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May 24, 2013

Rangers-Bruins Game 4 Thoughts: Extend the Season

The Rangers staved off elimination with a win in Game 4 to send the series back to Boston and extend the season for at least one more game.

I had already gotten over the 2012-13 season after leaving MSG following Game 3, so I was prepared for whatever happened in Game 4. If the Rangers lost it wasn’t going to be a surprise and if they won, it would mean I would get to watch at least one game over the weekend in Nantucket for Figawi.

I watched Game 4 the way I would watch an exhibition with no real emotional investment knowing that it would take an actual miracle for the Rangers’ season to continue past this series and it would take an epic collapse from the Bruins not seen since the 2009-10 Bruins.

When the Rangers trailed recorded four shots in the first period, I didn’t have a good feeling. When the Rangers went down 1-0 at 4:39 of the second period, I thought it was over. When the Rangers went down 2-0 at 7:41 of the second period, I knew it was over. But 58 seconds later, Tuukka Rask let in the strangest goal I have ever seen in my life and the “Two-Goal Lead” theory that I said doesn’t pertain to the Rangers was suddenly in play.

The Rangers tied the game at 2 and I felt like I have so many times before with the New York Football Giants pulling me back into a game or a season only to eventually pull out the rug from underneath me. I thought Tyler Seguin’s goal with 11:54 left in the game was that rug, but “Ladies and gentlemen, Brian Boyle!” saved the game and the season 1:54 later and Chris “I Should Have Been Traded for Rick Nash” Kreider scored in overtime on a pass from Rick Nash to give me at least one more hockey game this season.

Game 4 felt as weird as Game 4 of the ALCS felt. Winning means most likely prolonging the inevitable and losing means the end of the season. The difference is the Rangers won Game 4 and the Yankees didn’t. And for at least one game, “Why not us?” has some meaning.

(These Thoughts have clearly grown shorter as the season has started to take a turn for the worse.)

May 22, 2013

Rangers-Bruins Game 3 Thoughts: ‘Why Not Us?’

The Rangers lost Game 3 and will now need to ask themselves something Curt Schilling asked almost nine years ago to extend their season.

Thanks to my girlfriend I was in attendance for Game 3, sitting 16 rows behind Tuukka Rask’s net (or his net for two periods). Between the second and third periods with the Rangers holding a 1-0 lead, I walked to the bottom of my section, where the refs come out, and met my former boss, “Z”, who is the producer for Bruins hockey on NESN (I interned for him during senior year of college and the 2007-08 Bruins season). He was glowing about the Bruins’ 2-0 series lead and told me, “This team hasn’t played this well in a long time.” He wasn’t nervous about the Bruins trailing 1-0 and Henrik Lundqvist standing on his head through 40 minutes. The Rangers went 3-0 against the Capitals at MSG in the first round and they were riding an epic performance from Lundqvist here in Game 3. How could he be confident about the Bruins in the third period? I thought he was nuts. He wasn’t. The Bruins scored 3:10 into the third to tie the game took the lead for good with 3:31 left with a goal from their fourth line.

Looking back on the game it seems like a blur. Maybe because the seats were great (and the Coors Lights were too) or because the game was so significant, but it seemed to go like a CC Sabathia-Felix Hernandez 1-0 game would go. It felt like the whole thing happened in 30 minutes. I feel like I don’t even remember much of what happened, which might be due to the physical, emotional and mental fatigue of worrying about the Rangers clearing the puck out of the zone for an entire game the way I had done for Game 6 of the quarterfinals at the Garden.

The only thing left to do now is take a page out of Curt Schilling’s book and ask, “Why not us?” the way I did after Game 3 of the 2012 ALCS. Maybe this time a New York team will give the correct answer to that question.

May 20, 2013

Rangers-Bruins Game 2 Thoughts: Two-Goal Lead Isn’t Worst Lead in Hockey

The Rangers were embarrassed by the Bruins in Game 2 and face another must-win situation at home on Tuesday night.

My whole life I have been told “the two-goal lead is the worst lead in hockey” and all my life I have believed this theory because I have seen it erased what seems like the majority of the time. But the time has to come for me to alter the phrase to “the two-goal lead is the worst lead in hockey unless that two-goal lead is against the Rangers.”

When the Bruins went up 4-2 just 26 seconds into the third period, I thought that maybe the Rangers would catch the Bruins taking their foot off the gas, pop in a third goal and cut the lead to one and then use the momentum change to tie the game. Maybe it was the Coors Light bringing out the optimist in me, but for me to think that scenario was even remotely possible even for a second, I’m surprised I don’t still leave milk and cookies out for Santa on Christmas Eve.

Who the eff was I kidding? The Rangers weren’t going to score a third goal, let alone a third and fourth goal and then a fifth goal, which would have been needed to win the game at the time when little did we know it was going to take six goals to beat the Bruins in Game 2. The 2012-13 Rangers have scored six goals three times in 57 games this season and they weren’t about to make it a fourth in a playoff game, on the road, against the Bruins.

The Bruins got five goals from five different players and when you’re getting goals from Torey Krug (four previous career NHL games) and Johnny Boychuk (22 previous goals in 299 regular season and playoff games combined) and Greg Campbell (one previous goal in 40 playoff games), maybe you’re not going to be beaten this spring or summer and maybe the overused and overplayed “saying” will hold true in this series.

That saying is “it’s not a series until the home team loses.” It’s a saying I have never understood, but it’s been used since the Bruins won Game 2 on Sunday and it’s a saying we will hear until the start of Game 3. And if the Rangers win Game 3, it’s a saying we will hear until Game 4 and we will keep hearing until the home team does in fact lose a game in this series. But even if the Rangers were to win Games 3 and 4 at home, according to the saying they are only going to lose Game 5 before winning Game 6 and then losing Game 7. So if the Rangers are going to lose this series next Wednesday in Game 7 in Boston, why am I even watching? I’m watching because right now the chances are slim this thing lasts until Game 7. There’s a chance this thing might not even get back to Boston for Game 5.

The Rangers were embarrassed on Sunday afternoon in Boston in a way they haven’t been embarrassed since losing to Florida 3-1 at home on March 21 in what was the worst hockey game I have ever attended. So let’s start the Thoughts off with the man responsible for the embarrassing play on the ice.

– I gave John Tortorella credit for his preparation and game plan for Game 7 against Washington, but now it’s time to take that credit back. I’m not sure how the Rangers weren’t up for Game 2 from their first shift, but they were absolutely dominated in the opening minutes and it led to a Bruins goal at just 5:28 of the game. I don’t expect the Rangers to come out that flat-footed in Game 3 at home in a must-win game, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did. Nothing should surprise anyone with this team whether it’s positive or negative because “surprise” is the one word I would use to describe Tortorella’s tenure as Rangers coach. (Did I just accidentally give him the name of his book about his Rangers years once he is eventually fired? Surprise: John Tortorella’s Unexpected Reign as Rangers Coach.)

– The Rangers tied the game at 1 when Ryan Callahan beat Dougie Hamilton (just typing his name makes me think of Pierre McGuire blushing and trying to hide his pants tent between the benches) to a loose puck that led to a breakaway. The sequence that led to Callahan skating free almost looked like Hamilton’s skates were breaking down like Forrest Gump’s leg braces. First the blades, then the TUUKs, then the rivets then the boots then the laces. The only difference is Hamilton didn’t become faster. I didn’t think there was any way any 19-year-old defenseman in the NHL could be that slow, but apparently there is. Can we get a Hamilton vs. Brian Boyle goal line-to-goal line race during warmups before Game 3?

– Rick Nash came out from wherever he had been hiding for the first eight playoff games and tied the game at 2 by going top tit. Aside from a hot goalie, the scariest thing to face in the playoffs is a confident goal scorer, which is why I didn’t feel good about the Washington series with Alexander Ovechkin entering the playoffs on such a streak and scoring in Game 1 before he started to hang and play the role of four-line bruiser rather than world-class sniper. And if Nash has his confidence back after ending his goal-less postseason then maybe we won’t watch the Rangers season end at the Garden this week.

– Henrik Lundqvist wasn’t Henrik Lundqvist on Sunday. Hell, he wasn’t even Mike Dunham. But I’m not going to get on Lundqvist because that’s just not something I’m going to do. He knows he played poorly and I know he will bounce back in Game 3 because that’s what Henrik Lundqvist does. Lundqvist never gave up five goals in 43 games during the regular season, but he gave up four goals four times and in the four games following a game in which he gave up four goals, he went 4-0 with a 1.71 GAA and .934 save percentage. So no, I’m not worried about Lundqvist.

– “I have tried to be your friend, but you will not listen to me, so you have invited this monster…” That’s what Stevie Janowski tells Kenny Powers’ gym class when they’re not supposed to watch him pitch. And that’s what I’m telling John Tortorella (power-play specialist according to Pierre McGuire) and the Rangers power play.

How can a power play go 2-for-36? That’s not a rhetorical question. That’s a real question. I want an answer. How can the power play go 2-for-36? Maybe if the writers and reporters who attend Tortorella postgame press conferences would stop having thumb parties and ask a real question rather than the nonsensical questions they actually do ask we could get an answer to this because it deserves an answer. But according to Tortorella, the power play actually wasn’t bad despite going 0-for-5 in Game 2 since he said, “Our power play was better. Our power play was better today. We didn’t score, but it was better.” I guess we’re judging special teams on how they look rather than results now. I also guess most Rangers fans judge coaching that way too.

– The Rangers could have really used Dan Girardi in the lineup on Sunday. I hope he’s able to play on Tuesday because the guy who filled in for him in Game 2, who finished the game with a minus-4 rating, can’t possibly play in Game 3.

– Michael Del Zotto isn’t an offensive defenseman. Michael Del Zotto isn’t a defensive defenseman. Michael Del Zotto is just some guy that makes terrible decisions, shoots pucks into shin pads, misses the net and is a liability in his own zone. I don’t think there’s a position for that.

– No one should be surprised when the Rangers’ fourth line gives up a goal. The line consists of an overpaid, underachieving 33-year-old former star in Brad Richards, an overrated, should-have-been-traded-last-year 22-year-old first-round pick in Chris Kreider and an actual 35-year-old fourth-line checking forward and fighter in Arron Asham. That combination certainly makes me think Textbook Playoff Fourth Line!

– Torey Krug wouldn’t be playing in this series if Dennis Seidenberg or Andrew Ference or Wade Redden were healthy. It took three defenseman to be injured at the same time for him to get into the Bruins lineup and he has two goals and an assist in two games. It’s Claude Julien getting as lucky as he did in the 2010-11 playoffs when he had to insert Tyler Seguin into the lineup against Tampa Bay and the rookie single-handedly beat the Lightning. That Claude is one great coach!

– It was nice to see Derek Dorsett show some heart and fight Shawn Thornton in the third period, but why fight when trailing 5-2 with 6:51 left? Why not start something at the beginning of the period when it’s 4-2 with 19:36 left and the game is still within reach? Rangers hockey!

It’s been eight days since the Rangers played their last game at Madison Square Garden. All three of their games at home this postseason have been must-win games and they’re 3-0 in those games. If they’re not 4-0 when I write the Game 3 Thoughts there won’t be a point to writing the Game 4 Thoughts.

May 18, 2013

Rangers-Bruins Game 1 Thoughts: Thank You, Henrik Lundqvist

The Rangers lost Game 1 to the Bruins in overtime though without Henrik Lundqvist the game would have never made it to overtime.

Game 1 could have gone on for two more minutes or two more overtimes or it could still be going on and the Bruins were still going to win. If Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand didn’t beat Anton Stralman and Ryan McDonagh and then Henrik Lundqvist, someone else on the Bruins would have eventually ended the game.

The Bruins were clearly the better team in Game 1 and it was obvious everywhere except for the scoreboard with the game tied at 2 at the end of the third. But don’t let the game going to overtime make you think the two teams were actually even after regulation like John Tortorella thinks they were. (He said, “I thought it was pretty even going into overtime.”) The Rangers were completely dominated throughout the first game of what I still believe will be a series that needs seven games to be decided. And the only reason the game wasn’t over as early as the Rangers-Capitals Game 7 was is because of the man, the myth, the legend: Henrik Lundqvist. So once again let’s get the Thoughts started with the reason the Rangers weren’t run out of the TD Garden, run off Causeway Street, run down Canal Street and run into The Grand Canal, the worst bar in Boston.

– One day when Henrik Lundqvist pulls his number 30 to the Madison Square Garden rafters, there’s nothing the Rangers can give him on “Henrik Lundqvist Night” that will be enough to reward and repay him for being solely responsible for ending the Rangers’ playoff-less streak in 2005-06, which would still be going on without him.

In Game 1, Lundqvist faced 48 shots, the second-most he’s faced this season (he stopped 48-of-49 shots in Carolina on April 6), and stopped 45 of them. It was the most shots he had seen in the playoffs since the Rangers’ 4-3 double-overtime loss to the Capitals in the 2010-11 quarterfinals (also known as the “Boudreau Chants” game or the “Rangers Blew a 3-0 Third-Period Lead with a Chance to Tie the Series” game). In return, the Rangers recorded only 35 shots on Tuukka Rask, most of which came from low-percentage areas, including both of their goals, which were outside shots.

– They say “the post is the goalie’s best friend.” I’m not sure that’s true since I always thought “good defense should be the goalie’s best friend.” (In that case, Henrik Lundqvist is best friend-less and if he’s taking applications, where should I send mine to?) Unless you like your best friend to constantly scare the crap out of you before saying, “It was just a goof, man” like a worried Harry Dunne apologizing to a dying Joe Mentalino in Dumb and Dumber, then I’m not sure how the post is anyone’s best friend. I had several heart palpitations thanks to Johnny Boychuk and Jaromir Jagr and Tyler Seguin hitting the posts and crossbar Thursday night, so it’s going to be a while until the post and I are back on good terms.

– Ryan McDonagh’s untimely and ill-advised decision to jump up on the play in overtime cost the Rangers an odd-man rush against and cost them the game. Not even Henrik Lundqvist or a diving Mats Zuccarello, who fit neatly into the corner of the net like an empty puck bag, could stop Patrice Bergeron’s pass or Brad Marchand’s perfect puck placement. But to me, it was Ryan Callahan who had the worst game of all the Rangers. Callahan missed several chances to clear the zone on the penalty kill, twice unsuccessfully tried to chip the puck around the D, resulting in a turnover, and missed the net with shots on several attempts. I know Ryan Callahan didn’t cost the Rangers the game and I know no one in the Tri-state area likes hearing anyone badmouth the captain, but I have to be fair (unless being fair means saying something negative about Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Eli Manning or Henrik Lundqvist).

– Rick Nash: Come out, come out, wherever you are.

– The Rangers put together another Andruw Jones night, going 0-for-3 on the power play. The power play is now 2-for-31 in the playoffs, which actually might be harder to do than being 22-for-31 on the power play, kind of like going 0-for-12 in picking winners in a 12-team parlay.

Pierre McGuire complained about the Rangers’ “lack of slot presence” on the power play, but I’m not sure how you can have “slot presence” when you can’t successfully break out or get through the neutral zone without turning it over or set it up inside the Bruins’ zone without trying to get cute just inside the blue with it on the man advantage. Maybe Pierre will inform us of how this is possible in Game 2 unless he’s too busy rattling off Torey Krug’s entire hockey career and stats starting with his first year of youth hockey as a kid growing up in Livonia, Mich.

I would like to think something is going to change or click with the power play, but I would also like to think that the fistfight Adam Oates is calling for with John Tortorella will take place and unfortunately I know neither of these things will happen. The Rangers power play is what it is now after 56 games this season: a disaster. Luckily, the Bruins power play has been as bad this season (and also in the past like the Rangers’), but even the lowly Bruins power play found a way to convert once in Game 1. If the Bruins power play is going to produce in this series and the Rangers’ isn’t then we might as well pack up the sticks and pucks now and call it a season because I was banking on this series being won during even strength. We can’t have the Bruins suddenly figuring out how to score with a man advantage.

– Aside from Pierre McGuire telling us Torey Krug’s life story, he was also kind enough to remind us that Jaromir Jagr is “a 15-20 second shift guy” in the third period and overtime whenever number 68 was on the ice. We learned again that Rangers trainer Jim Ramsey is the Team Canada trainer and I’m pretty sure those were orgasmic noises Pierre was making anytime he said the name “Dougie Hamilton,” who he has had a clear man crush on since the beginning of the season. There’s no chance NBC Sports will have Pierre attend only the other three series in the semifinals and set us free of the Human HockeyDB.com, but maybe it’s for the better because these Thoughts wouldn’t be so long without him. In honor of Pierre, I’m going to “Pierre” the rest of the Thoughts.

– What was the former first-round pick of the Columbus Blue Jackets John Moore thinking when he decided to take that interference penalty on the power play? I’m serious. What was going through his head when he decided to just shove Rich Peverley down from behind away from the play? The Winnetka, Ill. native has to be much smarter than that if he’s going to move down low on the power play. (There’s a 150-percent chance Marian Gaborik would have been benched by Tortorella for the same penalty. He was benched for a lot less.)

And while we’re talking about penalties, Derek Dorsett made the right decision when he took his interference penalty on Peverley (effing Peverley again) in overtime the way he would have during his days in the WHL playing for the Medicine Hat Tigers. If Dorsett doesn’t take that penalty, it’s at least a 2-on-1 going the other way and the game is over. Granted the game would eventually end on a 2-on-1 anyway, but hey, at least we got like 12 more minutes of hockey after the Kindersley, Sask. product took a smart and necessary penalty.

The Rangers can still get the job done in Boston with a Game 2 win otherwise they will be in the same spot they were two weeks ago against the Capitals. And these Bruins aren’t the Capitals.

May 14, 2013

Rangers-Capitals Game 7 Thoughts: Finality in the Building

The Rangers won their first road Game 7 in franchise history and eliminated the Capitals thanks to five goals and a second consecutive shutout from Henrik Lundqvist.

Game 7 presents the scariest word in sports: finality. The finality of a team’s season is the worst imaginable situation in sports unless that team’s season ends with a championship. When finality comes at the end of the regular season and you know your team won’t being playing in a postseason which (in the case of the NHL) is about to go on for two-months plus, it’s devastating. And when your team is presented with finality in the first round of a postseason that will still have three rounds after it whether or not your team is in it, it’s devastating.

When finality becomes a possibility you start to think about the season and its games and the ups and downs and the disappointment knowing there will be an offseason and then training camp and then 82 games before the next postseason, and that between now and the next postseason the actual seasons will change and change again and change again and change again. Game 7 can be exhilarating to watch from an outside perspective like it was for any Rangers fan who watched the Anaheim-Detroit Game 7 on Sunday night. But when it’s your team and your season and your time that had been committed over the season (even if it was a shortened season), it’s not exhilarating. It’s petrifying.

At 8 p.m. on Monday the Rangers started a game in which finality was in the building for both teams just 28 hours after starting a game in which finality was present only for the Rangers in Madison Square Garden. Someone’s season was going to end on Monday night and I knew if the Rangers’ season was going to end in Washington, it was going to be because of their inability to score and not because of Henrik Lundqvist. But the Rangers found a way to score (and scored five times) and Henrik Lundqvist posted his second consecutive shutout. And for that, King Henrik starts things off in the Game 7 Thoughts.

– When the Rangers took a 2-0 lead, my girlfriend said, “The Rangers need to build a fort in front of the net.” And they did … when they used the 205^th overall pick in the seventh round of the 2000 NHL Draft on Henrik Lundqvist.

Monday was Lundqvist’s fourth career Game 7. He’s now 3-1 in those games and has allowed four total goals in the games. The one loss came in a 2-1 loss against the Capitals in the 2008-09 quarterfinals. But hey, he’s overrated and has never won the Cup, so let’s forget that he’s the best goalie on the planet! Only winning a championship matters when talking about talent and accomplishments. So yes, Chris Osgood was better than Henrik Lundqvist could ever be.

– How has Eric Fehr still not been suspended for his elbow on Derick Brassard in Game 6? Did Brendan Shanahan retire? Stupid question. Of course he didn’t. Who would retire from a job in which they don’t have perform well at and still get paid a ridiculous salary? (No, this thought doesn’t matter anymore since the series and Capitals season is over, but I just wanted to know how a blatant head shot away from the play goes unpunished.)

– It’s hard to know when Alexander Ovechkin is playing dirty and cheap and when he’s playing like the all-world, all-around magnificent player that he is. In Game 7, he played like the latter and proved his worth as the captain of the Capitals. (Even if he would later say the NHL had planned a conspiracy to force the series to a seventh game and have the Rangers win.)

– For as much as I get on John Tortorella, and I would say I get on him more than anyone in the Tri-state area, the Game 7 win was his best single-game coaching job as Rangers head coach. The win was the first on the road in franchise history and after losing Games 1, 2 and 5 in Washington and scoring just two goals in the three games, which included two overtimes, the adjustments made on Monday were perfect. The 5-0 win was as dominant of a performance the Rangers have had in a long, long time, especially in the postseason and I’m willing to give Tortorella credit for the win. You’re welcome, John. (And fine, you can stay for the 2013-14 season for now.)

– Here’s who scored in Game 7 for the Rangers: Arron Asham, Taylor Pyatt, Michael Del Zotto, Ryan Callahan and Mats Zuccarello. The only true offensive players in that list are Callahan and Zuccarello and Zuccarello is a playmaker before a scorer. What does this mean? Team effort. What else does this mean? Well…

– Rick Nash had zero goals in the Washington series. Zero. I mean for eff’s sake, he had just two assists. Henrik Lundqvist is the first reason why the Rangers can win any series in the postseason. The Rangers surviving a seven-game series with Nash scoring no goals is the second not only because it shows their depth, but it also means that if you believe in “being due” then Nash is more due than anyone in the postseason.

Tyler Seguin is also going through the same struggles as Nash after tallying just one assist in the Bruins’ seven-game series with Maple Leafs. That means that Nash and Seguin combined for 14 games played, no goals and three assists in the first round. Scoring has been a problem for both teams for stretches this season, including the postseason, but when you know that both teams were able to win series without their best scorers putting even one puck in the net, it’s remarkable.

– In the first game of the series, Brad Richards played 22:14. In Game 2 he played 20:41. In Games 6 and 7, he played 20:46 combined. Game 6 (9:34) was his least amount of ice time this season and most likely ever in his entire life and Game 7 (11:12) was his second-lowest amount of ice time this season (and most likely also his second-lowest amount of ice time ever in his entire life). This is the Rangers’ second-highest paid skater and the 2003-04 Conn Smythe winner responsible for John Tortorella’s Stanley Cup playing 20:46 in two combined elimination games.

Richards has been the focal point of “amnesty” conversation this season with a massive contract that runs through the 2020-21 season and he’s fortunate the Rangers made it through the first round. Richards now has at least another round to turn around his season and prove his worth to the team and to end the conversation that want him out of New York. I’m not sure that he will be able to fix the damage his game and reputation have taken this postseason, but displaying even a glimpse of the 2003-04 Brad Richards (eff, I’ll even take a glimpse of the 2011-12 Brad Richards) will go a long way in his return to the team next year.

The Rangers have eluded finality twice and now they have at least four more games left in their season. The next time finality is in the building for the Rangers, I can only hope Philip Pritchard is carrying it.