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Blogs • Rangers • Rangers Thursday Thoughts

Mar 5, 2020

Rangers Thursday Thoughts: Postseason Berth Is Still Possible

The Rangers got themselves into a position where the playoffs could be a real possiblity, but with three straight losses, they’re still on the outside looking in at the postseason.

The Rangers won 12 out of 15 after their 10-day break to get themselves into a position where the playoffs could be a real possiblity. But with three straight losses (two to the Flyers and one to the Blues), the Rangers are still on the outside looking in at the postseason picture. Now they’re going to need another run close to .750 to finish the season to complete the improbable comeback and clinch a playoff berth.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers as usual.

1. The Rangers did a remarkable and impressive job winning 12 of 15 after their 10-day layoff to get within one win and two points of a playoff berth. After the last three games — all losses — it seems like that might be the closest they get. If it is, sure it was a tease, but it was also a glimpse into the future and that future is something to be excited about. Reminder: the Rangers have the youngest overall roster in the entire league and this is a rebuilding season. I realize no Rangers fan wants to hear about next season when the postseason is within reach, but this season was never supposed to be about the playoffs, and it’s OK if it doesn’t end up being about them either.

2. The three straight losses came against the hottest team in the league in Philadelphia and the defending champion Blues. As I have written the last few weeks in the Thursday Thoughts, the March schedule is a gauntlet, featuring nearly all games against either playoff teams or teams fighting for a playoff spot. The Rangers couldn’t afford more than a few off nights in the entire month, and now they have already used up nearly all of their off nights in three straight games. The Flyers have gone from barely holding down a playoff spot to now one point behind the Capitals for first in the Met and the Blues are still the best in the West. Losses for the Rangers against them shouldn’t be a surprise, and they weren’t, but it was more about how the Rangers lost those games.

3. The losses to the Flyers were essentially the result of a win-now team beating up on a young, rebuilding team. The Flyers have outscored the Rangers 15-5 in three games this season, and it hasn’t mattered which goalie is in net for any of three. Rangers fans were quick to turn on Henrik Lundqvist on Sunday as if the loss or the five goals were in any way his fault. Lundqvist was making just his seventh start in 69 days and first in 27 days and was being asked to somehow steal a win against the hottest team in the league and arguably the best team in the strongest division. Lundqvist endured the same fate Alexandar Georgiev did two days prior as both were tagged with five goals against. It didn’t matter who played in goal for the Rangers in either game, they weren’t winning. Igor Shesterkin wasn’t stealing a win for the Rangers this weekend. No goalie was.

4. Lundqvist and the Rangers might have stood a chance if not for Ryan Strome’s sloppy and undisciplined play, which has become a recurring theme this season. The overused, overvalued center has been fortunate to play with Artemi Panarin all season, while also being on the first power-play unit as well, and his numbers are nowhere near where they should be for someone who has been given those two golden opportunities. His addiction to taking minor penalties is bad enough, but the fact that he usually takes them on the power play or in the offensive zone makes it even worse. The Flyers’ first goal came after Strome missed the net badly coming down the right wing and his shot served as a breakout pass for the Flyers who turned the missed shot into an odd-man rush in which Ryan Lindgren took a penalty to stop a potential scoring chance. The Flyers scored on the ensuing power play. The second Flyers’ goal came on the power play as well on a Strome penalty. The Flyers also scored a shorthanded goal after Strome turned the puck over at the Philadelphia blue line and they scored a fourth goal on the power play thanks to another Strome penalty. The Flyers scored five goals, and four of them were directly Strome’s fault. Had he simply skipped Sunday’s game, the Rangers most likely would have won.

5. Finally, on Sunday, David Quinn benched Strome for the third period. It only took 80 percent of the season to be played and for Strome to single-handedly ruin several games this season for the loss of playing time to happen. The bad far outweighs the good when it comes to Strome and I have seen enough. He can’t be part of the 2020-21 Rangers. On Tuesday, he was at it again against St. Louis. The Blues tied the game at 1 with a power-play goal. Who was in the box? Strome, of course.

6. Against the Blues, the Rangers played their most complete game in weeks and deserved better than to suffer a home loss, but for all the games they were dominated and heavily outplayed and won because of their goaltending, Tuesday’s loss was the Hockey Gods’ way of evening things out. The Blues’ go-ahead and eventual game-winning goal was scored on a wraparound against Georgiev, who looked surprised to see the scoring chance appear out of nowhere and his reaction after the goal confirmed his shock. The goal cost the Rangers a chance at a much-needed point or possible win, but I didn’t see much about it on social media from Rangers fans. Had it been Lundqvist in the net, the word “buyout” would have been trending on social media.

7. The combination of Panarin and Mika Zibanejad have won the Rangers so many games this season, and when either one has been absent, the Rangers lose. Their early-season losing steak after Zibanejad went down is the reason they are on the outside looking in on the playoffs right now, and their only loss to the Islanders came in the one game Panarin missed this season, which was a huge four-point swing in both the Met and wild-card standings. The duo is as dangerous as any pair of players together on the power play and when they are placed on the same line, the Rangers’ even-strength offense is must-watch. The problem is they are rarely paired on the same line. I have written and said all season that the Rangers need to screw line balance and put the two on the same line the way teams like the Bruins and Avalanche stack their top players. But Quinn only uses the option when the Rangers are losing in the third period, and he did so with 10 minutes left against the Blues. Apparently, the first 50 minutes of the game when the Rangers generated close to zero even-strength offense against arguably the best defensive team in the league wasn’t enough for Quinn to realize the Rangers needed to adjust. A line with Panarin and Zibanejad shouldn’t be used only in emergencies. It should be used all the time.

8. I watch a lot of hockey thanks to NHL TV. A lot. No team in the league misses the net on shot attempts from the point more than the Rangers, and no one in the league misses more from the blue line than Jacob Trouba. It seems impossible to miss the net as much as Trouba does, and after watching him every game for now 66 games, he has been a disappointment. He can’t continue to be a disappointment though. Not at his salary and cap hit and not with the long list of top-end defensive prospects the Rangers have. The Rangers need Trouba to be much better than he has been all season, both offensively and defensively, and I think he would say the same.

9. The Rangers are four points out of a playoff spot with 16 games left to play. As of now, it’s going to take at least 97 points to get in and that would mean an 11-4-1 finish. I don’t know how the Rangers can manage to achieve that record with 13 of their remaining games against Washington (2), Dallas, Colorado, Arizona, Calgary, Pittsburgh (3), Columbus, Tampa Bay, Florida and Philadelphia. The number could certainly come down if the Blue Jackets, Islanders and Hurricanes stumble the way they have recently to keep the Rangers only four points out despite their three-game losing streak, but the Rangers are still going to have to win at least two-thirds of their games to have any chance.

10. It’s going to be disappointing if the Rangers did everything they did in February only to fall short of the playoffs in March. I mean disappointing in the sense of wanting to watch Rangers playoff hockey for the first time in three years and not being able to, but not in the sense of being disappointed in this team. This team has overachieved all season and with the future as bright as ever and next year expectations will be much different than they were this year, and I think the results and record will be too. I don’t expect the Rangers to play .750 hockey for the last 16 games given the opponents they will play, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do enough to stay in the race until the last week or two of the season, considering they have been surprising everyone all season. I will take one last surprise of them earning a wild-card berth.

Blogs • Spring Cleaning • Yankees

Mar 4, 2020

Spring Cleaning: Yankees’ Entire Starting Outfield Will Open Season on Injured List

Another week and another crushing injury for the Yankees. Aaron Judge is still experiencing a shoulder and pectoral problem and the Yankees have been unable to figure out exactly what the problem is.

Another week and another crushing injury for the Yankees. Aaron Judge is still experiencing a shoulder and pectoral problem and the Yankees have been unable to figure out exactly what the problem is. An injury and an unclear diagnosis? The Yankees are operating in midseason form.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees as usual.

1. Remember when I wrote If You’re Not Worried About Aaron Judge Being Injured, You Should Be back on Feb. 18? Well, unfortunately I was right. After Aaron Boone said Judge would need to play in the last 10 or so spring training games beginning next weekend in order to be ready for the start of the season, Brian Cashman came out and said it’s unlikely Judge will be ready for Opening Day. Boone then tried to downplay his own general manager’s admission, but there’s no downplaying this timeline: Judge won’t be ready for Opening Day. As of now, the 10th-to-last spring training game is 10 days away, and Judge is still undergoing tests and the Yankees are still unsure what is wrong with his shoulder-turned-pectoral injury. If the team isn’t even able to diagnose the injury as of now and put in place a schedule to get him back on the field, how could Boone or anyone think within the next 10 days he’s going to be able to go from not playing at all to ready to play in games? The answer is he’s not.

2. Judge has played in 396 of 533 (74.3 percent) possible regular-season games since his 2016 debut. If you remove the 45 games missed from the freak wrist injury when he was hit by a pitch in 2018, he’s played in 396 of 488 (81.1 percent) possible regular-season games. Either way, whether you go off the 74.3 percent or the 81.1 percent, it’s not good. I go off the 81.1 percent since there wasn’t much Judge could do about getting hit by a pitch on the wrist (and he wasn’t the one who gave the all-time worst timetable for return from the injury). Judge hasn’t been able to stay healthy and somehow that needs to change.

3. Judge isn’t going to be on the Opening Day roster and neither is Giancarlo Stanton. With Aaron Hicks also out following Tommy John surgery, the Yankees’ entire expected starting outfield is injured. I can’t believe this is happening again. I really can’t. Last season the Yankees set the all-time single-season record for most players placed on the injured list and now they’re on pace to shatter their own record. The injury bug isn’t supposed to decimate the same team in back-to-back seasons. But here we are with still more than three weeks to go until Opening Day and the Yankees are without their starting left fielder, center fielder and right fielder, as well as their No. 2 and 3 starting pitchers. Five spots from the Yankees’ planned Opening Day 26-man roster are now available. That’s absurd.

4. The rotation spots vacated by Luis Severino and James Paxton will likely go to Jordan Montgomery, and unfortunately one of either Chad Bettis or Nick Tropeano, who I have written about in previous Spring Cleaning blogs. The outfield spots for Stanton, Hicks and Judge are much more intriguing and interesting because the Yankees need to build a completely new outfield. Brett Gardner is going to be the starting center fielder, and that leaves two spots to be filled by a combination of Mike Tauchman, who has had six productive weeks in his career, Miguel Andujar, who has never played a major-league game in the outfield, Clint Frazier, who the Yankees made it clear they don’t trust as an everyday player, and Tyler Wade, who is really an infielder. Not even a month ago, the Yankees had the best lineup, rotation and bullpen in the American League. Now they’re set to begin the season with J.A. Happ as their No. 3 starter and one or two players they never really wanted to have to use in the outfield as everyday players.

5. Jonathan Loaisiga isn’t going to be a traditional starting pitcher. He might be used an opener, but it’s obvious the Yankees aren’t going to have him in the rotation to fill one of the spots. He has only been used in the late innings in spring training, and if the Yankees were planning on him starting, he would be making routine starts and getting stretched out for the role. Given Loaisiga’s injury history, it seems like the best idea is to do what the Yankees are doing. Let him serve as anything from an opener to a multiple-innings reliever to a setup man and let him attack hitters with his high-velocity fastball and hopefully that keeps him healthy for an entire season.

6. Last week was the second time I gave my prediction for the Opening Day roster, but with Judge and Stanton both now out, here’s an updated version:

Gary Sanchez
Luke Voit
DJ LeMahieu
Gio Urshela
Gleyber Torres
Giancarlo Stanton
Brett Gardner
Mike Tauchman
Miguel Andujar
Clint Frazier
Tyler Wade
Mike Ford
Kyle Higashioka
Gerrit Cole
Masahiro Tanaka
J.A. Happ
Jordan Montgomery
Chad Bettis
Aroldis Chapman
Zack Britton
Adam Ottavino
Chad Green
Tommy Kahnle
Jonathan Loaisiga
Luis Cessa
Jonathan Holder

7. The other day, the Yankees’ spring training lineup featured about as close to an Opening Day lineup as I think they can construct right now without their entire outfield. In that lineup, Gardner was batting second. After seeing Gardner inexplicably bat third in the postseason last year and fail in that spot, I can’t believe he’s now going to bat second in the most important spot in the lineup in Judge’s absence. This isn’t about Gardner batting second to potentially get more at-bats in a spring training game. That lineup was created as a precursor to Opening Day, the same way all of those late-season lineups with him batting third in them last year led to him batting third in the postseason. Boone feels it’s necessary to stick a left-handed bat somewhere in the top of the order no matter how much inferior that left-handed bat is to all the right-handed bats, and right now Gardner is the only left-handed everyday bat. The fact that Boone posted that lineup after the Judge and Stanton news made me think that’s the way Boone or whoever creates the lineup is leaning for March 26. No one should ever be angry about a spring training lineup, but that wasn’t just any spring training lineup. I know what Boone is doing and I’m more than ready to lose it when the regular season begins.

8. Can we get the report from the Red Sox’ cheating investgation? With all these Yankees injuries, I need something to feel good about it and watching the Yankees’ rival lose draft picks and more is definitely something to feel good about. There’s no way it should be taking this long to discover how the Red Sox cheated and release the findings of it.

9. Maybe this will be the week the Yankees avoid an injury to an expected everyday player or rotation member? (Not counting the news on whatever is actually wrong with Judge.) Somehow the Yankees have to navigate three more weeks until the start of the season without anyone else getting hurt. Given how the last calendar year has gone, it feels impossible. There’s too many days and too much baseball between now and March 26.

10. The Yankees have an even easier opening schedule this season than they did last season. The problem is last season they were 6-9 after playing Baltimore twice, Detroit, Houston and the White Sox. This season they have Baltimore (3), Tampa Bay (3), Toronto (3) and Baltimore (4) to begin the season. The Rays will be tough, as always, especially in Tampa, but the Orioles are going to lose around 100 games again, and while the Blue Jays have a young, dangerous lineup, their pitching is awful. The Yankees don’t need to be at full strength to win the early-season series against the Orioles and Blue Jays, but those 10 games against the two teams are going to come off the schedule without the Yankees being at full strength, and there are a lot of “easy” wins in there that will be needed in helping the Yankees achieve home-field advantage in the postseason.

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

Blogs • Yankees

Mar 2, 2020

Aaron Judge Injury News Goes From Bad to Worse

There’s a very real chance the Yankees begin the season without their entire expected outfield. Aaron Judge’s shoulder isn’t better and the Yankees don’t even know what’s wrong with it.

Laugh. That’s all you can do at this point when it comes to the Yankees and their injuries. Laugh. Two weeks after Aaron Boone said Judge was “just dealing with some crankiness” and would be shut down from throwing or batting, I knew this wouldn’t end well. Boone’s nonchalant explanation of injuries coupled with Judge’s injury history and the Yankees’ frequently wrong handling of injuries meant this was going to get worse before it got better. And it has gotten worse.

On Saturday, three days after it was announcing Giancarlo Stanton has a Grade 1 calf strain and will most likely miss the start of the season, Boone told YES that Judge is going through “testing” to find out why his shoulder is still bothering him.

When Judge’s shoulder issue was originally announced by Boone two weeks ago, I wrote If You’re Not Worried About Aaron Judge Being Injured, You Should Be and was told I was overreacting. Sorry if I have been traumaitzed by the 2019 Yankees and their medical staff, but a four-month layoff between the end of the ALCS and the beginngi of spring strainign didn’t magically create trust between the team’s handling of injuries and me. After Boone said Judge would be shut down from throwing and batting for at least the next week, it was only two days later that he was seen throwing and before his shut down period ended, he was once again swinging a bat, which seemed odd given the Yankees’ stated rehab plan for him. The shoulder “crankiness” that Boone described still hasn’t gone away for Judge, and not only has he not played in a spring training game, but the Yankees aren’t even sure what the problem is.

“It’s frustrating that we haven’t pinpointed exactly what it is, what’s caused the discomfort, so that’s the frustrating part,” Boone said. “But I would say I feel a little more optimistic as to where we’re at.”

Of course Boone says he’s optimistic. What do you expect him to say? That he’s freaking out like the fan base because a team in the middle of a championship window that’s supposed to reach the World Series is going into the season without 40 percent of its expected rotation and now possibly without its entire expected outfield. Boone is definitely thinking that, he’s just not going to say it.

“We’re in a holding pattern with it, just trying to figure out what exactly is going on,” Boone said. “We’re trying to get our arms around if we can pinpoint something that’s causing some of the discomfort. At this point we haven’t found that.”

Leave it to the Yankees to still not know what’s wrong with the team’s best player two weeks after finding out about his ailing shoudler, thinking the “crankiness” would magically disappear with a few days of rest. An MRI was unable to reveal anything, so now Judge will have another test on Monday to try to discover what the issue is.

I don’t know how anyone could be optimistic about this injury or any Yankees injury. In two weeks, Judge hasn’t gotten any better. He’s still able to throw, but unable to hit without discomfort. Boone said Judge would be ready for Opening Day if he’s able to get into games over the final 10 days of spring training, though that would mean Judge has to start playing by the end of next week, and considering he’s not only not currently ready to play in games, but that his shoulder discomfort is still a mystery, playing in games by the end of next week feels a little unrealistic.

What is becoming realistic though is an Opening Day outfield consisting of three of Brett Gardner, Mike Tauchman, Clint Frazier and Miguel Andujar. There’s now 24 days until spring training and the Yankees are very close to beginning an expected championship season without their entire starting outfield.

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Download and subscribe to the Keefe To The City Yankees Podcast.

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Blogs • Rangers

Mar 2, 2020

Flyers Give Rangers Reality Check

What was forgotten before the weekend is that the Flyers are very much in a win-now window, while the Rangers are still the youngest overall team in the league and not supposed to contend for a few more seasons.

I can’t lie: I bought into the hype. After the Rangers came out of their 10-day layoff with wins in 12 of 15 games and got within one win of a postseason berth, I started to think of an 83rd Rangers game this season. After back-to-back seasons without playoff hockey, I couldn’t help myself from thinking this rebuilding Rangers team could go from the inconsistent, frustrating club they were all season before the All-Star break to become a wild-card team in the final two-plus months of the season. But after the last two games, the dream of the Rangers reaching the postseason is once again just that: a dream.

When Artemi Panarin scored the first goal of the game on Friday in Philadelphia I started to think the Rangers really might continue their improbable run from barely being alive in the postseason picture to acquiring a berth. But after that first-period goal from Panarin, the Flyers went on to outscore the Rangers 10-4 for the rest of their home-and-home weekend series. Add in the Flyers’ 5-1 win from earlier this season, and it’s been a lopsided rivalry with the Rangers being outscored at a 3-to-1 margin over nine periods.

The Flyers have been just as good as the Rangers lately with wins in 11 of 14 (including six straight), as they have changed their own postseason fate, going from being the second wild-card team to now sitting three points behind Washington for the top seed in the Met. The Flyers are finally doing what they were supposed to do this season, and they have handled the Rangers the way they were supposed to this season.

What was forgotten before the weekend is that the Flyers are very much in a win-now window, while the Rangers are still the youngest overall team in the league and a team that isn’t supposed to contend for a few more seasons. I thought the Rangers might be able to hang with the Flyers better than they had the first time the two teams met, but it ended up being hte same story. The Rangers’ last month wrongly changed every Rangers fan’s perspective of the team and masked the Rangers’ real problem of still lacking winning defense in front of whichever goalie is in net. The way the Rangers have managed to win for the last month isn’t sustainable for much longer than it has been and the Flyers easily exposed the Rangers’ defensive issues.

I’m part of the faction of Rangers fans who were suddenly wearing blinders after the recent run. While the Rangers were winning games they had no business of winning thanks to the kind of great goaltending they have now been leaning on for 15 straight seasons, I thought road wins over Winnipeg, Minnesota, Columbus, Carolina, the Islanders and Montreal meant this team had finally turned a corner. I still think they have turned a corner and are a different team than they were in the first four months of the season, they just have a long way to go, and the Flyers reminded us all of that.

It didn’t take long for Rangers fans to turn on Henrik Lundqvist on Sunday as if the loss or the five goals were in any way his fault. Lundqvist was making just his seventh start in 69 days and first in 27 days and was being asked to somehow steal a win against the hottest team in the league. He might have been able to do so if he was ever given a chance, but with Ryan Strome’s sloppy and undisciplined play combined with an abundance of power-play opportunites and odd-man rushes, Lundqvist never stood a chance. Lundqvist endured the same fate Alexandar Georgiev did two days prior as both were tagged with five goals against. It didn’t matter who played in goal for the Rangers in either game, they weren’t winning. Igor Shesterkin wasn’t stealing a win for the Rangers this weekend. No goalie was.

The Flyers showed how far the gap is between the Rangers and the true contenders in the league. The Rangers are winless in three games against the Flyers and the difference in the teams is blatantly noticeable. The Rangers have been able to win games against some of the league’s top teams like Washington, Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh and Colorado, and now they’re going to need to do a whole lot more winning against those teams over their remaining 17 games.

With games against St. Louis, Washington (2), Dallas, Colorado, Arizona, Calgary, Pittsburgh (3), Columbus, Tampa Bay, Florida and Philadelphia, the Rangers have as hard of a remaining schedule as there is. Their games against teams completely out of the playoff picture aren’t exactly a walk in the park either in Montreal, New Jersey, Buffalo and Chicago.

The Rangers did a remarkable job to get within one win and two points of the second wild card, and it would be a letdown if they weren’t able to complete the improbable comeback, and were to unravel over this last month. Their schedule suggests getting within one win and two points is as close as they’ll get to the playoffs this season, a season that was never supposed to be about the playoffs, but this Rangers team has defied the odds to play meaningful hockey in March. If they want to play meaningful hockey in April, they’ll have to close the gap the Flyers exposed this weekend and close it before the defending champion Blues get to the Garden on Tuesday.

Feb 27, 2020

Rangers Thursday Thoughts: Postseason Is a Real Possibility

There’s 20 games left in the season and each one of them is essentially a playoff game, something this Rangers team hasn’t known in three years.

The Rangers have won 10 of 13 since their 10-day layoff and now the postseason is a very real option for them. The Rangers needed to play .750 hockey after the break through the end of the season and so far they have done more than that to get within four points of a postseason berth. There’s 20 games left in the season and each one of them is essentially a playoff game, something this Rangers team hasn’t known in three years.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers as usual.

1. The Rangers decided not to conduct a third straight selloff and instead extended Chris Kreider for seven years and traded away Brady Skjei and his contract for a first-round pick. Out of all the possibilities the Rangers had to handle the trade deadline, I certainly didn’t see this result and combination coming. The Rangers had the No. 1 asset on the market in Kreider and many other coveted assets like Skjei and Jacob Trouba and Pavel Buchnevich and Jesper Fast and Tony DeAngelo and Ryan Strome and Alexandar Georgiev and anyone other than Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Kaapko Kakko, Filip Chytil, Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin (and Henrik Lundqvist because of his no-trade clause). That they chose to not sell and only move Skjei in order to free up cap space for their impending cap crunch this summer tells you this front office wants to keep as much of this group together and also wants to make the postseason this season. In a year that was never supposed to be about wins or losses or the playoffs, the Rangers have expedited a lengthy rebuild and in two years are a bubble team that has everyone in hockey talking about their future. So far the rebuild has gone better than anyone could have expected, and that’s mainly because of Panarin’s decision to take less money to be a Ranger and the future attached to landing the No. 2 pick in last year’s draft. A postseason berth in this season, which has been as fun to watch as any from 2011-2015, would be the cherry on top.

2. The Rangers are in a potential postseason position because of what they have done since their 10-day layoff, going 10-3. The point the Islanders were able to gain from them in the final seconds on Tuesday night hurt because it cut their deficit to the Islanders for one of the two wild-card spots by only one point rather than two. As it stands on Thursday morning, the Rangers are four points out of the second wild-card spot currently held by Columbus (though the Rangers have three games in hand), they’re five points out of the first wild-card spot currently held by the Islanders and seven points out of the third Met spot currently held by the Philadelphia. The Rangers needed to play .750 hockey coming out of their break to even be in this position with 20 games left in the schedule and they have done better than that, playing .769 hockey. The hard part is going to be to sustain this level of success for the next five-plus weeks and sustaining it against about as challenging of a schedule as you could have. The Rangers still have to play Philadelphia (3), St. Louis, Washington (2), Dallas, Colorado, Arizona, Calgary, Pittsburgh (3), Columbus, Tampa Bay and Florida. Their games against non-playoff teams aren’t exactly a walk in the park either against Montreal, New Jersey, Buffalo and Chicago. The Rangers are going to have to find a way to continue to win three of every four against some of the league’s best and the games against Philadelphia and Pittsburgh (because they’re 30 percent of their remaining schedule) will most likely decide their fate.

3. The Rangers even being in this position is a major accomplishment. Cap Friendly recently released a list of the league in order from youngest roster to oldest and the Rangers came in at No. 1 with the youngest roster. (Washington has the oldest roster.) The Rangers are filled with young, exciting talent and they’re getting exposure to playoff-like atmospheres and experience playing in a must-win setting each game. Even if this run to a playoff berth ends with the Rangers on the outside looking in for the third straight season, it will have a much different feel to it and it will go a long way in meaning something next season and the seasons to come.

4. A huge reason the Rangers are in this spot is because of their play within the Met. They finished the season 4-0 against Carolina and 3-1 against the Islanders, and they’re 2-1 against Columbus, 2-1 against New Jersey, 1-1 against Washington and 1-0 against Pittsburgh. (They’re 0-1 against Philadelphia with three games left against them). The Rangers play in the hardest and deepest division in the league and they have gone 13-5 so far. That’s promising because many of these teams aren’t going anywhere as the Rangers grow and get closer to their own championship window, but it’s their play outside the Met that will need to improve beginning next season to avoid being in this type of situation a year from now.

5. The Rangers dominance over the Islanders this season was more than enjoyable. The Islanders have been battling the last few weeks to avoid enduring a monumental collapse from being a postseason sure-thing two months ago to being outside the postseason picture completely. The Rangers have had a lot to do with that after taking three of four from their rival. The Islanders are very much in a win-now window (even if it’s obvious their roster’s ceiling is the second round) and the Rangers handled them. The Islanders are nowhere near good enough to win the Cup with their current team as demonstrated by their inability to consistently score. Barry Trotz’s game plan has been to score three goals and play shutdown defense and those three goals will be good enough to win on most nights. The problem is the Islanders have trouble scoring one goal let alone two or three on most nights. The job the Rangers did in being able to beat that veteran defense and style of play three times is impressive and speaks to the offensive talent on this Rangers team. If the Rangers could add in just a little of Trotz’s defensive style they will be a force and one of the league’s elite teams very soon.

6. Each time the Rangers and Islanders play, I can’t help but think about what would have been had Panarin taken the most money and become an Islander. Panarin scored the Rangers’ first goal on Tuesday night and created the play that led to Mika Zibanejad’s game-winning goal in overtime (and what a fucking blast that was from Zibanejad). The only game Panarin has missed this season was the Rangers’ third game against the Islanders and the Rangers lost that game. In the other three — all Rangers wins — Panarin had three goals and five assists. Thankfully, those eight points came for the Rangers against the Islanders and not the other way around like it could have been.

7. After watching Jacob Trouba’s hit on Michael Dal Colle from both the Rangers’ broadcast and the Islanders’ broadcast, it’s amazing that the two could have such varying opinions on the play. If you listen to each without watching, you would think they were describing two completely different hits. The hit was clean and I don’t believe that because I’m a Rangers fan. I believe that because I’m a hockey fan. You can’t be giving buddy passes in the NHL, and you certainly can’t be receiving those passes in your feet and not cleanly. Jean-Gabriel Pageau — in his Islanders debut — can’t be making passes like that to a teammate to exit the defensive zone. If I was Dal Colle, I wouldn’t be mad at Trouba for stepping up and laying his his shoulder into my shoulder (which he did), I would be mad at Pageau for giving me that pass. Pageau then jumped Trouba for making a clean and successful hit and was rightfully given a 2, a 5 and a 10 for his actions. Players shouldn’t have to answer the bell for clean hits, but really players shouldn’t be giving other players passes which could get them severely injured.

8. How about Brendan Smith? After being moved back to D following the trade of Skjei, he looked like the player the Rangers gave a four-year deal to after coming over from Detroit three years ago. It was easily the best game Smith has played since that first year as a Ranger, and he added a goal on top of his outstanding defensive work. For the tumultuous ride it’s been for Smith between getting the four-year deal then getting sent to the AHL then having to become a fourth-line forward, to finally returning to where he belongs and playing like he belongs, I think every Rangers fan is happy to see him contributing with more than a fight or an unnecessary minor penalty. If he can maintain the level of play he displayed at the Coliseum on Tuesday, some team will take the final year of his contract this summer with so many top-end defensive prospects ready to be Rangers.

9. The news about Buchnevich and Shesterkin was both scary and unfortunate. Thankfully, both are generally OK and avoided serious injury. Buchnevich didn’t play against the Islanders, but he was practicing the next day, so I assume he’ll be back this week. As for Shesterkin, it’s a crushing blow to both he and the Rangers as he continued to play at a level Lundqvist used to play at each and every game and Shesterkin and the Rangers continued to rack up wins because of his play. I don’t know that Shesterkin will be back this season, but if he’s not, the Rangers clearly have the heir to Lundqvist, and no matter what happens in the offseason, Shesterkin is clearly the No. 1 now and moving forward.

10. Georgiev did a remarkable job to beat the Islanders for a third time this season and it was announced on Wednesday that he will start the Rangers’ next game on Thursday in Montreal. I would have to think that means Lundqvist will play on Friday against Philadelphia. If not, then I have no idea what the Rangers are doing or thinking. I thought Lundqvist should have been in net against the Islanders, but I’m sure Georgiev was because of his success against them this season. If Lundqvist plays on Friday, he will once again draw the hardest competition of the three, and if he doesn’t play well, every idiot will question why Georgiev wasn’t playing. The Flyers are a contender right now. The Rangers, despite their recent 13-game run, aren’t. That can’t be forgotten when the Rangers play the hottest team in the league other than them on Friday. Lundqvist will be starting for the first time in 25 days and his most recent starts will have come against Philadelphia, Dallas, Detroit, St. Louis, Calgary, Carolina and Philadelphia. It would be hard enough for Lundqvist to shut down the Flyers’ offense and for the Rangers to beat Flyers on the road if this were five years ago and he was playing nearly every game. Given what his situation is now and how this Rangers team stacks up against the Flyers, expectations should be tempered. But given the way the majority of Rangers fans have acted toward Lundqvist this season, I’m sure they won’t be.