Keefe To The City

Mar 23, 2015

The Scared of the Rangers Playing Them in the Playoffs Power Rankings Part II

We’re a month closer to the Stanley Cup playoffs, so it’s time to update who Rangers fans shouldn’t want to play in the postseason.

The Rangers are still going to the playoffs. Since the first time I put out these rankings on Feb. 24, the Rangers have gone 10-2-1 and now sit in first in the Metropolitan Division and share the lead league in points (99) with Montreal and Anaheim. However, they have two games in hand on Montreal and three games in hand on Anaheim. So, yes, right now the Rangers are technically the best team in the entire NHL.

I don’t know that anyone could have seen a 35-8-3 run coming after they lost to Detroit on Dec. 6 to fall to 11-10-4. And certainly no one saw the Rangers going 17-3-3 after losing Henrik Lundqvist at the beginning of February. But here we are on March 23, a day after the Rangers embarrassed the Ducks with a 7-2 win at the Garden with the Rangers sitting atop the NHL.

Some things have changed over the last month since the original rankings came out and with 12 games and 19 days left in the season, I thought it was time to revisit them and put out the second installment of The Scared of the Rangers Playing Them in the Playoffs Power Rankings.

1. MONTREAL CANADIENS
Because I follow some Canadiens fans on Twitter, I’m not as scared of the Canadiens as I was a month ago. Yes, they’re still the biggest obstacle between the Rangers and getting back to the Stanley Cup Final, but hearing Canadiens fans complain about how the team isn’t as good as their record indicates, but rather it’s the Vezina- and MVP-like performance from Carey Price that has them in first in the Atlantic and tied with the Rangers in points has me less worried.

After losing six of eight to start March, the Canadiens have gotten back on track with three straight wins and back-to-back shutouts from Price. Price currently has a 1.86 goals against average and .938 save percentage. To put that in perspective, during Henrik Lundqvist’s memorable 1.97/.929 he was unbeatable and Price is having an even better season than that.

I don’t care how upset Canadiens fans might be or appear to be about their team’s recent play. The Canadiens are the team to beat for the Rangers.

2. TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING
The Rangers went 0-3 against the Lightning this year and haven’t seen them since Dec. 1 when the Rangers were a completely different team. So now there is a lot of mystery and unknown in how these two teams match up, but like I said a month ago, losing a playoff series to a team with Ryan Callahan, Brian Boyle and Anton Stralman isn’t exactly how I want this Rangers season to end.

3. BOSTON BRUINS
I know this doesn’t look right having the Bruins this high up when they only have a one-point lead on Ottawa right now for the 8-seed and Ottawa has a game in hand on the Bruins, but this team never dies and the last thing I want them to do is get hot over the next two-plus weeks and then be the Rangers’ first-round opponent. The Bruins are the hardest team to put away in the third period and they seem to always tie up any game once Tuukka Rask heads to the bench in the final minute. They are playoff-tested and still have 11 players from their 2010-11 Cup-winning team and 13 of players from their 2012-13 Cup-losing team on their roster. While New York could use a series win over the Bruins to start to tilt the city rivalry back the right way, I’m not sure the reward is worth the risk.

4. OTTAWA SENATORS
The Senators moved into eighth place in the East on Monday night with a win over San Jose. I watched the third period because of a financial investment in the game and the Senators went into the third trailing 2-1 before turning into Team Canada and scoring four goals en route to a 5-2 win. The Senators opened February with five losses in seven games, but since they are 15-1-1. That’s insane. The Rangers will see them twice in the next two weeks and I will have a better feel for what Rangers fans could be in for in a seven-game series with the Senators, but they are peaking at the right time and after the seven-game scare from them in the 2011-12 playoffs, I don’t want any part of them.

5. NEW YORK ISLANDERS
That sound you hear is nothing. It’s silence. It’s every Islanders fan that chirped Rangers fans with the “Best Team in New York” title for the first four-plus months of the season with nothing left to say.

6. PITTSBURGH PENGUINS
Since 2007-08 everyone has been riding the Penguins and since then they have two Stanley Cup Final appearances (2007-08 and 2008-09) and one Cup (2008-09). There’s a good chance we are looking at a 30 for 30 in the future being made about how much of a disappointment the Sidney Crosby Penguins era was. Here is what the Penguins have done since winning the Cup in 2008-09.

2009-10: Blew 3-2 series lead in first round to Canadiens and lost Game 7 at home.

2010-11: Blew 3-1 series lead in first round to Lightning and lost 1-0 in Game 7 at home.

2011-12: Lost in first round in six games to Flyers and allowed 30 goals in the series.

2012-13: Swept in conference finals by Bruins and scored two goals in the series.

2013-14: Blew 3-1 series lead in second round to Rangers and lost Game 7 at home.

For the first time in the last eight years, no one seems to be backing or hyping or believing in the Penguins and that’s what makes them dangerous. They still have Sidney Crosby and they still have Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury is having the best year of his career. The Penguins are playing without any pressure with a new head coach/general manager regime and without everyone expecting them to play for and win the Cup and that might be the scariest thing of all.

7. DETROIT RED WINGS
Ryan Brandell of Barstool Sports Chicago has been telling me about the Red Wings all year on every podcast we have done. And because the Red Wings are sort of a mystery team because of their move to the East last year coupled with their abundance of injuries in 2013-14 and their first-round, five-game exit in the playoffs, I started to worry about them because I felt like I didn’t know enough about them and hadn’t seen enough of them and wondered how they were having such a remarkable season. But then I watched the Rangers go to Detroit without Henrik Lundqvist and thoroughly dominate the Red Wings for 60 minutes and lose 2-1 in overtime on a fluky goal.

Jimmy Howard was the only reason the Red Wings were even in the game and I would be willing to bet against him having that type of performance for an entire seven-game series because nothing he has done in his career to this point suggests he will. So unless Howard turns into 2002-03 Jean-Sebastien Giguere then I like the Rangers’ chances against the Red Wings.

8. WASHINGTON CAPITALS
The Rangers have played the Capitals since the first installment of these rankings. The game was on March 11 and the Rangers beat them 3-1 in Washington. It was a pretty easy win for the Rangers and despite the Capitals tying the game at 1 in the first period, it felt like the Rangers would win all along, and they did.

A series against the Capitals means the Rangers will play another series after it. Give me the Capitals.

Contest

Mar 23, 2015

Frozen Four Challenge

The field of 16 is set for the 2015 NCAA Men’s Hockey Tournament and the games begin this Friday at 2 p.m. Keefe To The City has partnered with Sounder Goods this year for a

Frozen Four

The field of 16 is set for the 2015 NCAA Men’s Hockey Tournament and the games begin this Friday at 2 p.m.

Keefe To The City has partnered with Sounder Goods this year for a giveaway to the bracket winner. Enter the Keefe To The City Frozen Four Challenge and win monogrammed anchors and a monogrammed card wallet from Sounder Goods.

Shade Anchors Card Case

ENTRY DETAILS:
Click here to register and log in.

Group Name: KeefeToTheCity
Password: kttc2015

Once you have entered, email your full name and bracket username to keefetothecity@gmail.com.

Good luck!

Opening Day • Podcasts • Yankees

Mar 20, 2015

Podcast: Shane Spencer

During the Yankees’ dynasty it seemed like every player they called up filled a role and no one did it better than Shane Spencer.

Former Yankee and three-time World Series champion Shane Spencer joined me to talk about September 1998, the 1998 World Series against his hometown Padres, Gary Denbo and the Yankees’ minor league staff, the 2001 World Series, playing after 9/11, his success against Curt Schilling, the breakdown of the Flip Play, his relationship with Paul O’Neill, coming up through the minors with the Core Four and how the team changed in 2002.

Blogs • Opening Day • Yankees

Mar 20, 2015

The Face of the Yankees

For the first time since 1996, the Yankees have a new face of their team and it’s somehow not every fan is going to be happy about. It’s A-Rod.

My whole life someone has been the “Face of the Yankees”. I worn born in 1986 and back then it was Don Mattingly. When he retired after the 1995 season, Derek Jeter was the starting shortstop, Rookie of the Year and World Series champion in 1996, so it was a nice seamless transition from one era of Yankees baseball to the next. But now that Jeter has retired (or so he says since I’m still holding out hope he will be in the Opening Day lineup), the Yankees need a new face.

Brian Cashman was recently asked about who would be the next captain of the Yankees and he said, “As far as I’m concerned, and I’m not the decision-maker on this, that captaincy should be retired with No. 2. I wouldn’t give up another captain title to anybody else.”

Being the captain of a team doesn’t make you the face of it, but it’s just worked out recently that it has been the case for the Yankees. I’m not sure that the Yankees should never have a captain again. I mean if somehow the Baseball Gods give us another Derek Jeter (please) then that’s one thing, but for now, I do agree with Cashman. The Yankees don’t need a captain. They do however need a face. The Yankees can’t be faceless. They can’t be the Blue Jays or A’s.

On the 2015 Yankees, you can eliminate Stephen Drew, who will be designated for assignment at some point this season and hopefully by Opening Day, from being the face of the team. Drew will be part of the Everybody Gets to Be a Yankee Once Team the second he is released, so at least he has that going for him.

You can eliminate Didi Gregorius, who hasn’t played a game for the Yankees, and you can also eliminate Chase Headley, who is just a guy on the team and not “the guy” on the team. I’m a Headley fan, but he isn’t the reason people are going to spend their nights watching the team on YES or spend their hard-earned money going to the Stadium.

Aside from winning an MVP award, it’s equally as hard for a starting pitcher to be the face of a franchise since they will at most play in 21 percent of the team’s games (based on 34 starts) and only having the face of the team play once every fifth day isn’t an easy sell. Well, unless you’re Clayton Kershaw or Felix Hernandez. The only starting pitcher that even comes close to that level is Masahiro Tanaka and while he comes close to that level, he isn’t there yet and deeming someone whose right arm status is being treated as a ticking time bomb isn’t the most sound decision.

Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran were all free-agent signings in the same offseason, so they’re out of the question because they were free-agent signings. But that’s not a bad thing since I don’t want a player who won two World Series with the Red Sox, a catcher who hit .232/.286/.406 last season or a soon-to-be 38-year-old oft-injured outfielder the Yankees signed nine years too late to be the face of the team.

CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira were free-agent signings in the same offseason, so like the pre-2014 class, this pre-2009 class is also eliminated. But also like the pre-2014 class, it’s not a bad thing since I don’t want a 34-year-old starter coming off a serious knee injury, who has made 40 starts in the last two seasons, going 17-17 with a 4.87 ERA to be the face of the team. As for Mark Teixeira, or “The Mailman” as I have decided to call him since he has mailed it in for the last three years despite making $22.5 million, I obviously don’t want him to be the face of the team.

That leaves us with Brett Gardner and Alex Rodriguez, the two longest-tenured Yankees. Gardner isn’t “face of the team” material despite being homegrown and having been in the majors with the Yankees since 2008. And when it comes to A-Rod, he is loved and hated by the fan base, is coming off a full-season suspension for PED use and is somehow still viewed as a postseason failure and unclutch even after he single-handedly carried the Yankees to the 2009 World Series.

But also when it comes to A-Rod, he’s been the focal point of every Yankees story since the last out of 2014. He’s the reason people have paid attention to spring training since Joe Girardi has made it clear there aren’t any position battles to follow. He’s the reason people will go to the Stadium this spring and summer. He’s the only Yankee that has the Yankees star power that every era of Yankees baseball has had. With Jeter gone, A-Rod is the first person someone names when you ask them “Who do you think of when you think of the Yankees right now?” A-Rod is the face of the Yankees.

Having 2015 A-Rod as the face of your team isn’t exactly the most exciting idea and maybe not the proudest moment of being a Yankees fan, but every team needs a face, and for now the Yankees’ is a 39-year-old, who has played 265 games in the last four seasons. A-Rod represents what the Yankees have become, which is an old, broken-down, non-homegrown, overpaid player trying to stay healthy enough to play out of the rest of a bad contract.

Aside from October and the beginning of November 2009, very little has gone the way I envisioned it going when A-Rod was traded to the Yankees in February 2004 when he was still viewed as a face of the game. But in this new era of Yankees baseball, I want to add 2015 to the very little that has gone right for A-Rod in the last 11 years.

Podcasts • Rangers

Mar 18, 2015

Podcast: Ryan Brandell

The Rangers are now the class of the NHL along with the Blackhawks and for the second time in a little over a week, we get a potential Stanley Cup Final preview.

The Rangers are the class of the Eastern Conference. The Blackhawks are the class of the Western Conference. For the second time in just over a week the two teams meet in what we might be able to call a Stanley Cup Final preview if both teams stay healthy for the next two-plus months.

Ryan Brandell of Barstool Sports Chicago (known as “Chief” on that site), joined me to talk about welcoming the Rangers to the class of the NHL, the comfort of knowing your team is going to the playoffs early on and what to do with the shootout and loser point.