SEA … HAWKS!

That was the chant that filled 1st Avenue from Pike Place to CenturyLink and it grew louder with each passing block as the stadium grew closer. The scene on the blocks leading up to CenturyLink reminded me of walking through the parking lots of a tailgate at the Meadows in Hartford for a concert. The only things missing were stoners with three-foot long dreads trying to sell veggie burritos (there were stoners with three-foot long dreads trying to sell other things), people buying nitrous balloons and “Let’s Go Whalers!” chants breaking out.

SEA … HAWKS! SEA … HAWKS! SEA … HAWKS! SEA … HAWKS! SEA … HAWKS!

***

From the moment I got to my seat just before kickoff until the Seahawks rushed the field following Jermaine Kearse’s game-winning touchdown in overtime, it felt like that “Lose Yourself” moment at Fenway multiplied by about 29,536,758 for three-plus straight hours. I had become a believer in the 12th Man. It’s a real thing.

I have never heard noise like that. At least not generated solely by people. The construction going on outside my apartment on the Upper East Side (which starts at 7:30 a.m. sharp every morning) mixed with being inside a firehouse garage while the sirens go off, mixed with standing next to an amp during Guns N’ Roses’ “Use Your Illusion Tour” might equal the magnitude of noise at CenturyLink Field I experienced. And that noise came from people’s vocal chords.

No one sat down and no one stopped yelling. Unfortunately, the woman (a Packers fan) two rows behind me, who thought it was a good idea to yell “DE-FENSE!” over and over when the Packers’ defense was on the field didn’t stop either. I’m not sure if she thought that Dom Capers or Clay Matthews or Sam Shields could hear her from the upper deck over the voices of 65,000 Seahawks fans, but I hope she lost her voice the next day and still hasn’t gotten it back.

I didn’t care who won the NFC Championship as long as that team was prepared to beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl because even before the Patriots’ demolition of the Colts a few hours later, everyone knew the Patriots were going to the Super Bowl when they beat the Broncos in Week 9 and locked up the 1-seed. I felt like the Seahawks would have a better chance against the Patriots because they have the best defense in the league and because the Patriots haven’t seen a quarterback like Russell Wilson all season. Actually, they haven’t seen a quarterback like Wilson since the last time they met, when the Seahawks beat them 24-23 in 2012. I know that the Packers did beat the Patriots already this season, but the Packers beating a team 26-21 in Green Bay is virtually a win for the opponent, since a five-point win in Lambeau for the Packers is equivalent to a loss on a neutral field.

I wanted a good game and wanted the winner to come out of the game healthy in order to best represent the NFC in Arizona and have the best chance to continue the Patriots’ championship drought. In return, I got possibly the best non-Super Bowl postseason game of all time, the best fourth-quarter comeback in postseason history and a Seahawks team without any serious injuries ready to defend their title in Super Bowl XLIX.

Because I attended the game with Packers fans, I wasn’t going to root outright for the Seahawks and when every Seahawks fans offered their condolences to my girlfriend’s family after the game and tried to offer it to me, I let them know I was a Giants fan. And I wanted them to know that I needed their team to do what the Giants had done in Super Bowl XLII and Super Bowl XLVI and beat the Patriots.

Before the postseason began, I wrote My Super Bowl XLIX Dilemma and ranked the 12 playoff teams in order from which team I would most like to see win Super Bowl XLIX to which team I don’t want to see win at all. The Seahawks were 3. The Patriots? Last, of course. So this decision is easy for me. On Sunday, I will be an honorary 12th Man.

Blogs • NHL

Jan 27, 2015

The 2014-15 NHL All-Animosity Team

This year’s team is a little different, but there are some familiar faces in the lineup, including a goalie on his way out of the league.

NHL All-Star Weekend has always held a special place in my heart. My feelings about a skills competition and an exhibition game in which there’s no physicality, defense or anything that resembles NHL hockey other than nasty dangles are probably unshared. But when you’re a kid growing up with stars like Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Ray Bourque and Brian Leetch and watching them wear those black and orange gems each winter on a weekend afternoon, it’s something that stays with you.

Even though Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin weren’t in Columbus this weekend and Henrik Lundqvist was home in favor of goalies of much lesser abilities (Hi, Jaroslav Halak), I still watched and still paid attention to the 60th NHL All-Star Game, the first in three years. Well, I paid more attention to the skills competition than the game, but I still paid attention. And since I don’t always agree with the selections for the All-Star Game, a couple of years ago I decided to build my own version of an All-Star team. The one difference is that this team is built up of players I don’t like.

(Of course the first time since I started creating these teams that Brian Boyle is eligible to be on it, he isn’t.)

FORWARDS

Milan Lucic
Welcome back, once again! After leading the 2012-13 team and 2013-14 team, Lucic is back on the 2014-15 team.

It wasn’t long ago that Lucic was considered to be Cam Neely 2.0 in Boston following his 30-goal regular season in the Bruins’ Cup winning 2010-11 season. But after watching his goal totals decline over the last three years, Lucic has just nine goals in 47 games for the Bruins this year. Instead of hearing from Boston about Lucic’s all-around game, it’s more likely you’ll hear about Lucic connected to trade rumors. During the Bruins’ struggles around the holidays, the Boston sports media was hoping they could create some package involving Lucic to send him to Edmonton in exchange for Taylor Hall because every team is willing to give away their former No. 1 overall pick for a power forward in the middle of a three-plus year slide. (Actually, Edmonton would be the team willing to do that.)

The Bruins have cap issues and because of this, Lucic could be playing for another team in 2015-16, and judging by every team’s eagerness to give out bad contracts and throw money at any and every free agent, teams will be lining up to offer Lucic a big payday. If he plays himself out of Boston and off the Bruins, there might not be a place for him on the All-Animosity Team going next year, but his three-year run on the team will always be a memorable one.

Alexander Ovechkin
My animosity toward Ovechkin has declined since Sidney Crosby officially won the Crosby-Ovechkin Debate (which was never really much of a debate anyway) and I no longer have to spend time and energy defending and supporting the best player in the world against a pure goal scorer, who couldn’t care less about what happens in his own zone.

In the Road to the NHL Winter Classic on EPIX, Capitals owner Ted Leonsis referred to Ovechkin as the most pouplar athlete of the four majors sports in Washington D.C. and I questioned it at first, but when put against Bryce Harper, Robert Griffin III and John Wall, I agreed with Leonsis. After watching Ovechkin attend the Wizards game in the EPIX series and seeing him act like a normal person and not a four-time 50-plus goal scorer and one-time 65-goal scorer, I actually kind of liked him. And then watching him hope to be the last pick in the All-Star Game to win a free car, despite being possibly the best pure scorer in the world, I actually liked him a little more. I’m a Crosby guy and always will be, but maybe there’s room to be a fan of both? Maybe Ovechkin’s personality is playing him off this team?

I’m sure I will be back to being anti-Ovechkin in March when the Rangers and Capitals play again and he spends the entire night taking shots at every Ranger on the ice. Even though I will annoyed, it will put a smile on my face that my animosity toward Ovechkin is back.

Brad Marchand
I had to figure out a way to make room for Brad Marchand on the team and that meant either cutting Alexander Ovechkin or Chris Kunitz. I didn’t cut Ovechkin, even though I actually don’t have as much out-of-game animosity toward him as I do for Kunitz. By “out-of-game” animosity, I mean that I don’t mind Ovechkin when he’s not playing a game against the Rangers, or a playoff game, and putting fear into me every time he’s on the ice or every time the Capitals get a power play. Kunitz, on the other hand, makes me angry to just think about since his career has taken off with the Penguins thanks to playing with Sidney Crosby, yet people continue to consider among the league’s elite players, which was never more true when he was given a spot on Team Canada in the 2014 Olympics. I thought about putting Kunitz on D for this team and sort of making a power-play unit out of the team, but then I decided … actually, wait, that’s a great idea! Put Kunitz on defense and cut Dion Phaneuf, who couldn’t be any more irrelevant as the captain of the downfall of the Maple Leafs.

Marchand is the ultimate player who you hate to watch your team play against, but would love if he were on your team. He’s dirty and annoying, he’s a pest and nuisance, but he’s good. Or at least he can be good. There are stretches where you wonder why it looks like he doesn’t care and other stretches where he’s involved in every play and leading an unstoppable forecheck. His lapses in judgment and total disregard for player safety are what makes him hated and in the Rangers-Bruins game on Jan. 15, there he was earning a two-game suspension for slew-footing Derick Brassard (a technique that Marchand turns to frequently). The only thing worse than Marchand’s antics in that game were Jack Edwards and Andy Brickley calling the game for NESN and saying they didn’t see a slew-foot.

DEFENSEMEN

Zdeno Chara
I don’t know how Chara would feel knowing that on this team Milan Lucic wears the “C” instead of him, but if he were upset about it, I would have no problem throwing an “A” on his jersey for him.

It’s weird to think that the Bruins will retire Chara’s number one day considering the team they were when they signed him and the team they have become now seven years later. But Chara is as big of a reason as anyone in the Bruins’ turnaround from finishing the 2006-07 season with 76 points to eventually winning the Cup and being in another Cup Final. It felt like it would be at least another three decades until the Bruins won again when Chara arrived in Boston and he should be recognized for … wait a second … this is supposed to be about why I don’t like Chara. In that case, let me repurpose what I said about him last year:

Jack Edwards will likely tell you that Chara is the best defenseman in the league, but he’s the same guy who thinks fights are decided by whichever plays ends up on top of the other player on the ice. Is there anything worse than when broadcasters talk about Chara’s 108-mph slap shot in the Skills Competition in a real game? No, there’s not. Because there are a lot of times in real games when you get to sprint untouched from the blue into a still puck in the slot and rip a bomb into an open net. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg that is the lovefest for the 6-foot-9, one-time Norris Trophy winner.

Chris Kunitz
The Rangers’ 3-1 series comeback against the Penguins in the Eastern Conference semifinals last year was an amazing five days, in which any shot, bad bounce or deflection could have ended the Rangers’ season a month earlier than it lasted. And aside from the jubilation from watching the Rangers come back against a team that had its way with the Rangers in the postseason forever, came the jubilation of watching Chris Kunitz score once in the series.

I moved Kunitz back on D on this team just to keep him on and it was a move I had to make after originally thinking of leaving him off this year’s roster. But the more I thought about him and the more I thought about him putting up stats and getting paid as the product of playing on a line with the best player of this generation, I had to find a way to keep him on the team.

When I was in college in Boston, there was a place called New York Pizza next to the Boston Common on Boylston St. that I would always eat at 2 a.m. at the earliest when I wasn’t exactly sober. I swore to everyone that visited me that New York Pizza was the best pizza in Boston and every person I told this to agreed with me because I would take them there after a night of drinking. It wasn’t until one time when I went to New York Pizza in the middle of the day and had a slice and could barely get two bites down that I realized that the alcohol had masked the true taste of the pizza. Chris Kunitz’s career pre-Sidney Crosby was me eating New York Pizza sober in the middle of the day and Chris Kunitz’s career with Sidney Crosby has been me eating New York Pizza drunk.

Last year, I said, “I feel like you could stick pretty much anyone and I don’t mean just any NHL player, but rather any actual person on a line with Crosby and they would be good for 15-20 goals,” and I believe that to be 100 percent true. And because that’s true, let’s stop pretending that Chris Kunitz is the type of player that he isn’t.

GOALIE

Martin Brodeur
Like last year … was there any other choice? And unless you’re a Devils fan or have changed your stance on the Ten Commandments, then you will agree with Brodeur as the starting goalie once again.

Yes, I stole that line from myself from last year. And maybe there were other choices (cough, cough, Carey Price, cough, cough), but with Brodeur set to retire on Thursday after trying to play at the age of 42 for the St. Louis Blues, it made sense to bring him back one more time.

Rather than ride off into the sunset as a lifetime Devil, who could have enjoyed a final game in New Jersey last season, Brodeur had to come back this season. After 1,259 games with the Devils, his stats will always have those glaring seven games at the bottom of the list. Sure, he added three more wins to his all-time record of 691 wins, but it’s unlikely that number will ever get touched, so instead of leaving it at 688, it’s now at 691 with a little bit of stink on it.

There are some players that are just supposed to play for one franchise forever and Brodeur is one of those players, considering he has been on the Devils since I was in kindergarten. Yes, I said KINDERGARTEN! Very rarely does a Ray Bourque-like move work out and instead it just gets weird when someone like Brian Leetch, who was a Ranger for 17 years, ends up playing 15 games for the Maple Leafs and 61 games for the Bruins at the end of his career.

I also said that about Brodeur last year and now that he’s no longer a one-team career guy, it’s a shame that he put on another jersey in an attempt to try to hang on to the only thing he has known to do in the winter for his whole life. I thought Martin Brodeur would retire at the end of last year and he should have. But now that he will make it official on Thursday (barring another Roger Clemens-like midseason comeback) it’s time for me to say it again:

I will miss Martin Brodeur when he retires, but my animosity for him will stay the same.

NFL • Podcasts

Jan 23, 2015

Podcast: Mike Cole

I didn’t care who won the NFC Championship Game as long as that team planned on beating the Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX because everyone knew the Patriots were going to win the AFC Championship

I didn’t care who won the NFC Championship Game as long as that team planned on beating the Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX because everyone knew the Patriots were going to win the AFC Championship Game. I felt like the Seahawks had a better chance than the Packers because of their defense and because the Packers were only able to beat the Patriots by 5 at Lambeau Field this year, which is essentially a win for a road team there. If the Packers could barely handle the Patriots at Lambeau, playing them on a neutral field didn’t feel like it bode well. So when the Seahawks came back in miraculous fashion in the final minutes of a game they had given away, I felt confident in the NFC representative’s chances of winning the Super Bowl.

Mike Cole of NESN.com loves Boston sports, except for one team: the Patriots. Cole grew up in Massachusetts as a Packers fan and watched his team collapse in Seattle and give away a Super Bowl trip and now, like me, he will be rooting against the Patriots on Super Sunday. Cole joined me to talk about everything that went wrong for the Packers in the NFC Championship Game, how he grew up rooting against the Patriots, what to make of Aaron Rodgers’ career and we even touch on some hockey.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Rangers

Jan 15, 2015

Rangers-Bruins Brings Out War of Words Again

Tuesday night was about as bad as a game could be for Rangers. Coming off 12 wins in 13 games, five straight wins and a California sweep, the Rangers never got going against the Islanders

Tuesday night was about as bad as a game could be for Rangers. Coming off 12 wins in 13 games, five straight wins and a California sweep, the Rangers never got going against the Islanders and got embarrassed at home in a 3-0 loss as Henrik Lundqvist watched the third period from the bench. But there’s no time for the Rangers to worry or reflect on what happened against their New York rival because the Capitals keep winning and the Rangers need to make the most of their games in hand on the rest of the Metropolitan.

For the first time in over 10 months, the Rangers will play the Bruins on Thursday night in Boston just as the Bruins are riding a five-game winning streak and playing their best hockey of the year. Mike Miccoli, who covers the Bruins for The Hockey Writers and was also my freshman year of college roommate, joined me for an email exchange to talk about what has happened to the Bruins since their postseason loss to the Canadiens, the job security of Peter Chiarelli and Claude Julien, what’s happening in the Eastern Conference this season and the thinking of Boston sports fans.

Keefe: It’s the middle of January and the Rangers and Bruins are meeting for the first time this season. The NHL always gets things right! With the two teams finally meeting for the first time since March 2, 2014, it means we get to talk Rangers-Bruins.

I was ready for the demise of the Bruins on Jan. 4 after they had just dropped their third straight game in either overtime or the shootout and had lost four of their last five overall. Since then, the Bruins have won four straight and look to be back on track.

But even with the Bruins finding their game, this season hasn’t been as easy for them as the last four have been and judging by your highs and lows on Twitter, it’s getting to you.

Are you worried about the Bruins?

Miccoli: There are certain things that I look forward to in January: the annual AFC Championship game with the New England Patriots, the release of Dave Matthews Band’s summer tour dates and a pretty successful month for the Boston Bruins. Since Claude Julien became head coach, the Bruins have an average winning percentage of .591 in January. It’d be a much higher number too, if they didn’t go 3-9-2 in January of the 2009-10 season, but I’m still pretty sure that year never actually happened.

This season is no different. The Bruins don’t know what it’s like to play a game in 2015 and not pickup a point. They’re 4-0-2 in January, and as you said, have won four straight. It’s unfortunate that the Rangers are beginning to cool off just as they’re running into a Bruins team that is playing their best hockey of the season. The team is finally healthy and is beginning to play more like they won a high seed in the playoffs rather than a high draft pick in this year’s lottery. Plus, David Pastrnak is on fire. I wish you could be here in Boston and see the statue that’s being constructed of him right next to Bobby Orr’s. It’s going to be so big that it might knock down Halftime Pizza across the street. Nobody will miss it.

So to answer your question, no, I’m not worried about the Bruins. At least not right now.

Keefe: I have always thought the Bobby Orr statue was a letdown. The statue itself is great … it’s just small and in a terrible location. Here is arguably the greatest hockey player, the most talented human being to ever wear skates and he has this tiny statue on Causeway Street in the shadows of the ugly concrete disaster that is the TD Garden and across the street from what used to be T.G.I Friday’s where there is a Dunkin Donuts, a weird ticket store and some homeless people asking for change and doing drugs outside that sketchy liquor store. IT’S NUMBER FOUR, BOBBY ORR! SHOW THE MAN SOME RESPECT! Then again, I guess there really isn’t a place to put the statue around the Garden. What a weird, oddly-planned area. I wish they would put the T back above ground there, re-open Hooters where North Star or DJ’s or whatever bar is there now and give the area some character. Maybe the best spot for it would be down the street on Staniford Street outside of Domino’s where I still remember the number by heart from freshman year. 617-248-0100. I just typed that without googling it. Is that disgusting? Do you want to get a 5-5-5 with me and play MVP Baseball on PS2? Anyway, back to real life, where we aren’t 18 and our only responsibility is to go to class between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. and then take an elevator down eight floors to eat whatever we want.

I hope the Rangers aren’t cooling off. Sure, they were embarrassed by the Islanders on Tuesday night at home after embarrassing the state of California’s hockey teams, but they have still won 12 of 14 games and have played the least amount of games in the entire league and a few games in hand on all of the teams they are chasing. If they win those games in hand, they will be out of the miserable wild-card spot they are in now and back to not worrying about making the playoffs.

But when it comes to the Rangers, it’s always about worrying about making the playoffs up until the beginning of April. You have had the luxury of not worrying about that in the last few years, but the way the Atlantic is shaping up, you might have to worry about this year. Imagine, no playoffs for the Bruins? The people of Boston will have to watch baseball again!

Miccoli: Did we go to class? (Hi, Mom and Dad and Neil’s parents – we did go to class.)

Now that you’ve mentioned the 5-5-5 and ruined any semblance of an appetite that I’ll have for the rest of the day, I can tell you that the Bruins are going to make playoffs.

I mean, I think I will. If they don’t, say goodbye to Peter Chiarelli and a slew of other roster players. Since Charlie Jacobs was named CEO, replacing his father of course, he made it pretty clear that anything less than the postseason for the Bruins is a failure. It’s true, too. There’s no way that a team a season removed from winning the Presidents’ Trophy should be missing the playoffs. While they weren’t really replaced, Jarome Iginla, Johnny Boychuk and Shawn Thornton won’t sway a team’s trajectory that drastically.

Since Jacobs’ remarks, the Bruins have won four straight and have generally returned to form. Boston has been consistently inconsistent this season but for what it’s worth, I think that the team you’re seeing now is what you’ll see going forward.

The Rangers, on the other hand, won’t be a wild-card team either. You know how I feel about the Rangers, overrating them and everything, but I do agree that they’ve looked good and have proven that theory by beating good hockey clubs. The most recent 3-0 loss to the Islanders notwithstanding, the Rangers are a team who could very well surprise a lot of teams in the East. I’ve always thought Rick Nash was the most overrated player in the NHL, but this year he has been worth every cent for New York.

Keefe: Three years ago at this time, I spent all of January and February campaigning for the Rangers to trade for Rick Nash and I didn’t care what it took. Chris Kreider? Send him to Columbus. Brandon Dubinsky? I will pack his bags for him. Artem Anisimov? I will buy his plane ticket? Send them all and more and all the draft picks it will take. Unfortunately, the Rangers didn’t pull the trigger until five months later, in the middle of the summer, after they had been eliminated by the Devils in six games in the Eastern Conference finals.

My reasoning for trading for Nash was that the Rangers were one player short (a pure goal scorer short) of reaching and potentially winning the Cup and they couldn’t keep wasting years of Henrik Lundqvist’s prime by giving him a team around him that couldn’t win games without Lundqvist standing on his head. Once the lucky bounces stopped going the Rangers’ way, they were eliminated by the Devils because they didn’t have a player that could take over games with talent and not through bounces.

This year my Rick Nash campaign has finally be justified. He is on pace for a 53-goal season, which would be his personal best, and he hasn’t been mired by concussions (KNOCK ON ALL OF THE WOOD IN THE WORLD) the way he was the last two seasons. He has been the Rick Nash of old and the one I was willing to sacrifice the future of the team for before the 2011-12 trade deadline.

The thing about not having him in that 2011-12 season was that I knew that Rangers team could go far and didn’t know the next time they would get that far. Last season, of course, they went even farther and lost in the Final, and it got me thinking about how many things had to go their way to reach the Final and what would have needed to go their way to win it (not blowing two-goal leads and scoring in overtime in the future would be a good start). The Bruins have played in the Final in two of the last four seasons, but do you ever get nervous about the next time they could get back there?

Miccoli: Yes and no. I think that the East is always so wide open that one of maybe five teams every year have a fighting chance. I think it’s starting to turn a little bit this year with the way that the Islanders and Lightning have been playing, but for the most part, I consider the Bruins and Rangers right in that mix, too. I don’t know when the Bruins will get back to the Stanley Cup Final. I don’t think it’s going to be this season, but I think it probably should have been last season. In 2013-14, the Bruins went all-in and were eliminated prematurely by a team that they really never could beat, the Montreal Canadiens.

You see, I think there are certain teams that just know how to beat others. For the Bruins, it’s the Canadiens. Aside from circumstances where there are special variables (eg. Tim Thomas and Nathan Horton in 2011), one team will usually always get the better of the other. Even when the Canadiens weren’t very good a few years ago, they always gave the Bruins trouble. This pattern transcends hockey, too. The Patriots suck against the Jets. The Red Sox are generally mediocre against Yankees. Had the Bruins not faced the Canadiens last season, they would’ve won the Cup. I sincerely think that.

I think their inconsistencies and injuries this season really set them back. They probably weren’t going to run wild on the league again in 2014-15, but they were a sure bet to win the Atlantic Division and make a good run in the playoffs barring any run-ins with … you know. Because they’re a bit further back this far in, I don’t know if a Cup Final is likely. Regardless, the team is built around Tuukka Rask, Patrice Bergeron and Zdeno Chara for now. Within the next season or two, it’ll be Dougie Hamilton instead of Chara. Much like the Rangers were in 2011-12, the Bruins are missing that scoring touch. No one really knows who steps up. Don’t even get me going on the cap issues this team has that’s preventing them from tweaking the lineup.

Keefe: So I take it you aren’t a fan of the new playoff format instituted last season since it pretty much guarantees that the Bruins and Canadiens will meet a lot in the first round?

I think the craziest part about the Bruins still maintaining their success is their lack of scoring. Right now they have Brad Marchand with 12 goals and Patrice Bergeron with 10 as their leading scorers and then no one else in double digits. It’s not uncommon to have only a handful of guys in double digits at the halfway point of the season, but it’s uncommon to only have two when those two only have 22 goals combined and are the team’s best scorers.

It wasn’t too long ago that both Chiarelli and Julien were on the hot seat and close to being fired by the Bruins. And when you think about the fact that in the 2010-11 playoffs that the Bruins had to overcome a 2-0 hole to the Canadiens and then win a Game 7, win a Game 7 against the Lightning and then overcome a 2-0 hole to the Canucks and win another Game 7 all in the same postseason, those two were one lucky bounce from no longer being with the Bruins. At least Claude was.

Now it seems like they are both back on the hot seat. I’m not sure if it’s deserved, but they are. But people in Boston are insane and even more insane than people in New York. There were probably people calling for Julien’s job the season after winning the Cup, the way there were people writing and talking about the Red Sox’ roster for 2014 within a week of the team winning the most improbable championship in sports history. People are nuts and I think most of those people live in Boston.

Miccoli: The new playoff format is for the birds.

I don’t understand the Julien argument but you’re right, it’s definitely there. Boston is a “What have you done for me lately?” city and it’s pretty insufferable. Julien is a very good coach, albeit defensive-minded. I think there are certain quirks that bother some people but at the end of the day, he’s the right choice for the team going forward.

The Bruins aren’t able to take on much salary because they can’t move anyone due to so many players having NTC or NMC. And the one move they did make to start the season, trading Johnny Boychuk, ended up burning them pretty badly. With that in the back of his head, I think Chiarelli hesitant to make a move just for the sake of doing it. He’s been preaching patience for awhile and it has pissed off fans here because the team wasn’t winning.

They were right, too. The Bruins weren’t playing good hockey and seemed lifeless for a while, but that shouldn’t be all on Julien, it should be on the players. Like I said earlier, this might be the turning point but who knows. This team shouldn’t have regressed as much as they did so maybe this is Boston bouncing back. I get it and it’s reasonable to be upset over being a bubble team, but the fever pitch here really is at an all-time high.

Keefe: For someone who started this email exchange by saying they aren’t worried about the Bruins, you sound pretty worried about the Bruins. Well, maybe not worried, but you don’t seem confident.

About nine months ago, the Bruins were the best team in the Eastern Conferance and maybe the best tem in the entire league and the team to beat in the Eastern Conference playoffs. And now here we are with the general manager and head coach on the hot seat, one of their best defensemen playing for the Islanders because of salary-cap issues, their two leading scorers having 22 goals combined through 44 games and everyone in Boston freaking out about the team. I don’t think anyone saw this coming last spring when the Bruins when the Bruins had a 3-2 series lead over the Canadiens.

But like you also said, the Bruins shouldn’t have regressed as badly as they did through the first half of the season and maybe this is them turning it on. If not, at least you have the Patriots. My football season ended in October.

Miccoli: You’re right. Reading back and this is all over the place (much like the Bruins’ season – ha! Hilarious, Mike!).

I guess what I should say is that expectations have been adjusted for the team and since then, they’ve been fine. I’m trying to pinpoint the exact date when people started to realize that the Bruins might not be one of the NHL’s elite teams anymore. Could have been this offseason when Loui Eriksson was projected to be the first-line winger, or maybe when Chara and Krejci got hurt around the same time. I think the idea became more solidified when they traded away Boychuk for two second-round picks just before the season began.

The Bruins are still a good team, but until they start going on a tear, similar to what the Rangers did, they’re going to be questioned. I believe they’ll make the playoffs and maybe pull off an upset or two depending on who they face, but expectations should be altered. I think they’ll beat the Rangers on Thursday because they’re playing well and because Henrik Lundqvist and Derek Stepan aren’t on the ice. I can’t say much about the luck the Bruins have had with playing teams missing important players since they’ve on the opposite end of that for most of the season.

Are you even watching the game on Sunday? Have you converted to rooting for a team that’s actually good in consecutive years? Have you considered cutting the sleeves off of a hoodie?

Keefe: I will be watching the game on Sunday after thankfully missing the Patriots’ win over the Ravens, but I’m a Seahawks fan from here on out because they are the only team remaining that I feel confident about beating the Patriots.

When it comes to the Giants, well, let’s hope they are better than they were this year. And that goes for the Yankees too.

Let’s go Colts! And if they can’t do it … Let’s go Seahawks! or Let’s go Packers! The Super Bowl drought needs to reach 10 years.

Miccoli: The Make Way for Ducklings statues in the Public Garden are wearing “Do Your Job” cut-off Patriots hoodies for the game. I’ll never understand why you don’t enjoy adorable things. Come May, they might be wearing Bruins jerseys as the flowers bloom. That’s one of the best characteristics about this city – there’s always a team winning. I look forward to when I’m in my 40s and I have to tell my young children about these times to cheer them up when they’re rooting for teams who are so miserably bad.

Keefe: I look forward to that day because the run Boston has been on has lasted too long. Where are the 90s when you need them? Not only was it the best decade for music, TV and movies, but it was also dominated by the Yankees. I wish I could go back to that time. The 2000s haven’t been as fun.

Miccoli: The 90s were okay at best and vastly overrated much like the … ah, forget it. Good luck on Thursday night!

Author: Neil Keefe

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