Blogs – Page 110 – Keefe To The City

Jan 27, 2020

2019-20 NHL All-Animosity Team

It’s been a while since I selected an NHL All-Animosity Team. There are a few familiar faces from years past, but for the most part, there has been quite the turnover on the team.

The NHL All-Star Game was this weekend. It was supposed to feature the best players in the world, but with Sidney Crosby not voted in due to a lack of first-half games, Alexander Ovechkin opting to be suspended for a game rather than go to St. Louis and players like Auston Matthews and Artemi Panarin not playing due to injury, the game featured most of the world’s best players, and some of the world’s not-exactly-best players like Chris Kreider, Travis Konecny, Tyler Bertuzzi, Anthony Duclair and some questionable decisions in net.

It’s been a while since I selected a different kind of All-Star team in the All-Animosity Team. Gone are the days when Milan Lucic, Matt Cooke, Chris Kunitz and Martin Brodeur were fixtures on the team. There are a few familiar faces from years past, but for the most part, there has been quite the turnover on the team.

FORWARDS

Matthew Barzal
We came dangerously close to Panarin and Barzal playing together for the foreseeable future. If not for Panarin taking less money (about $1 million per year less) to be a Ranger instead of an Islander, Rangers fans would have had to deal with those two flying around together for years to come. It gives me chills just thinking about it. Thankfully, it’s not going to happen. When Barzal is on the ice, I’m scared. I’m not scared at the level of Crosby, Ovechkin or Nathan MacKinnon or Connor McDavid, but I’m still scared. He’s the one true playmaker on the Islanders and against the current state of the Rangers defense, he’s not someone I enjoy entering the offensive zone with the puck. Every time he does his patented circling of the zone with possession it feels like it will only end badly, and unfortunately, he’s not going anywhere in terms of the rivalry.

Brad Marchand
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 really good. He makes up one-third of the Bruins’ “Perfection Line” and the Bruins go as that line goes, and after a trip to the Stanley Cup Final and a current first-place standing in the Atlantic, that line has been going for a while now. Marchand might have been on this team solely for what he does with the puck because he’s that talented, but it’s what he does without the puck that solidified his roster spot. His lapses in judgment and total disregard for player safety whether it’s unnecessary hits to the head or irresponsible slew foots have made him universally disliked in the entire hockey world outside of Boston. I don’t envision a scenario where Marchand is in the league and isn’t on this team.

Alexander Ovechkin
Ovechkin has 33 goals in 58 regular-season games against the Rangers and another 13 goals in 33 playoff games across five postseason series with four of those series going seven games. He’s the ultimate “When is his shift going to end?” and “Get the puck out of the zone” player there is and when he’s waiting at the top of the circles on the power play, two minutes feels like 20 minutes. I keep waiting for him to slow down, thinking age or games played might start to catch up to him, but in his age 34 season he’s on a 57-goal pace over 82 games. I do respect that I’m watching greatness and a generational talent and arguably the best goal scorer in the history of the game when it comes to him, that just doesn’t take away how I feel when he’s playing the Rangers.

DEFENSEMEN

Zdeno Chara
It’s weird to think the Bruins will retire Chara’s number one day considering the team they were when they signed him and the team they eventually became. When Chara arrived in Boston, It felt like it would be at least another three decades until the Bruins won again, but after winning the Cup and reaching the Final two other times in a nine-year period, Chara has been a staple of the Bruins and an exemplary captain of the team for nearly 15 years (though I have always felt as though Patrice Bergeron deserved to wear the “C” all these years). Chara isn’t close to being the player he once was and appears to be a liability on the ice more times than not, but he’s not once again on this team for the player he is, but the player he was.

Andy Greene
To be honest, I don’t dislike Greene. In fact, I don’t have any positive or negative feelings about him. But this roster needs a representative from the Devils, and who better to fill that role than their captain? The Devils are a mess. After winning the lottery for the second time in three years, acquiring P.K. Subban and signing Wayne Simmonds, the Devils looked at worst to be a bubble team for the postseason. The only thing they’re on the bubble for now is winning the lottery again as they are currently tied for the second-fewest points in the league. In a season in which there was so much promise in New Jersey, the team has received awful goaltending and a lack of scoring, fired its head coach and eventually fired its general manager, but only after allowing the general manager to trade away Taylor Hall in what was the team’s most important decision of the near future. The Devils have the pieces in place to rebound next season, let’s hope that’s not the case as this version of them has been more fun to watch.

GOALIE

Braden Holtby
For years I only had to worry about picking the forwards and defensemen for this team because I knew Brodeur would be the goalie. Holtby is in no way as easy of a choice for this spot as Brodeur was, but he has still earned it. Normally, I dislike a player because of their performance against one of my teams, but Holtby has only won 13 of 25 regular-season games against the Rangers and has lost all three postseason series to them, including three Game 7s. The reason I have never liked him is mostly not his fault. It’s not his fault he has been perceived in past seasons to be better than Henrik Lundqvist despite having a much, much better team in front of him, and it’s not his fault that his much, much better team helped him win the Stanley Cup, while Lundqvist’s prime was wasted with a disastrous defense and poor roster construction and he will most likely retire having never won the Cup. What is Holtby’s fault is the way he tends to give up bad goals when I wager on the Capitals. If Ben Bishop were still in the Eastern Conference and still posting unfathomable numbers against the Rangers, this job would have been his. Now it’s Holtby’s job to lose.

Jan 23, 2020

Rangers Thursday Thoughts: It’s Time to Play for 2020-21

With the trade deadline a month away, the Rangers have one last chance at an extended winning streak to get back in the playoff picture.

After winning four out of five and putting the idea of playoff hockey into their fans’ heads, the Rangers lost back-to-back games at home to limp into their 10-day layoff. The losses have put their playoff aspirations in peril and with a little more than two months of hockey left, the Rangers are close to playing for next season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers as usual.

1. The moment Artemi Panarin was scratched from Tuesday night’s game with an upper-body injury was the moment the Rangers lost the game. The Panarin-less Rangers did their best to win a third straight Battle of New York, but without the team’s leading scorer and best player, it was too little too late for the Rangers in their failed comeback attempt late in the game.

As the Rangers were failing to pick up a single point out of the four on the line in their back-to-back home games to close out the pre-All-Star portion of their schedule, the Hurricanes put together two straight wins and the Blue Jackets six straight to push the Rangers down even more in the standings. The Rangers enter their layoff 13 points back for a division spot, 12 points back of the first wild card and 11 points back of the second wild card. Carolina has the second wild card pacing for 100 points and for the Rangers to get to 100 points, they will need 50 points in 34 games, or a 23-7-4 record and will somehow have to find a way to jump Montreal, Buffalo, Toronto, Philadelphia and Columbus.

2. The Rangers-Islanders three games in eight days did provide some midseason, pre-layoff excitement, but in the future I would prefer a late-October game, a right-before-Christmas game and then two games in March in the final month of the season.

The NHL created its current playoff format to manufacture rivalries and postseason drama, but so far in the Eastern Conference, the only two teams to meet consistently are the Bruins and Maple Leafs (and they might meet again this season). It’s too bad we have yet to get even one Rangers-Islanders playoff series from this format and we won’t get it again this season. Maybe 2020-21 will finally be the year we get the Battle of New York in the postseason.

3. I’m still not over the loss to Columbus because of how crucial getting that one point was and how season-changing getting two could have been. But maybe it was for the better. The last thing this Rangers team needs in the middle of what looks to be a successful and expedited rebuild is to be fooled into thinking they are better than they are like they were when they held on to the core for the 2016-17 season. The best thing to happen to the Yankees since their dynasty was losing four straight games heading into the 2016 trade deadline to take themselves out of the wild-card race, and losing to the Blue Jackets and Islanders might have been the best thing for this Rangers team to prove to the front office “going for it” this season isn’t worth it. This team needs one more pre-deadline selloff.

4. Chris Kreider is the key to this last pre-deadline selloff. To me, it doesn’t matter if Kreider lowers his number or the Rangers find a way to fit his demands into their cap, he should be traded. Kreider is going to turn 29 shortly after this season ends and given the current state and age of the young core of the Rangers and when they will be ready to seriously contend for a championship, the timeline doesn’t match up with Kreider’s future. I understand the Rangers would be parting ways with yet another fan favorite who provides veteran leadership, but it’s not worth the contract it will cost to sign or the possibility of getting nothing in return to hold on to him for the rest of the season.

5. Kreider is a good player, but him being named to the All-Star team in place of the injured Panarin isn’t a great look for a game which is supposed to feature the best players in the league. Kreider is on pace for a 29-goal, 55-point season and is currently tied for 102nd in league scoring. Mika Zibanejad would have been a much better option, and I get that he missed 13 games earlier this season, but at least he’s on a 42-goal pace for an 82-game season and is a more-than-a-point-per-game player.

6. Aside from trading Kreider, the Rangers still need to figure out what to do with their goalie situation. Alexandar Georgiev is still going to be the odd man out, but when? Right now, I feel like the Rangers are going to keep Georgiev through the end of the season and trade him this summer. It’s going to take desperation from a team like Toronto or Colorado and the the realization their season will likely end in the spring because of their goaltending. It doesn’t seem like the Rangers are going to budge on their demand of an NHL-ready forward in return for Georgiev, and they shouldn’t. They’re really in no need to rush to move Georgiev even if the three-goalie rotation is ridiculous.

7. Igor Shesterkin was sent down to the AHL for the layoff, taking a substantial paycut during this time in what is the latest repercussion of this three-goalie situation. In the last eight games, Georgiev has received four starts, Shesterkin three and Henrik Lundqvist one.

Lundqvist had five days off before playing on Jan. 2. Then he had nine days off before playing on Jan. 11. He hasn’t played since. The earliest Lundqvist will play is the first game back after the layoff and that would mean he’s had 20 days off between starts. The situation hasn’t been ideal for any of the three goalies, but especially for Lundqvist who is used to playing the majority of the games in a season and has historically played better when he goes extended periods without backing up. Lundqvist might end up with two starts in the entire month of January.

8. This isn’t necessarily related to the Rangers since they have only been in two shootouts this season and haven’t been in one in a while, but it’s time to get rid of the shootout. It was fun and different and exciting when it was implemented nearly 15 years ago, but it’s time to move on. It’s absurd games and seasons are still be determined by a shootout. Either turn off the clock for overtime and play 3-on-3 until there’s a goal, or if you need a time of goal for record purposes, put 20 minutes on the clock and play 3-on-3 until a goal is scored. The league has changed the overtime format multiple times over the years, and they need to change it again.

9. I think the Rangers will compete for the playoffs next season. I don’t mean compete the way they are now where they are “still in it” but not really in it at all. I mean seriously compete. The only issue is they are part of the Met and the division isn’t going anywhere in terms of talent and depth. The Rangers will have to continue to grind out every single point in division play for the foreseeable future, but it will be the non-division games where they need to improve and take care of their own business next season and beyond. They have lost so many points to the inferior Western Conference this season, winning seven of 18 games, and have given away points to the worst teams in the league.

10. I realize the Rangers aren’t going to immediately change course and start giving NHL ice time and experience to those with an actual future with the team. They are going to try to put together the long-awaited extended win streak after the break with back-to-back games against Detroit to quickly get back on track and try one last time for a lengthy winning streak before the deadline. With five out of their first six games at home following the layoff, they could put a dent into their needed points total. The problem is the regulation loss total of eight they can afford to give up the rest of the way. I’m not sure how they navigate the remaining 34 games without exceeding that number with more than double that amount of games against playoff teams. It was a good run, but with a six percent chance of reaching the playoffs, it’s time to play for the future.T

Blogs • Rangers

Jan 20, 2020

A Season-Crushing Loss for the Rangers

The Rangers’ last-minute 2-1 loss to the Blue Jackets might not have actually been a season-ending elimination game, but it sure feels like it was.

I could feel it coming and eventually it came. Turnover after turnover led to scoring chance after scoring chance for the Blue Jackets in the final minutes on Sunday night at the Garden. The Blue Jackets began to control play as the minutes ticked down, and while the Rangers looked content with hanging on for one point and taking their chances in the post-regulation skills competition, the Blue Jackets played as though a regulation win was worth a third point.

I had spent most of the night envisioning Igor Shesterkin earning a shutout in his third career game and improving to 3-0 in the NHL, as Rangers fans began to seriously think about the playoffs. The Rangers were just under 14 minutes away from winning for the fifth time in six games and from being on the right end of the four-point swing David Quinn has frequently talked about for Metropolitan games. I started to think this team might really go on the sort of run that would land them in the postseason not even a calendar year after the organization looked like it might not be competitive for a decade. But while I was daydreaming about the Rangers picking up a Chance card instructing them to advance to GO while avoiding all the houses and hotels and obstacles that come with a complete tear-down rebuild, the Blue Jackets quickly woke me up.

Oliver Bjorkstrand beat Shesterkin on an unassisted goal 6:08 into the third and I was awake. Following the tying goal, the Blue Jackets flipped a switch and took over the game, and it only felt like a matter of time until the Rangers were trailing. That time came when the Rangers allowed an inexplicable 3-on-2 with 26.5 seconds to play and Bjorkstrand ripped one past Shesterkin’s glove. Quinn called timeout, only delaying the inevitable of the last 13-plus minutes of play, as the Rangers eventually lost 2-1.

It was a deflating defeat. The kind where no one is talking on the way out of the building and the kind where you sit on your couch and end up watching MSG for hours because you don’t feel like moving to get the remote because you don’t feel like moving to do anything. It might not have actually been a season-ending elimination game, but it sure feels like it was.

I knew how hard it was going to be for the Rangers to make the playoffs before the season began. I knew how hard it would be after their five-game losing streak in October, three-game losing streak in December and three-game losing streak to end 2019 and begin 2020. They had played too much .500 hockey in between their losing streaks and hadn’t put together the type of extended winning streak they would need to make up the point differential in the standings. It’s why I wrote in the most recent Thursday Thoughts how it would likely take a 23-10-4 finish for them to make the playoffs, and even then, with 98 points, it still might not be enough.

But over the last two weeks, the Rangers started to put a dent into the nearly improbably math suggesting they wouldn’t play an 83rd game for the third straight season. Wins over Colorado and New Jersey and back-to-back wins over the Islanders sandwiched an expected loss in St. Louis, and by acheiving wins in four of five and earning eight of a possible 10 points the loss column had barely budged as the team started to make up ground on the wild card. Then Sunday night happened. After getting 11 goals of support in his first two NHL starts, Shesterkin experienced a game right out of the Henrik Lundqvist era in which the Rangers couldn’t find the back of the net, and couldn’t even hang on for at least one point in the final minute.

After beating the Islanders at the Coliseum, the Rangers’ needed record improved to 22-10-4, but that loss to Columbus hurt, and it hurt bad. The path to the postseason was never exactly clear, especially since after the team’s 10-day layoff, they will play 34 games in 65 days. Asking the youngest team in the league to essentially play .667 hockey for the final two months of the season when some of their young core will have already played more hockey in a single season than they ever have before just isn’t reasonable. Now with the last-minute loss, the only way to the postseason is with a single-digit amount of regulation losses the rest of the way with an adbundance of games against the league’s best still to be played.

This season was supposed to be about experience and development and progress for the rebuild. It was never supposed to be about wins and losses and points and the playoffs. After Sunday’s loss, the Rangers are one loss closer to making sure it’s not.

Jan 16, 2020

Rangers Thursday Thoughts: I’m Thankful Artemi Panarin Isn’t an Islander

The Rangers won two out of their three games over the last week, but they’re going to need to continue to play at that same pace for the rest of the season to turn a rebuilding season into a playoff season.

A very productive week for the Rangers as they went 2-1, winning both home games and losing on the road to the defending champion Blues. It’s going to take winning two out of three for the rest of the season for the Rangers to change a rebuilding season into a playoff season, but they have set themselves up to at least have a chance at playing past Game 82.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers as usual.

1. Monday night’s win over the Islanders was very close to not happening. Not because of anything that happened in the actual game, but because of what happened last summer when reports started to come out on June 30 that Artemi Panarin was going to sign with the Islanders. Those reports thankfully turned out not to be true as Panarin used the Islanders as leverage, eventually signing with the Rangers and leaving about $1 million per season on the table to be on the Rangers side of the rivalry.

Panarin showed Islanders fans what could have been in the first meeting between the two teams with a five-point night in the Rangers’ 6-2 win. Those five points now have him on pace for 122 points, one point less than Jaromir Jagr’s Rangers record.

Here are the Rangers’ points leaders for the last six full seasons since the lockout-shortened season:

2018-19: 74 (Mika Zibanejad)
2017-18: 53 (Mats Zuccarello)
2016-17: 59 (Mats Zuccarello)
2015-16: 61 (Mats Zuccarello)
2014-15: 69 (Rick Nash)
2013-14: 59 (Mats Zuccarello)

Panarin has 26 goals and 41 assists and his 67 points have already passed the full-season totals for four of those six seasons. There’s a very good chance by next week’s Rangers Thursday Thoughts that he has passed all six. It’s very rare that any free-agent signing in any sport works out, but the first year of Panarin couldn’t possibly be going any better than it is.

2. When Matthew Barzal is on the ice, I’m scared. I’m not scared at the level of Alexander Ovechkin or Sidney Crosby or Nathan MacKinnon or Connor McDavid, but I’m still scared, and I’m even more scared when Barzal is on the ice in 3-on-3 overtime. There was a very real possibility Rangers fans would have had to spend the next seven-or-so seasons worrying about not only Barzal on the ice, but Panarin on his wing at the same time. It makes me nervous even thinking about it even though it’s no longer a possibility. Panarin choosing the Rangers over the Islanders drastically changed the future of this rivalry, and changed it for the better for Rangers fans.

3. The goaltending problem is still a problem. More and more trade speculation surrounding Alexandar Georgiev is coming out and the rumors are only going to gain steam as the deadline gets closer and closer, but the Rangers have to resolve the situation. I know there is faction of media and fans who think they could wait until the offseason to figure out their goaltending future, but that will mean another five-plus weeks after the deadline of one of the three watching each post-deadline game from the press box. How many hot dogs do they want Igor Shesterkin to eat exactly?

4. Shesterkin played his first two games as a Ranger, winning both and hasn’t played since and isn’t expected to play on Thursday in Long Island. If he does end up playing on Sunday against Columbus, he will have gone 10 days between starts. I understand the benefit of being in the NHL, learning how to be in the league and learning in practice from Henrik Lundqvist and Benoit Allaire, but nothing equals the experience and development of playing in actual games.

5. The situation is even worse for Lundqvist. Lundqvist played on Jan. 2 and on Jan. 11. He had nine days off between games and was tasked with facing the defending champion Blues on the road. to no surprise, the Rangers were easily beat. Either Shesterkin or Lundqvist is going to play on Sunday against Columbus, and given the rotation, it seems like it’s going to be Shesterkin, which means at the earliest, Lundqvist will play again on Jan. 21 against the Islanders, 10 days from his most recent start.

The whole thing is going to be taken to another level when the team has a 10-day layoff between Jan. 21 and Jan. 31 due to the All-Star break and the team’s scheduled five-day break. It’s all ridiculous and only gets more ridiculous with each passing day it’s not resolved.

6. Tony DeAngelo’s hat trick and five-point night last Thursday was extremely fun to watch and even with back-to-back pointless games against the Blues and Islanders, he’s on pace for 20 goals and 46 assists. As I wrote about Kaapo Kakko last week, immediate success isn’t always a guarantee for first-round draft picks, as DeAngelo was six years ago (19th overall). Now in only his second full NHL season after going up-and-down in the first two seasons he saw NHL action, DeAngelo has finally realized the potential that was the Lightning saw from him out of the OHL to select him with the first-round pick, the Coyotes saw in him to trade for him and the Rangers saw in him to acquire him for Derek Stepan. DeAngelo’s offense-first style of play doesn’t come without faults, as he was unable to clear the front of the net despite being on the man-advantage when Shesterkin couldn’t control a rebound to tie that game against New Jersey the game at 1, but DeAngelo more than made up for his defensive lapse with his career night.

7. No one wants the Rangers to allow more shots per game than any other team in the league, especially the three goalies, and I’m sure they are trying daily to make adjustments so a team as bad and offensively-challenged as the Devils aren’t able to record 49 shots against them like they did last Thursday. But on the other end of their league-worst shot prevention is the fact the Rangers’ defensemen have more points than any other defensive group in the league.

8. David Quinn clearly wishes his team played more like Barry Trotz’s Islanders and were capable of playing defensive-minded hockey every game, but that’s not who this team is, and that’s OK. The Rangers should accept that they are an offense-first team that is more like the Maple Leafs and Panthers and they don’t have to try to be the Islanders or Stats. Both of those teams wish they had some of the scoring ability of the Rangers, while the Rangers wish they could score three goals and have a guaranteed victory like those teams. The goal eventually is for this defensive group to play more defense, but for now, this style of hockey is fun to watch, even if it’s going to be hard to every be a true contender with such inconsistent defense.

9. The Rangers have scored 27 goals in their last five home games (all wins) and have scored only 12 goals in their last four road games (all losses). This is clearly who these Rangers are for this season: a team relies on its offense and goaltending to win games, while almost completely disregarding defense. That’s not necessarily a bad thing either. If they’re able to maintain their offense as their young defense gains continues to learn and develop, then they will have themselves the championship contender the rebuild was done to create. Dont’ try to make DeAngelo, Adam Fox and Jacob Trouba something they’re not, and try to hold them back from their offensive instincts.

10. The Met is so strong and so deep, it’s ridiculous. While Boston, Tampa Bay and Toronto are able to beat up on Buffalo, Montreal, Ottawa and Detroit, the Met’s only misfit is New Jersey and they have played much better for the last month. The Rangers find themselves 12 points out of a division playoff berth in the Met and eight points out of the second wild-card berth (with two games in hand on the Flyers).

The Rangers went 2-1 since last week’s Thoughts and they’re going to need to basically continue winning two out of every three games for the remaining 37 games in order to reach the playoffs. At 22-19-4 with 48 points, they’re on pace for an 88-point season. The Flyers are now on pace for 98 points, so if 98 points get you the last playoff spot, the Rangers need 50 points in their remaining 37 games, or 1.35 points per game. That translates to a 23-10-4 record. Once again, it’s not impossible, but it’s going to take the same play they gave over the last week for the rest of the season, and it all starts with winning the Battle of New York.

Blogs • Giants

Jan 10, 2020

Joe Judge Just Might Be What Giants Need

Joe Judge said all the right things at his introductory press conference, looked the part, sounded the part and has made the region he wants to accurately represent believe in him for now.

The last time I felt good about the Giants prior to Joe Judge’s introductory press conference on Thursday was three years ago. In those three years, the Giants have gone 12-36, unceremoniously benched Eli Manning for Geno Smith, fired one general manager and two head coaches, traded the most explosive wide receiver in the league, ridded themselves of every former high pick and free-agent signing, wasted draft picks on unnecessary trades and allowed the general manager responsible for nearly all of this mess to keep his job. These last three years are why I had no confidence in ownership to hire the right head coach after they gave us Ben McAdoo and Pat Shurmur in back-to-back selections.

Maybe they screwed up once again in hiring Judge and maybe the team will be just as bad as it was under the last two idiots though I’m not sure being as bad is even a possibility. We won’t know until at least September when the Giants take the field for a regular-season game, but for now, I’m on board with the Judge hire. How could any Giants fan not be after hearing from him on Thursday?

Judge looked professional (something McAdoo didn’t) and sounded professional (something Shurmur didn’t). He spoke the way you want a football coach to speak and made it clear the Giants aren’t going to be a three-ring circus under him the way they were under his two predecessors. Based on the way he commanded the room and controlled his opening words as Giants head coach, I would put it at 3-to-1 that he fights a player during his Giants tenure, and my money would be on him.

Judge described himself as an no-nonsense football mind from my father’s and maybe even my grandfather’s generation. He spoke at length about how he expects his team to play and prepare and spoke to the media in a tone as if he were trying to fire up the beat writers to take the field.

There were two statements Judge made which immediately made me accept him as Giants head coach and I’m sure got him off on the right foot with every Giants fan.

“What I’m about is an old-school physical mentality. We’re going to put a product on the field that the people of this city and region are going to be proud of because this team will represent this area.”

After winning 42 of their last 112 regular-season games, there has been nothing to be proud of when it comes to the Giants. They have become the Browns of the NFC and are very close to becoming the Browns overall. I have felt embarrassed seeing fellow fans wear Giants apparel in public and have wondered how anyone could pay, attend and sit through a home game these last few years.

Putting a product on the field that the Tri-state area can be proud of means putting a winning product on the field. The Giants have had one winning season in the last seven and were embarrassed in their only playoff game during that time. There has been too much losing for too long for anything other than wins to matter and Judge seems to recognize that.

I don’t think we’ll hear any renditions of the repetitive lines of McAdoo like “I have to watch the tape” or Shurmur’s “We have to be better” from Judge. He knows this area and these fans are too smart to believe or buy into the BS that has been spewed to them by the last two head coaches. I don’t see Judge easily finding positives after inevitable losses the way Shurmur was able to as if everything is fine when the score said otherwise.

“We will play fundamentally sound, we will not beat ourselves. That is our mission right here.”

This is the opposite of the Giants’ mission under Shurmur. I think his actual mission was for the Giants to beat themselves with undisciplined penalties, nonsensical clock management and ill-advised challenges. It wouldn’t surprise me if there had been a sign above the locker room door reading “BEAT OURSELVES” that every player hit on their way to the field during the Shurmur era. Just saying these words gave Judge more success as head coach of the Giants than Shurmur had in two full seasons.

My entire life the Giants have been a team that has beaten themselves. Whether it’s been something like a huge turnover followed by a turnover of their own on the next play, an offsides penalty on a crucial third-and-4 or blowing three- and four-score leads in the fourth quarter, the amount of self-inflicted heartbreak over the years has been unbearable. If Judge is finally the head coach to change this, the Giants will have undoubtedly hired the right person.

Judge said all the right things, looked the part, sounded the part and has made the region he wants to accurately represent believe in him. We’re eight months away from evaluating Judge’s ability to win actual games, but he couldn’t have gotten off to a better start for a franchise and fan base that desperately needs him to work out as the head coach he described on Thursday.

On Tuesday, I wrote:

I don’t have any confidence the Giants got this hire right given every personnel, roster, draft and trade decision they have made over the last seven years. But I want them to be right. I want to have a Giants season last past September. I need them to be right.

It might have just been a January press conference, but for now it seems like they might have finally gotten it right.