Blogs – Page 193 – Keefe To The City

May 30, 2014

The Rangers’ Cup Run Doesn’t Feel Real

A year ago the Rangers were lost after an embarrassing postseason exit. Now they’re going to play for the Stanley Cup. What a difference a year makes.

When your team is facing finality and losing, the clock seems to tick away faster than normal as if the Hockey Gods set the periods to “5 minutes” EA Sports-style. And when your team has a chance at a fourth win in a series and a chance to advance, and in this case advance to the Stanley Cup Finals (I can’t say Final without hating myself) for the first time in 20 years, the clock seems to drag on as if time is standing still. On Thursday night, in the third period of Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, time stood still.

Twenty-two days ago, the Rangers faced a 3-1 series deficit to the Metropolitan Division-winning Penguins after losing three consecutive games, including two at home and two by way of shutout. The 2013-14 Rangers’ season was on the brink of destruction, (The Hockey News’ Ken Campbell said it was actually over), and the Rangers were headed to Pittsburgh for Game 5 where everyone expected a postgame handshake to take place. But the handshake didn’t take place. Well, it did eventually, just not that night. It took place six nights later following Game 7 in Pittsburgh where the Rangers held on to a one-goal lead for 32 minutes and four seconds just like they did on Thursday night in Game 6 against the Canadiens for 21 minutes and 53 seconds.

After earning the 1-seed in the Eastern Conference in 2011-12, the Rangers made it to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 1996-97, but they did so with a Freddy Garcia-esque smoke-and-mirrors act. The Rangers only won the regular season because of Henrik Lundqvist’s historical Vezina year and because of their amazing ability to come back and win games in the final minutes or minute or even second as well as in overtime and shootouts. They needed Games 7s in the first and second rounds to get past the 8-seeded Senators and 7-seeded Capitals to make it to the conference finals and once the the bounces stopped going their way, the Devils ended their season. The 2011-12 Rangers were never as good as their record suggested and they were never as deep as they were trick people into believing. That Rangers team was missing one player to move them over the top and that player was Rick Nash.

At the 2011-12 trade deadline I was willing to give up anything and everything to pry Nash from the Blue Jackets and that included Chris Kreider. I told WFAN’s Steve Somers my feelings about Nash and he disagreed, thinking that keeping an NCAA standout was better than making a move in a special season for a proven elite scorer. I told WFAN’s Brian Monzo my feelings about Nash and he disagreed too, but eventually came around to see that seasons like the Rangers’ 2011-12 one don’t happen to often and when they do, you need to be prepared to go all in. The Rangers weren’t. They waited and eventually landed Nash five months later in July, long after the Devils had eliminated them because they didn’t have another elite scoring option to turn to with Marian Gaborik playing through the playoffs with a torn labrum.

The Rangers needed all but one game to clinch a playoff berth in 2013-14 and then when they did make it, they needed to overcome a 2-0 series deficit to the Capitals and win another Game 7 against them to advance. They entered their conference semis series with the Bruins as the favorites and five games later they left as embarrassed losers wondering where the direction of the franchise was headed and if they would ever be anything more than a first- or second-round playoff team with Glen Sather at the helm. But it took that five-game loss to the Bruins for Sather to make the first of his two most significant moves in his 14 years with the Rangers.

It was a year ago Thursday, the day of Game 6, that Sather fired John Tortorella after he lost the team and inexplicably benched his supposed “good friend” for the final two games of the season. (I still believe Lundqvist told Sather he wouldn’t sign an extension with the team if Tortorella stayed.) On Thursday night while the Rangers were holding off the Canadiens and winning the Prince of Wales Trophy, I like to think that John Tortorella spent his night watching Game 6 at an Applebee’s in Massachusetts, where he was of course given a shot of Wild Turkey on the house after Dominic Moore’s goal and then given a few more when time ran out on the Canadiens’ season. And I would also like to think that Tortorella stumbled out of that Applebee’s with a stain from a disgusting low-grade meat rack of ribs on his shirt and into some minor league level strip club where he drowned his sorrows using money from the five-year deal Mike Gillis gave him in Vancouver.

From Tortorella’s firing, Sather hired Alain Vigneault, who was given what seemed like all the tools to win with the Canucks, but couldn’t, blowing a 2-0 series lead in the only Cup he reached in Vancouver. I was skeptical of the Vigneault hiring, wondering why the Rangers would want to immediately give a chance, and a five-year deal chance, to someone with Vigneault’s lackluster resume. And when the Rangers started the season 3-7-0 and were 20-20-2 on Jan. 3, I began to envy Vigneault knowing he would eventually be collecting checks from the Rangers while fishing or playing golf every day, laughing that he could get a five-year deal so quickly following the failures with the Canucks. But Vigneault stayed the course and stuck with his system as the Rangers slowly but surely adapted it and understood it and eventually the wins started to come the way they did for him in Vancouver. However it wasn’t until the most significant decision of Sather’s tenure as Rangers general manager when the season completely changed and that’s because the Rangers completely changed.

Ryan Callahan was never the face of the Rangers. He was a fan favorite in the way that any blue-collar player on any NHL team is beloved (kind of like the way Brandon Prust was in New York), but he was never the face of the team or the organization despite having the “C” on his jersey. If anything, he was the heart of the team, while Number 30 in net was (and has been and still is) the brain of the team.

When Callahan opened his negotiations with the Rangers last offseason by starting at eight years, $60 million, he traded himself. The Rangers were never going to pay a third-liner, first-line star money, even if they could afford it, but with Nash and Richards’ contracts and Lundqvist’s extension they couldn’t. Callahan wouldn’t compromise even as Sather’s offer stupidly rose and he came dangerously close to destroying the Rangers’ cap for the rest of Lundqvist’s career, so Sather traded him for Martin St. Louis. And with that trade, Sather transformed a team with a strictly blue-collar image into a team that could play a finesse style as well as play the defense-first, shot-blocking style the Rangers played since the Jaromir Jagr era ended six years ago.

Since the end of that era, while the team changed, the roster turned over, the coaches changed and changed again and changed again and Sather continued to pour money into aging veterans who couldn’t score and kept trying to build a young defensive core that couldn’t defend, Henrik Lunqvist remained the same. He showed up every game and stood on his head for most, single-handedly carried the team to the playoffs and gave the Rangers hope and promise that maybe someday he would be given the right team around him to play for the Cup, so he wouldn’t have a career that reminiscent of Don Mattingly’s.

I always worried that the Rangers would waste Lundqvist’s prime by making the wrong personnel decisions and believed it would happen after they didn’t trade for Nash at the 2011-12 deadline and let that season and the conference finals get away from them. I thought Lundqvist would be an old man and a shell of himself by the time the Rangers had the depth and secondary scoring and legitimate defense to win games without needing him to give up one goal or less.

I thought this team could be the team that could accompany Lundqvist to the promised land, but I didn’t believe it. And 22 days ago I started to wonder what Lundqvist must think knowing that Marc-Andre Fleury has won the Cup and played for it twice or that Corey Crawford’s name is etched into it. I envisioned Lundqvist one day giving a speech on “Henrik Lundqvist Night” at the Garden and his achievements and accolades being announced by Sam Rosen with his Number 30 being raised and the rafters to sit alongside Mike Richter’s Number 35 forever without ever having had the chance to play for the Cup.

The way Game 6 ended felt right. The 1-0 win has become the textbook example of postseason success for the Rangers in the Henrik Lundqvist era where the team has asked him to stand on his head and protect one goal, so it was fitting that it was a 1-0 win that puts them in the Stanley Cup Finals. Lundqvist didn’t necessarily have to stand on his head the way he has in every other 1-0 win for this team, but he made the big save when he had to in the 18-shot shutout and he was given a lead entering the third period, asked to close it out and he did.

Over the last 22 days, Lundqvist has been himself. He’s been the same goalie he’s been his entire career even though people want to make this nine-game run out to be something more than it has been from the King. These are the same people who believe he has to win it all to prove himself in a sport with a 20-player roster in which he can’t provide offense or play defense as if he’s somehow playing golf or tennis. Now Lundqvist has a chance to end this ridiculous reasoning and end the unfair criticism forever. He has a chance to play for the Cup.

The Rangers are going to play for the Stanley Cup for the first time since I was in second grade. Right now it doesn’t feel real, but on Wednesday it will.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

May 30, 2014

The Hostility for Phil Hughes

In his eighth season in the majors, Phil Hughes is finally realizing his potential as a starting pitcher. The problem is he is doing it with the Twins after failing to do so with the Yankees.

The Yankees are finally back home after what felt like a month-long road trip and the Twins are in the Bronx to begin what is a seven-game homestand. And even with Robinson Cano returning to the Bronx again on Monday and Felix Hernandez starting for the Mariners in that same game, the attention in the Bronx over the next week will be on Phil Hughes, who will start Sunday against the Yankees.

Since 60 percent of the Yankees’ Opening Day rotation is on the disabled list and the organization looking for starting pitching depth, a lot will be made about why they didn’t re-sign Hughes in the offseason. But two months of solid starts from Hughes doesn’t change the fact that he wouldn’t have had that same success in New York this season. He had seven seasons to show he could have that kind of success in New York.

With the Yankees and Twins meeting for the first time in 2014, Jesse Lund of Twinkie Town joined me to talk about the Twins’ postseason problems with the Yankees, how Phil Hughes has managed to realize his potential in Minnesota and what’s it like to watch Justin Morneau return to his former self for another team.

Keefe: From 2002 to 2010, the Twins made the playoffs in six of the nine seasons. In four of those years (2003, 2004, 2009 and 2010) they played the Yankees in the ALDS and lost all four series, going just 2-12.

From 2002 to 2011, the Yankees made the playoffs in nine of the 10 seasons. The only four times the Yankees made it out of the ALDS were the series against the Twins as they would lose to the Angels (2002 and 2005), Tigers (2006 and 2011) and Indians (2007). It wasn’t until the Yankees series win over the Orioles in the 2012 ALDS that they were able to advance to the ALCS having beaten a team other than the Twins. The Twins have been good to the Yankees.

The last time the teams met in the playoffs, the Twins had home-field advantage and a lead late in Game 1, but a Mark Teixeira home run carried the Yankees to a win and they didn’t look back from there, sweeping the Twins in three games.

Before that, the teams met in 2009 and the Twins took an early lead in Game 1 in that series before a Yankees’ comeback and rally and the Twins had a two-run lead in the ninth inning of Game 2 with Joe Nathan on the mound and he couldn’t close it out and then in extra innings the Twins couldn’t score with the bases loaded as the Yankees went on to win on a Teixeira walk-off home run. In Game 3, the Yankees hit back-to-back solo home runs off Carl Pavano and some bad baserunning did the Twins in in what was just a three-game series.

Going back to 2003 and 2004 when the Twins had Johan Santana and late leads against the Yankees, they weren’t able to hold those then either.

For as much as the Yankees made the Twins their whipping team from 2003-2010 in four postseason series, the Twins were a bounce or two or a Phil Cuzzi correct call or a Joe Nathan save away from changing those series and course of baseball history. After what has happened with the Twins over the last few years and recognizing how hard it is to sustain success in the majors and reach the postseason, do you ever think about what could have been if just a couple things had gone the other way in those series?

Lund: For me, it’s over. They’re painful times to relive, because as you said, a bounce here or there and things go in a different direction. But it’s happened and I try to move on. I can’t promise that the rest of Twins Territory feels the same way, because our own community has raged against the organization (and Ron Gardenhire in particular) every October, but it’s easier for those wounds to feel fresh when it’s the same opponent pressing their heel into your chest. And you know what? Being a good team and continuing to take those losses year in and year out, it gets old.

In the grand scheme of life you always look back, but the best you can do is get yourself ready for what’s coming next. The Twins are rebuilding, and in the next two or three years they’ll have chances at toppling someone else in the playoffs. But I can guarantee you one thing — when it’s the Yankees, it’ll be sweet as hell. A lot of Twins fans will be waiting for that day.

Keefe: I had a party the day after Phil Hughes’ final start with the Yankees last season because I knew it would be the last time he would pitch for the Yankees. After an up-and-down start to his rushed career in 2007, which saw him blow a hamstring during a no-hitter in his second career start, he saved the Yankees’ ALDS hopes out of the bullpen in Game 3 that October. Then in 2008, his season was destroyed by injuries and he started 2009 in Triple-A before being recalled and eventually moved to the bullpen where he became a dominant setup man for Mariano. In 2010, he won 18 games, but faded at the end of the season and after shutting out the Twins in Game 3 of the ALDS, he was embarrassed by the Rangers in two ALCS starts. In 2011, he suffered from a tired arm early on but rebounded to win 16 games. And then in 2013, he was the worst regular starting pitcher in the majors, pitching to a 5.19 ERA and losing 14 games for an 85-win team. The Yankees didn’t deserve to make the playoffs last year, but if anyone other than Hughes had been in the rotation for his starts, they likely would have.

I thought Hughes needed to go to the National League to achieve success as a starter in the majors and believed that eventually some team would put him in the bullpen where he was so good in 2009. But so far with the Twins through two months, Hughes has become the pitcher we saw glimpses of in New York and maybe he just needed to get out of the spotlight to realize his potential.

Lund: I always expected he’d be a target, and sure enough the front office admitted as much early in the off-season. The market rate was around $8 million per year, and as long as the Twins didn’t go over that I wouldn’t have had any issues with them signing Hughes. In the end they went for three years at $8 million per, which is a year longer than I’d have hoped for, but one of the things we talked about at Twinkie Town over the winter was that the club would need to overpay in free agency to get any of the free agent targets they really wanted. Whether that meant the Twins had to go three years to make it happen or not, that’s the way I was looking at it. It’s been a terrible three-year span for this organization. Who was going to voluntarily come to Minnesota unless they met a special asking price?

There were certain things that led me to believe that Hughes could be more successful in Minnesota. Target Field plays bigger than Yankee Stadium, which is always going to help a fly ball pitcher. The pressure on professional athletes isn’t the same, either, which can make it easier for a guy to play within himself. Everyone reacts differently to pressure, and having lived in Minneapolis and Boston and New York City it’s only reinforced the stereotype that the overzealous sports fans get more attention on the east coast than they do in the Midwest. I’m not sure that there are proportionally more crazy sports fans in one area compared to the other, but it’s safe to say that sports feel more important to more people in New York and Boston. And that carries over to radio and television and newspapers and fans on the street and certainly at the ballpark. Which is just a long way of saying that a change of scenery seemed like a good idea for Hughes.

Now, did anyone think he’d be as good as he’s been this year? Hell no.

Keefe: Joe Mauer has been one of the Top 5 hardest outs against the Yankees with Dustin Pedroia, Miguel Cabrera, Delmon Young and Evan Longoria being the other four. He has been to the Twins what Derke Jeter has been to Yankees fans for so long and I’m happy he didn’t leave through free agency or get traded instead of getting paid by the Twins.

Now on the other side of 30, Mauer is still an offensive threat and one of the better average hitters in the game, even if he hasn’t taken off yet this season. He might never replicate his 2009 MVP season, but he can still be the face of the franchise and a middle-of-the-order presence for seemingly as long as he’s healthy.

What’s it like to have Mauer now be the first baseman for the Twins after having been that familiar face behind the plate for so long?

Lund: I think we all knew that Mauer would need to change positions sooner or later. It would have been better to have had that change come under different circumstances, but mitigating risk of additional concussions was going to be on the front of everyone’s mind after the performance hiatus of Justin Morneau. At least Mauer told the Twins of his decision early in the off-season, so that the front office had plenty of time to build the team around him.

Not that they succeeded. But that’s a story we’ve banged on endless times in the last few months.

It’s worth wondering if there are some lingering post-concussion things with Mauer. He’s striking out more this season, and while teams are shifting him to left field and just daring him to pull the ball there’s more to it than that. At catcher he was one of the best hitters in the game, and at first base his career numbers would make him one of the eight or 10 best-hitting first basemen in baseball, but if we’re going to see that potential then he’s going to have to turn something around pretty soon. The sooner, the better, because this offense desperately needs him.

Keefe: It still feels weird to me to see Justin Morneau on a team other than Twins, even though he’s now with his second team since his days as a Twin ended. He was the face of the Twins, at least from an outsider’s perspective, along with Mauer, and if it hadn’t been for injuries in 2010 and 2011, maybe the Twins would have experienced a different fate.

What has it been like seeing one of the staples of the organization for so long play for another team and also succeed and return to form with another team? Do you think he will ever give Derek Jeter the 2006 MVP he stole from him?

Lund: First, you’re probably right that Morneau didn’t deserve the MVP in 2006. But Grady Sizemore, Joe Mauer and even Johan Santana deserved it before Jeter. Man, those debates were intense in 2006! Both before and after the awards were handed out. But the Twins had a young core that was the absolute balls.

And yeah, it feels bizarre to see Justin Morneau wearing another uniform. Honestly it was painful seeing him dealt away last August for essentially nothing. Alex Presley was our center fielder for the rest of the season before he was claimed off waivers by Houston this spring, and Duke Welker was swapped back to Pittsburgh for Kris Johnson, who is a lefty stuck in Triple-A who doesn’t have much of a future with the Major League club anyway. It wasn’t that the Twins were undersold, either – Morneau’s value had fallen that far.

A vocal minority at Twinkie Town, including myself, still wanted the Twins to bring him back, to see him split first base and designated hitter duties with Mauer. Of course, that didn’t happen. But I’m happy to see that he’s reviving his career, because he was a special hitter. By 2010 he had as many holes in his swing as Mauer — none — and it was so much fun watching the trajectories of both players continue to rise. Without the injuries, it’s safe to say that the Twins would have given Morneau another contract.

Four years later things have changed quite a bit, and I don’t think anyone could have predicted just much Justin would produce this year. And it’s not just playing at Coors Field, either — Morneau is hitting at home and on the road.

Keefe: The Twins won 66 games the last two years and 63 games in 2011. Before that, they had one season (2007) in which they finished under .500 since 2000. The Twins had a good run from 2001-10 before everything seemed to fall apart for them, mainly the starting pitching, and now while they aren’t having a great season so far, they seem to be back on track.

What were your expectations for the Twins coming into the season and have they changed for better or worse after watching them for two months? When will the Twins get back to where they were before 2011?

Lund: My expectations were that this team could win 70 games this season, and I don’t think that’s changed. The starting pitching needs to be better, starting with Ricky Nolasco, but calling up future ace Alex Meyer and fireballer Trevor May will help those of us looking towards the future – at least, once the Twins are bold enough to bring them both up. As for the offense, it’s good to have Josh Willingham and Oswaldo Arcia – a potential middle-of-the-order hitter in the future – back in the lineup. But I’m not sure there’s a lot of help to be had for the lineup unless a number of guys start contributing as we know they’re capable of contributing. There’s no denying that 2014 will still be a rough season for Twins fans, but it should be better than the last three summers. Which is a plus.

This organization went into a tailspin not just because of poor decisions at the Major League level (free agents and trades were almost universally awful following Terry Ryan’s departure after the 2007 season), but also because the Twins whiffed on half a dozen drafts in a row in the early to late 2000s. They netted no good starting pitchers and no offensive contributors better than replacement level between 2003 and 2008. Except Matt Garza. Who they traded.

Luckily, the Twins have done exceptionally well with their international signings in recent years, and their drafts since 2009 have been yielding significantly better results. The front office still needs to make some good, shrewd, difficult decisions over the next off-season or two, but if they can consistently make better decisions then this team can partner legitimate Major League talent with a fantastic farm system that is going to start producing some real studs. The aforementioned Meyer and Arcia, Eddie Rosario, Jose Berrios, Kohl Stewart, Jorge Polanco, and of course Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano … the good days are coming.

But the front office needs to do their part to make sure there’s talent around those guys when they arrive.

May 28, 2014

Rangers-Canadiens Game 5 Thoughts: 0-for-1

The Rangers missed their first chance to win the Eastern Conference and put away the Canadiens and the blame will be placed on Henrik Lundqvist.

I couldn’t believe the Canadiens went on the power play 22 seconds into Game 5. I couldn’t believe they scored 1:26 into that power play. I couldn’t believe Henrik Lundqvist gave up the goal he did to Tomas Plekanic just 1:40 after the Rangers tied the game at 1. I couldn’t believe Lundqvist let Max Pacioretty beat him 3:44 into the second period and then let Rene Bourque turn around and find the back of the net 3:10 later. I couldn’t believe Lundqvist was pulled with 11:02 left in the second and I couldn’t believe he didn’t come back for the start of the third. I couldn’t believe Henrik Lundqvist didn’t show up for Game 5.

The Bell Centre has long been to Henrik Lundqvist what both Yankee Stadiums were to Pedro Martinez with the only thing missing from the raucous and embellishment-accepting Habs fans being the “Who’s Your Daddy?” chants to further rattle the King. But after Games 1 and 2 in Montreal, when Lundqvist gave up three goals combined, stopping 63 of 66 shots, (including 40 in Game 2), I thought he had finally overcome his Montreal letdowns. I thought he had silenced Habs fans the way he silenced all of his postseason critics when he put the Rangers on his back to overcome the 3-1 series deficit to the Penguins by winning Games 5 and 7 in Pittsburgh against the best offensive talent in the world and possibly the second-best offensive talent in the world. But maybe he didn’t and maybe I was wrong to think that because there was Lundqvist on Tuesday night in Montreal giving up goals that left Marc-Andre Fleury somewhere thinking, “Those aren’t that soft.”

I have never said anything negative about Lundqvist, at least not seriously. He’s in an elite class, in that sense, with Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and post-Super Bowl XLII Eli Manning. When I tell anyone that, the first thing they say is that the other three have won, and I’m always quick to say, “They didn’t win by themselves,” and Lundqvist won’t ever win by himself either even as much as the anti-Lundqvist club wants to believe he should somehow help provide more offense to give the Rangers a better chance to win.

I fully believe Lundqvist has been as good as he could be or any goalie could ever be for the Rangers teams that have been constructed during his career since 2005-06. And I fully believe Lundqvist has been as good as he could be or any goalie could be in the eight postseasons the team has played in since 2005-06 (this one included). He has been the face of the franchise, the backbone of the organization and the sole reason for any success over the last nine seasons and with or without a Cup to this point doesn’t change the goalie he has been for the teams he has been dealt.

Lundqvist wasn’t himself in Game 5 and proved Eddie Olczyk’s theory wrong that the Rangers would never lose a playoff game in which they score four goals because of Henrik Lundqvist, and neither was the rest of the team. (Well, maybe Dan Girardi was himself because he was having himself a nice Sunday Skate while the Canadiens were hanging around in the slot as if they were playing “Rebound.”) But no 7-4 loss, no three-goal loss can be blamed on one player or the goalie, even if that goalie is the best in the world. But as will be the case in the aftermath of the Rangers’ first missed opportunity to win the Eastern Conference, Lundqvist will be the center of the Rangers’ disappointment and will continue to be so for any failure until at least until he wins the Cup. And if you’ve paid attention to what’s happened in Boston over the last couple years, he will likely continue to be the center of any disappointment even if he can erase a 20-year drought because that’s what happens when expectations are created.

There’s not much to say about a 7-4 loss in which the Rangers scored four goals in Montreal and overcame a three-goal deficit to tie the game at 4 other than that it was a missed opportunity. Fortunately, the Rangers put themselves in a position to have three opportunities to put the Canadiens away and to put a Stanley Cup Final series back in New York for the first time in 20 years.

Game 6 will be different. It has to be different. The Rangers can’t get back on a plane to Montreal with another Game 7 looming and the Bell Centre awaiting them full of Habs fans who have been waiting for the Cup a year longer than Rangers fans. And Henrik Lundqvist can’t show up at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night. King Henrik must show up.

May 20, 2014

Rangers-Canadiens Game 2 Thoughts: The Broadway Hat Belongs to Henrik Lundqvist

The Rangers won Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals and it was all because of Henrik Lundqvist. It always is.

Seventeen seconds. That’s how long I was worried about the Rangers in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals and now that’s how long I have been worried about them in the first two games against the Canadiens.

After Max Pacioretty scored the game’s first goal after Mats Zuccarello lost the puck in his feet in front of Henrik Lundqvist the way Dan Girardi loses the puck frequently at the point on the power play, the Bell Centre erupted and thoughts of doubt started to creep in. “What if the Rangers fall into an offensive slump? What if they can’t score? What if Dustin Tokarski becomes the Canadiens’ version of Michael Leighton for the Flyers in the 2009-10 playoffs? What if the Canadiens win Game 2?” I started to worry that the Rangers wouldn’t be able to overcome allowing the the first goal in a playoff and a one-goal deficit because they have so many times before. But 17 seconds later, Ryan McDonagh reminded me of what I wrote after Game 1: these Rangers aren’t the same old Rangers.

The Bell Centre PA announcer hadn’t even finished announcing Pacioretty’s goal to a raucous crowd that forced me to turn the volume down on my TV before McDonagh interrupted Montreal’s party with a goal as a result of just throwing the puck near the net. And after turning my volume down as the Habs fans tried their best to get me a noise complaint from my landlord, I thought I had previously turned the volume all the way down to “0” or accidentally hit the mute button. The Bell Centre had gone silent.

I spent some time on Monday listening to Montreal sports radio to get a real sense of the mood and atmosphere in a hockey haven following the news that Carey Price, the man responsible for their series win over the Bruins, would miss the rest of the Eastern Conference finals. For New York Sports fans, the radio hosts and callers sounded like the equivalent of Yankees fans on Oct. 21, 2004 coupled with Mets fans on Oct. 1, 2007. The tone from the voices on the air sounded as if Montreal had lost the Canadiens due to relocation rather than losing their starting goalie due to an injury suffered from a breakaway.

As Canadiens fans started to wonder who would start Game 2 for them and try to save their season, Michel Therrien was busy blaming Price’s injury on the “reckless” Chris Kreider after calling his collision with Price “accidental” following Game 1. And according to Therrien, “This is not the first time Kreider’s going at goalies.”

To Therrien, the breakaway and collision in question has become about what Therrien thinks Kreider was thinking. And when you call a collision at the end of a breakaway “reckless,” you’re implying that Kreider was coming down the ice at at least 30 miles per hour with Alexei Emelin trying to pull him down with the intention of taking out Price rather than scoring a goal. And if you’re not implying that he knew the entire breakaway he wanted to go feet first into Price, then you’re implying that in the 0.000001 seconds after his shot didn’t go into the night, he thought and decided, “I didn’t score, so time to go feet first into the goalie and sacrifice my body and put my season at risk!” If you think both of those ideas are insane, then you think Michel Therrien is insane, and after blaming Price’s injury on Kreider, he clearly is.

So because Therrien put the blame for Price’s absence on Kreider, the Canadiens fans followed along, booing Kreider every time he touched the puck in Game 2. But every time Emelin (the Canadiens defensemen who let Kreider get past him for the now famous breakaway) touched the puck, there wasn’t any booing from the Canadiens fans. How is Emelin off the hook for Kreider’s breakaway? And why didn’t Therrien call his defensive play “reckless” when asked for his thoughts on the situation?

The Canadiens and their fans have long been known for their excuses, always looking to blame someone or something rather than themselves when things don’t go right for the franchise with the most championships in the league. Therrien blamed Kreider and the calls and breaks of the series and Canadiens fans can blame the loss of Price, a perfect built-in excuse for Montreal, if the team isn’t able to overcome a 2-0 series deficit and their season is ended by the Rangers. The latest excuse from the Canadiens is P.K. Subban calling Henrik Lundqvist “lucky,” which might be more ridiculous than Therrien implying Kreider’s breakaway collision was planned. If the Rangers win the Eastern Conference, it will be because of Henrik Lundqvist and there’s nothing that Michel Therrien, Carey Price or the Canadiens can do or could ever do about that.

Lundqvist has long been the best goalie in the NHL despite what his critics say or what his one Vezina Trophy suggests. He has spent his career on a bunch of average and below-average Rangers team that he made above average. But even knowing all this and watching him take over games and series like he did against the Penguins and has against the Canadiens, there are still those who would cite Lundqvist’s 19-25 playoff record entering the season as a reason for him being anything other than the “King.” But they don’t mention that in those 25 playoff losses, the Rangers scored a total of 36 goals or 1.44 goals per game. This postseason, the Rangers are 10-6, and in two of the six losses, they were shut out (Games 2 and 3 against Pittsburgh) and in Game 3 against Philadelphia they scored once, but I guess those losses are on Lundqvist too. Why didn’t he score any goals in those games?

Lundqvist has been the reason the Rangers have been in the playoffs in eight of his nine seasons, and he’s the reason the team came back against the Penguins, the reason they are up 2-0 on the Canadiens and the reason they are two wins from playing for the Cup for the first time in 20 years.

For outsiders, the opening minutes of Game 2 must have been magical to watch as Lundqvist kept the Canadiens off the board, but I have grown accustomed to those types of Lundqvist performances over the last nine seasons to the point that I expect them. I actually envy those watching Lundqvist regularly this postseason for the first time the way I envy someone who tells me they’re about to start watching Friday Night Lights or The Wire for the first time. And the opening minutes were just the beginning as Lundqvist went on to stop 40 of 41 shots and relentless pressure from a desperate Canadiens team playing in the hardest place for opponents to play.

The Rangers have now played 16 games this postseason and Lundqvist has allowed two goals or less in 12 of them. Since Game 5 in Pittsburgh, he has allowed six goals in five games and has stopped 162 of 168 shots (.964 SV%). The Rangers have been outshot in three of those fives games and Lundqvist has faced 26 more shots than the Rangers’ opposing goalies have, or basically one additional full game of shots against.

McDonagh was given the Broadway Hat after Game 2 for his goal that shut up the Bell Centre and for his assist that helped set up Martin St. Louis’ power-play goal that put the game out of reach. But the Broadway Hat really belongs to Henrik Lundqvist and it always has. He just lets his teammates borrow it.

Ten down, six to go.

May 18, 2014

Rangers-Canadiens Game 1 Thoughts: Not the Same Old Rangers

Rangers games aren’t supposed to go the way Game 1 went. The Rangers aren’t supposed to jump out to an early lead, build on that early lead, prevent a dreaded two-goal lead from slipping away

Rangers games aren’t supposed to go the way Game 1 went. The Rangers aren’t supposed to jump out to an early lead, build on that early lead, prevent a dreaded two-goal lead from slipping away and then put the game away with an entire period left to play. It’s not supposed to happen. That’s not Rangers hockey. Or at least it’s not what Rangers hockey has always been. But since Game 5 against the Penguins, Rangers hockey has changed. But here’s what would have happened if the pre-conference semis Game 5 Rangers had showed up for Saturday’s game:

The Rangers would have gotten up 2-0. Then after the Canadiens cut the lead to 2-1 (which they did), they would have scored the fourth goal of the game to tie the game at 2 with the Rangers blowing an early two-goal lead. After taking the Canadiens and their fans out of the game just 4:35 into Game 1, the Rangers would have given the Canadiens and the Bell Centre the energy and emotion they needed after exerting it all in the seven-game series with the Bruins. Then the Canadiens would have gone on to win Game 1 and the Rangers would have missed their most significant postseason opportunity in 20 years.

Game 1 was such a perfect start for the Rangers in this series that it felt weird watching it. After watching the Rangers struggle to score goals, defend leads and win games, I wasn’t prepared for a 7-2 win in Montreal. My mind and body didn’t know how to react to a dominant Rangers performance and I handled it the way someone with a ’92 Mercury Sable would feel test driving a new luxury car. “This feels great! The air conditioner turns on and pumps out cold air! All four windows go down! The clock on the dashboard isn’t stuck on 1:39 p.m. forever! The stations above 104.1 FM come in clear! I can’t believe people live like this!” For once, I knew what it was like to be a Blackhawks fan since 2009-10 or a 2013-14 regular-season Bruins fan. It felt good to win a game where you’re not asking Henrik Lundqvist to make a one-goal lead stand for 32 minutes or where you’re not wondering if the Rangers will produce an odd-man rush or get a shot off in the slot. The Rangers looked like a championship-caliber team on Saturday and have looked like one for four straight games now, starting with when their backs were against the wall in Pittsburgh for Game 5.

It was fitting that Martin St. Louis started the scoring for the Rangers after what he has been for this team and what he has meant to this team and their run since trailing 3-1 to the Penguins. And it was a perfect ending to the perfect game with Rick Nash finishing the scoring for the Rangers in what I hope was a sign of foreshadowing for what’s to come for the rest of the playoffs, given his history of scoring streaks and scoring goals in crazy bunches. But I almost don’t believe I watched Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals because not even the most optimistic, Ryan Callahan- is-better-than-Martin St. Louis, Glen Sather-can-do-no-wrong, Adam Graves’-number-deserved-to-be-retired Rangers fan thought a win like that was possible. I’m not talking about a win against the Canadiens in Montreal in the Bell Centre in the Eastern Conference finals. I’m talking about a win like that against any team in any city in any arena at any time. I’m still waiting for someone to tell me it didn’t happen the same way I’m waiting for that same person (or any person) to tell me the 2004 ALCS didn’t happen.

But unlike the 2004 ALCS, the 2003 ALCS did happen and before the Eastern Conference finals started, I compared that series to this series in an email exchange with Mike Miccoli. The Canadiens-Bruins series was essentially the Canadiens’ Cup Final for the team and for the fans. After blowing a 2-0 series lead to the Bruins in the first round of their eventual Cup run in 2010-11 and after being swept in the first round of the 2008-09 playoffs, the Bruins had taken the upper hand in the longstanding battle and the Canadiens hadn’t been able to solve the Bruins since their rebuild and resurgence in 2008-09. The Canadiens last beat the Bruins in the playoffs in 2007-08, but as the 1-seed facing a weak 8-seed, the Canadiens needed seven games to solve those Bruins. Montreal needed to beat the Bruins this year, not only to advance to this year’s conference finals, but for redemption of what happened three years ago and to redeem themselves as the big brother in the game’s best rivalry. The Canadiens played their conference semifinals series against the Bruins the way the Yankees had played the 2004 ALCS. And once the Yankees’ won the American League they had nothing left in the tank to win another series, even if it was the World Series and even if they were facing the Marlins, who needed to come back against the Cubs to get there. The Canadiens are now playing the Marlins and the Rangers have become a different team since their come back against the Penguins.

It was 11 days ago that the Penguins beat the Rangers 4-2 at the Garden and left them facing a 3-1 deficit with the series heading back to Pittsburgh. The finality of the 2013- 14 Rangers season set in after that Game 4 loss and by the time Game 5 started I had been in the initial phase of coping with the end of the hockey season for 48 hours. I started to simplify what the Rangers needed to do the way Alain Vigneault likely did to his team, telling myself “There’s at least one game left to watch this season. But if they win tonight, there will be at least one more.” The playoffs is about extending the season and surviving and advancing until the point that there’s no place left to advance to. After Game 4 against the Penguins, it looked like the Rangers’ next game would be in October and almost two weeks ago, this position didn’t seem possible.

Nine down, seven to go.