The NHL All-Star Game returned after a year hiatus, but now it’s come and gone, and the second “half” of the season is set to begin. With 35 games remaining, the Rangers have put themselves in a position where winning less than half of their games would get them to 98 points. It will take a monumental collapse for the Rangers to not play a postseason game for the first time in five years (I’m counting the 2019-20 playoffs as real postseason games for them).

Because of the Rangers’ two-week break from Feb. 1 through Feb. 15, there has been a lull in animosity toward non-Rangers around the league. But in sticking with tradition of the All-Star break, here is the 2021-22 All-Animosity Team.

FORWARDS

Matthew Barzal
We came dangerously close to Barzal and Artemi Panarin 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 didn’t happen.

When Barzal is on the ice, I’m scared. I’m not scared at the level of Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin, Nathan MacKinnon or Connor McDavid, but I’m still scared. He’s the one true playmaker on the Islanders and 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 that line has been going for years.

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.

Tom Wilson
OK, maybe Wilson is the ultimate player who you hate to watch your team play against, but would love if he were on your team. Like Marchand, Wilson is a really good player, however, his lapses in judgment are nearly impossible to comprehend. His presence on the ice worries me for the health of the Rangers’ elite talent, but if he were flying around throwing big hits and scoring big goals for the Blueshirts, my perception of him and the Tri-state’s perception of him would be much different.

DEFENSEMEN

Alexander Ovechkin
OK, so I had to do some odd maneuvering like putting a historically awful defensive player on defense for this year’s roster. But considering he does hover around the top of the left circle on the power play, it’s almost like he’s a defenseman sometimes. A stretch? Yes, it is.

In his career, Ovechkin has 41 goals in 67 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 left circle on the man advantage, two minutes feels like 20 minutes as you pray the shot attempts he does get somehow miss the net.

I keep waiting for Ovechkin to slow down, thinking age or games played might start to catch up to him, but in his age 34 season he led the league in scoring with 48 goals and was on a 58-goal pace before the season was shut down. In 91-regular season games since January 2021, he has 53 goals. He’s not slowing down. At worst he’s keeping pace with what he has always done, and it’s possible he’s getting even better with age.

I do respect his ability and appreciate that I’m watching greatness, a generational talent and the best goal scorer in the history of the game, but that doesn’t take away how I feel when he’s playing the Rangers. And no, I don’t want him to break Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal record, though unless he unexpectedly decides to retire, he’s going to break it.

Zdeno Chara
Chara’s last three stops have gone from the Bruins to the Capitals to the Islanders. All he needs are stints stint with the Devils, Flyers and Penguins at this point to increase an animosity that doesn’t need any increasing.

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.

I will miss him when he’s no longer in the league though. Chara and Joe Thornton remain the last members of the ’90s club of current NHLers who played in that decade with both going back to the 1997-98 season. Derek Jeter was finishing his second major league season when Chara and Thornton both made their debuts, and this year will be eight years since Jeter retired, all while Chara and Thornton keep on playing in the NHL. It’s preposterous, and the length of their careers is something we may never see again, and we’re seeing it from two players at the same exact time.

GOALIE

Matt Murray
During Henrik Lundqvist’s number retirement ceremony, I couldn’t help but think how unfortunate Lundqvist was to have his career take place during a 15-year period in which the front office gave him to little no help defensively and asked him to single-handedly carry the organization to each win during his career. Lundqvist deserved better. He deserved more than one chance to play for the Stanley Cup, and he did everything one single member of a hockey team could do to win a championship.

It’s not Murray’s fault he got to play behind the 2015-16 and 2016-17 Penguins en route to back-to-back championships. And for as unreasonable as it is, it bothers me that he got to do so. I’m glad Lundqvist retired only ever playing in an NHL game for the Rangers, but I still wish he had agreed to waive his no-trade five and six years ago and went to a contender at the time and won. Then I wouldn’t have to think about the all the fortunate goalies over the years who have gotten their names engraved on the Cup, while Lundqvist who was undoubtedly the undisputed best goalie of his era never did.

We are close to when the NHL All-Star Game would take place in a normal season. But this season hasn’t even started yet, and there won’t be an All-Star Game, so the time when I usually release the season’s All-Animosity Team won’t exist this year. Maybe it’s for the better after last year’s “All-Star Game” featured Chris Kreider, Travis Konecny, Tyler Bertuzzi, Anthony Duclair and some questionable decisions in net.

By the time the Rangers open their season on Jan. 14, 2021, they won’t have played a regular-season game in 10 months and a day. In that 10 months and a day, they will have played three total games, all in their best-of-5 series against Carolina.

Because of the lack of games, there hasn’t been any animosity build toward new players to make the team. The All-Animosity Team for this season is the same as it was last season with some updates.

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 didn’t happen.

When Barzal is on the ice, I’m scared. I’m not scared at the level of Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin, 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.

I was hoping Barzal got offer sheets this offseason, and was hoping the Rangers might have even been one of the teams to offer him one. If no offer sheets, I hoped Barzal would hold out for the season. That didn’t happen either. His deal eventually got done and he’ll be an Islander for at least the next three seasons. Good for the rivalry, bad for the Rangers.

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 in 2018-19 and a first-place standing in the Atlantic last season, that line has never slowed down. Now, the Rangers will have to see that line for one-seventh of their regular-season schedule. Eight games against the Bruins makes isn’t ideal.

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
In his career, Ovechkin has 35 goals in 59 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 Ovechkin to slow down, thinking age or games played might start to catch up to him, but in his age 34 season he led the league in scoring with 48 goals and was on a 58-goal pace before the season was shut down. I do respect his ability and do appreciate that I’m watching greatness and a generational talent and arguably the best goal scorer in the history of the game, that just doesn’t take away how I feel when he’s playing the Rangers.

DEFENSEMEN

Zdeno Chara
Chara is no longer a Bruin, but the Rangers will still see him plenty now that he’s a Capital. The animosity will only increase because of his change of teams.

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 was staple for the Bruins and an exemplary captain of the team for 15 years (though I have always felt as though Patrice Bergeron deserved to wear the “C” all those 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 needed a representative from the Devils last season, and who was better to fill that role than their captain? Greene is no longer with the Devils, but he’s with the Islanders, and going from one Rangers rival to another made him an easy pick on this team’s blue line.

The Devils were a mess last season, and that led to them moving Greene. 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 ended up on the bubble for was winning the draft lottery again. The Devils have the pieces in place to rebound in this shortened season, but let’s hope that’s not the case. The Rangers newly-aligned division is hard enough.

GOALIE

Braden Holtby
For years I only had to worry about picking the forwards and defensemen for this team because I knew Martin 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 14 of 26 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.

Holtby is now in Vancouer, so the animosity for him will go away. For now, there’s no better option, but there will be for next year.

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.

It’s been nearly two years since the Rangers last played in a postseason game. Two years. The worst part is no one knows when they will play their next postseason game.

Unfortunately, the Rangers let their most recent window of opportunity (2011-2016) slam shut without a championship and now they are in a rebuild with their only real high-end talent in the system not even in the system yet. The best prospect the Rangers have isn’t even a player, it’s the No. 2 pick in the 2019 draft, which they miraculously won on Tuesday night. Maybe Jack Hughes or Kappo Kaako will be a true star and the Rangers can win free agency and their slow rebuild can be greatly accelerated. But if it’s not, this likely won’t be the last time I have a “Stanley Cup Dilemma” prior to the Stanley Cup Playoffs starting because I won’t have the Rangers to root for for even a single round in the near future.

Here are the 16 playoff teams and the order I will be rooting for them over the next two-plus months.

1. Sharks
Joe Thornton. He’s who I’m rooting for in these playoffs. I want Jumbo Joe to retire with a Stanley Cup and it will be sad if he’s unable to. Outside of pulling for Henrik Lundqvist to win a Cup, which isn’t going to happen as long as he wants to remain with the Rangers, Thornton is the one other play I desperately want to win. Even after reaching the Final three years ago, this team is his best chance to win a championship. If the Sharks can’t win it this year, it’s not going to happen with Thornton on the team.

2. Stars
Mats Zuccarello. Like his best friend Lundqvist, Zuccarello’s time in New York was wasted by surrounding a strong core with the worst imaginable defense. Zuccarello loved New York and being a Ranger and trade rumors this season negatively affected both his life both on and off the ice. After the Rangers failed to come to terms with him on a contract extension and traded him, seeing him smile when he scored in his first game with the Stars made me smile. If the Stars win, Zuccarello wins and the Rangers win since they will get Dallas’ first-round pick if the Stars win at least two rounds in the playoffs.

3. Predators
The Predators were close two years ago, losing to the Penguins in six games. I have nothing at all against the team (outside of a few bets they lost me this season with some disappointing performances), and P.K. Subban winning it in Nashville wouldn’t go over so well in Montreal.

4. Flames
The Flames are fun to watch and Johnny Gaudreau is my favorite player to watch in the entire the league. Everything he does looks effortless and the numbers he has compiled and resume he has built since entering the league with his size is incredible. Unfortunately, the Flames have Mike Smith in goal, so for as much as I would enjoy seeing them win, it’s going to take a lot of offense, and in the postseason, that’s not something that should be relied on.

5. Golden Knights
I pulled for the Golden Knights last season in their first season and jumped on their postseason bandwagon as a compilation of players other teams didn’t care to protect. I wanted them to deprive the Capitals of a championship, and they weren’t able to, but I will gladly root for them again.

6. Blues
The Blues are the oldest team to never win the Cup. As much as I enjoy championship droughts for teams I despise, I root for them to end for teams I have no relationship with.

7. Avalanche
I have always believed the NHL needs to redo their postseason format. There should be more of a reward for winning your division or being the 1-seed in your conference than one extra home game in a seven-game series. The Lightning just completed what is tied for the best regular season of all time and they have to play a dangerous and deep Blue Jackets team in the first round despite dominating for 82 games and six months. The Avalanche winning would mean yet another 8-seed survived the postseason, like the Kings just as recently as seven years ago, and will only further enforce the idea the current format needs to be changed.

8. Jets
Winnipeg lost its team to Arizona. Yes, Jets fans got their team back, but they deserve to win for Gary Bettman’s “Let’s put hockey in all the southern states” plan.

9. Maple Leafs
The Maple Leafs’ championship drought might not be as long as the Cubs’ and Red Sox’, but to me, it’s actually worse. The Maple Leafs are hockey, and after having gone to Toronto for the season-opening Yankees-Blue Jays series last year, it really hit home how incredible it is the team hasn’t won since 1967. I can’t even imagine what Toronto would be like if the Maple Leafs were to win it all.

The downside is I’m not a Mike Babcock fan, and for the Maple Leafs to win, it means Babcock wins. But at the same time, John Tavares winning the Cup with Toronto would crush Islanders fans, and I’m all for Islanders fans being sad. Also, the Maple Leafs winning would mean they had to beat both the Bruins and Lightning (both teams are at the bottom of this list) to do so, and that works well for my personal fandom.

10. Hurricanes
It makes me sick when the Hurricanes wear the Whalers jerseys. Either change your name to the Carolina Whalers or stop bringing up the nostalgia of hockey in Connecticut. The Hurricanes are a constant reminder of the Whalers’ move and they make me sick.

11. Blue Jackets
At this point, I don’t care if John Tortorella wins again. Yes, he forced Marian Gaborik out of New York for scoring goals instead of blocking shots, and it was Gaborik who led the Kings in scoring in the playoffs in which they beat the Rangers, but if the Blue Jackets win, a lot of worse options from the East won’t.

12. Penguins
I like watching greatness and the Penguins have been just that in the Sidney Crosby era with three championships. So while most Rangers fans despise Crosby and the Penguins, I don’t. He’s a generational talent and on the short list of the best players in the history of the game. I have no problem with him winning a fourth Cup.

13. Capitals
In the never-ending Sidney Crosby-Alexander Ovechkin debate, I have always been Team Crosby. Aside from the career points per game and being an all-around complete player, Crosby’s three Cups to Ovechkin’s now one has always served as support for my argument. I can’t have him winning another one, let alone in back-to-back seasons.

14. Islanders
You’re probably wondering how the Islanders are only 14th out of 16. You’ll see why. Obviously, no Rangers fan could pull for the Islanders to win it all, and I’m certainly not. The only series in which I would root for the Islanders would be if they’re playing the 16th team in the Eastern Conference finals, and then I would root for the Western Conference champion to win the Cup.

15. Bruins
If the Bruins were to win the Cup, it would mean Boston has won the World Series, Super Bowl and Stanley Cup in consecutive. Outside of the Red Sox and Mets meeting in the World Series (since one team would have to win), three straight championships for Boston would be as bad as it gets.

16. Lightning
I’m still sick over having to watch three ex-Yankees, who were all painful to watch as Yankees, in Nathan Eovaldi, Eduardo Nunez and Steve Pearce win a World Series with the Red Sox this past October. All three had a significant hand in beating the Yankees during the regular season and again in the ALDS. I will never get over it.

The same thing nearly happened in the 2014-15 Stanley Cup Playoffs when the Lightning beat the Rangers in Game 7 at the Garden to advance to the Final. Thankfully, the Blackhawks beat the Lightning and Rangers fans were able to avoid having to watch Ryan Callahan, Brian Boyle and Anton Stralman hoist the Cup at the Rangers’ expense.

For the foreseeable future, I have to worry about a similar situation. The Lightning currently have the following ex-Rangers on their team: Callahan, Stralman, Ryan McDonagh, Dan Girardi and J.T. Miller. I can’t have the Lightning winning the Cup this season or any season in which those names are still on their roster. Sure, the Rangers get the Lightning’s first-round pick if they win the Cup, but I don’t care. After Girardi’s disastrous decline with the Rangers, which included him single-handedly giving away games to the Kings in the Final, the last thing I want is to see him holding the Cup over his head.