Keefe To The City

Sep 19, 2014

Podcast: Tim Duff

The Jets had an 18-point lead in Green Bay last week, but blew it in typical Jets fashion, which was hard to watch for even the most optimistic Jets fan.

The Jets held a 21-3 lead over the Aaron Rodgers and the Packers at Lambeau Field in the Packers’ home opener a week after they were run out of Seattle. But like the Jets do and have done for decades, they found a way to blow that lead and lose the game. And they even lost a chance to tie the game in the fourth quarter thanks to a controversial timeout called from their sideline.

Before the start of the Jets’ season, I had my friend and lifelong optimistic Jets fan Tim Duff on the podcast to talk about his expectations for the Jets in 2014. He mentioned that he we would be at Lambeau Field for the Jets’ Week 2 game against the Packers, so after everything that unfolded in Green Bay, I knew I had to talk to him again about the Jets’ meltdown.

Blogs • Giants

Sep 18, 2014

NFL Week 3 Picks

The Week 2 Picks went about as well as the Giants-Cardinals game and 2014 is beginning to look a lot like 2013 for my picks and the Giants.

Last year my picks season mirrored the Giants’ season. My start was as bad as their 0-6 start, I picked it up in the middle of the season, but fell short of making up for the early-season mistakes to save the season. This year, unfortunately, I have a feeling I’m going to go down the same road.

Last week, Eli Manning threw two interceptions (even if one came with nine seconds left and the game already over), Rashad Jennings lost a fumble for just the second time in 55 career games despite after tripping over his own feet and going untouched, the special teams let Ted Ginn Jr. ran back a 71-yard punt return, Quintin Demps fumbled the kickoff following the Ginn Jr. return to seal the loss and on two plays the Giants’ 14-13 lead became an insurmountable deficit. As for me, well I went 4-12 in Week 2 and likely put myself in an insurmountable hole with still 15 weeks to pick games and then the playoffs.

(Home team in caps)

ATLANTA -6.5 over Tampa Bay
The Thursday game used to be my bread and butter. No matter who I picked, I would win. This year, however, I’m off to an 0-2 start thanks to thinking the Packers could hang around in Seattle with a healthy Aaron Rodgers and for thinking that the circus surrounding the Ravens would be too much for them to beat up on the Steelers. (But to my credit, 10 of the previous 12 Steelers-Ravens games were decided by three points and one of the other two was decided by four points.)

The Tampa Bay bandwagon has been pulled out of service like the New York subway cars with bed bugs and after losing at home to a Rams team quarterbacked by Austin Davis, I think it’s been derailed for the season. Normally I wouldn’t give 6.5 points in a divisional game (unless that game involves the Jaguars or Raiders), but I think I have to make an exception for the Buccaneers after their first two games.

BUFFALO -2.5 over San Diego
In 2008, the Bills started 4-0 and were 5-1 before finishing the season 2-8. In 2011, the Bills were 3-0 then 4-1 then 5-2 before finishing the season 1-8. Since making the playoffs in 1999, the Bills have finished over .500 once (9-7 in 2004) and were 88-136 in the 14 seasons since then.

I want the Bills to be good. Bills fans deserve to have a team that’s good. And this 2-0 start with wins over the Bears on the road and the Dolphins at home are either a sign that Bills fans are getting what they deserve or just the latest example of how insane parity in the NFL truly is. It’s hard to buy into a good Bills start when you consider the way two other good starts finished in recent years, but the Chargers are coming off the high of beating the Super Bowl champions and then have to fly across the country to face an overly-confident Bills team, so this un-Bills-like start might not be over yet.

Dallas -1 over ST. LOUIS RAMS
I wish I could use this:

Somewhere someone who isn’t a Cowboys fan or a Rams fan is going to bet on this game and watch it in its entirety. Think about that.

But because it’s the Cowboys, most of the country is going to watch and bet on this game. (I do realize a lot of the time I should be using that “Somewhere someone who isn’t a …” on Giants games.)

Washington +6.5 over PHILADELPHIA
After a long wedding weekend, I fell asleep before the Colts blew their 27-20 fourth-quarter lead and gave the Eagles a win I desperately didn’t want them to get for the Giants’ (very slim) playoff chances this year.

If RGIII were starting this game, I would have picked Philadelphia to cover, but Kirk Cousins is now the Redskins’ starting quarterback and that’s bad news for the Giants since the NFC East already has enough average teams who could possbily someway somehow sneak into the playoffs.

NEW YORK GIANTS +2 over Houston
This is it for the New York Football Giants and me. This is a must-win game and if they lose this game their season is over at 0-3, two weeks after it started. Last year at 0-6, the Giants were able to fight back to 4-6 and put themselves in position to control their own destiny, but this year that won’t work. After giving up a very winnable home game against a back-up quarterback, who hadn’t played in a game since 2010, the Giants now have to go 10-4 to make the playoffs. The problem is that after the Texans this Sunday and the Redskins on Thursday night, they have Atlanta, Philadelphia, Dallas, Indianapolis, Seattle and San Francisco. Even if the first three of those six games aren’t exactly a gauntlet, the last three certainly are. So this is it for the 2014 Giants and for me picking the 2014 Giants.

NEW ORLEANS -10.5 over Minnesota
The first Saints home game of the season. Let me go back to what I said before their last home game in 2013.

The Saints’ last home loss with Sean Payton as head coach came in Week 17 in 2010 when they had nothing to play for. Including the playoffs, with Payton as head coach, the Saints have won all of their home games since that loss and here are their margins of victory in those games: 25, 18, 3, 32, 18, 21, 24, 6, 17, 28, 29, 14, 25, 11, 55, 7 and 17.

The Saints don’t lose in the Superdome and that’s before you factor in that they are 0-2 and looking at watching their season end before it even starts like it did in 2012. On top of that, the Vikings have a PR nightmare on their hands with their best player being inactive and then active and then placed on the exempt list in a single day. The AP Vikings could have been in the mix for the NFC North title, but the AP-less Vikings will have Teddy Bridgewater learning to play in the NFL starting around Week 5.

CINCINNATI -7 over Tennessee
The Bengals are becoming the AFC Saints and Paul Brown Stadium is becoming the Superdome. The Bengals have won their last 10 regular-season home games since Week 14 in 2012 and have become the best team in the AFC North since the start of last year.

CLEVELAND +1.5 over Baltimore
I have been rooting against the Browns for the first two weeks of the season because Browns wins mean no Johnny Football. After putting a scare into the Steelers in Pittsburgh, the Browns beat the Outside the Superdome Saints and instead of “JOHN-NY FOOT-BALL” chants in Cleveland, Browns fans think they have a chance to compete and an outside chance at the postseason with Brian Hoyer. As badly as I want the Browns’ season to hit a losing streak, so that Johnny Football starts to play, I want the Ravens to lose that much more.

Green Bay +2.5 over DETROIT
This is my third week picking the Packers and so far they have done nothing but give me two losses. After being run out of Seattle and having a real scare put into them and their season by the Jets at Lambeau, the Packers have three divisional games in a row and if they play like they did for the first six quarters of their season, they could be in the same spot as the Giants when October rolls around.

Indianapolis -7 over JACKSONVILLE
I would like to see the Jaguars be competitive this season since the team has won 11 games over the last three-plus years. But I do like free wins when it comes to picks, even though I stupidly picked them to cover 5.5 points in Washington last week (they lost 41-10). When the Jaguars led 17-0 over the Eagles in Week 1, I thought we were finally seeing the team turn a corner and maybe this year their losses wouldn’t be by an average of 18.5 points like they were last year. But then the Jaguars were outscored 34-0 in the second half of the game and have been outscored 85-27 in the first two weeks of the season. And now the Jaguars are getting an 0-2 Colts team that gave away a game to the Eagles on Monday and came up short in their comeback attempt against the Broncos in Week 2. That -58 point differential isn’t going to start getting better this week.

NEW ENGLAND -14.5 over Oakland
The Raiders are the worst team in football. Well, maybe they aren’t. I’m sure the Jaguars and even the Giants would give them a good game, but the Raiders’ schedule has 2-14 as the best-case scenario written all over it and a meeting with history and the 2008 Lions as the worst-case scenario.

The Raiders haven’t won an East Coast game since 2009 and now they are flying to New England just two weeks after flying here to play the Jets, and sandwiched in between the two games was a 30-14 loss at home to the Texans.

San Francisco -3 over ARIZONA
The way the 49ers gave away Sunday night to the Bears in their stadium-opening game looked the exact same way the Giants would give away a game and it brought a smile to my face knowing that the G-Men aren’t the only ones capable of self destructing in seconds and blowing what would appear to be a sure win. The difference between the 49ers and Giants is that these types of losses are extremely rare for the 49ers and a near-weekly occurrence for the Giants. The 2011-14 49ers aren’t used to what happened against the Bears and it’s unlikely to happen again. As for the Giants, well I don’t think it would surprise anyone if we get a re-run of the Cardinals game against the Texans.

SEATTLE -4.5 over Denver
Super Bowl XLIX was played in New Jersey at MetLife Stadium, about 3,000 miles away from CenturyLink Field. Imagine if it had been played in Seattle. I think we are going to get the chance to see that.

MIAMI -4.5 over Kansas City
I thought I had finally learned last year that you can’t trust the Dolphins after I kept picking them and picking them and picking them while they destroyed their playoff chances with back-t0-back losses to the Bills (19-0) and Jets (20-7) to finish the season. So after I picked against the Dolphins in Week 1 against the Patriots, only to have them win, I picked the Dolphins to win in Buffalo in Week 2, only to have them lose by 19. So here I am, once again picking for the Dolphins at home to cover a difficult and tricky 4.5-point spread against the 0-2 Chiefs. I fully expect a double-digit Chiefs win.

CAROLINA -3.5 over Pittsburgh
The Panthers went 12-4 and went 11-1 after a 1-3 start and their only loss in those 12 games was in New Orleans where every team has lost with Sean Payton as head coach since the end of the 2010 season. So this year when everyone picked the Panthers to regress and be a disappointment I jumped on the anti-2014 Panthers bus because that seemed like the cool thing to do at the time and everyone was doing it as if if I were a 12-year-old being offered to take a drag of a cigarette in the woods behind the junior high school. But then the Panthers won on the road with Derek Anderson as their quarterback in Week 1 and beat up on the Lions and shut down Calvin Johnson as well as anyone can shut down Calvin Johnson in Week 2 and now they’re 2-0.

After back-to-back postseason-less seasons for the Steelers, everyone was seemingly picking them to get back to being one of the league’s elite. The only theme I had been hearing consistently over the last two years about the Steelers was how old they have gotten (like a baseball team I root for), so I was a little unsure as to why they were suddenly being hyped up as if it were 2010 again. But like the Panthers, I bought in and picked the Steelers to cover in Week 1 against the Browns and then again in Week 2 against the Ravens. They barely escaped the Browns game with a win and then couldn’t get up for the Ravens despite the Ravens being in the middle of one of the worst weeks in the history of the NFL.

I’m back to being pro-Panthers and anti-Steelers, which is how I should have been all along.

Chicago +2.5 over NEW YORK JETS
If the Jets hadn’t blown a 21-3 lead at Lambeau Field and were now 2-0 on the season and 1-0 to start their impossible six-week gauntlet, I’m sure my friend Tim Duff would be calling me to do his post-Green Bay trip podcast. Instead, Duff has been “unavailable” this week to talk about the Jets’ timeout debacle and loss to the Packers (though we are supposed to record the podcast by Friday). And I think he represents all Jets fans who would have been proclaiming the Jets as the Kings of the City (this worked out well in 2011) and would have been looking ahead to January and the playoffs.

Last week: 4-12-0
Season: 12-20-0

Giants • Podcasts

Sep 18, 2014

Podcast: Brian Monzo

In the next seven days the Giants will play two games and have a chance to save their season in one week with two wins. Or a chance to ruin their season with two losses.

A must-win game in Week 3 of the season? Of course! It wouldn’t be a New York Football Giants season without the Giants putting their season on the brink before the end of September. But in the next seven days, the Giants will play two games against two beatable opponents and could turn their disastrous start around.

WFAN Mike’s On: Francesa on the FAN producer Brian Monzo joined me to talk about the Giants’ problems through the first two games, if the Giants can and save their season before its lost and how the first two weeks of gambling on the NFL have gone.

Blogs • Giants

Sep 11, 2014

NFL Week 2 Picks

The Giants face an “almost must-win game” in Week 2 against the Cardinals, but they aren’t the only team in that position this week.

Week 2 is dangerous. The only thing you know about every team in the league is one game of information and there’s a good chance that what you learned about each team in 60 minutes of football isn’t an accurate assessment of who that team really is or is going to be. Unless that team is the New York Football Giants.

Every concern, issue, problem, question mark and unknown raised about the 2014 Giants in the offseason and preseason was on display in their 21-points loss to the Lions and troubling part is that they aren’t going to be fixed anytime soon. I highly doubt that after months of trying to learn the new offense that they are all of a sudden going to have learned it and be magically clicking less than six full days after there was reason to celebrate when they would run a play successfully or when a receiver would catch a pass for positive yards.

Here is how I started my 2013 Weeks 2 Picks (and also apparently the way I started my 2012 Week 2 Picks):

Can you have a must-win game in Week 2? Yes, you can because the Giants do.

(I opened my 2012 NFL Week 2 Picks with that same question. I’m hoping I won’t have to use it in 2014.)

And like in The Departed when Mr. French tells Billy after fighting the cranberry-juice ordering guy (he is actually listed as Well-Dressed Scumbag At Bar in the script I used to find the exact quote), “That’s not quite a guy you can’t hit, but it’s almost a guy you cant hit,” the Giants’ Week 2 game against the Cardinals isn’t quite a must-win game, but it’s almost a must-win game. But the Giants aren’t alone in playing an “almost must-win game” in Week 2. So let’s get to the Week 2 picks.

(Home team in caps)

Pittsburgh +2.5 over BALTIMORE
It’s a good thing that with all the negative PR surrounding the NFL this week that they have an actual game with Thursday Night Football for people to talk about and get their attention back on the field. Wait, what’s that? Oh the team playing in and hosting the Thursday game is the team at the center of the league’s problems? That’s some unfortunate timing for Roger Goodell and the NFL.

When it comes to Ravens-Steelers, it’s usually easy to figure out what to do, so I will just add to what I always say before every Ravens-Steelers game.

In 2013, the Steelers won 19-16 and the Ravens won 22-20. In 2012, the Ravens won 13-10 and the Steelers won 23-20. In 2011, the Ravens won 35-7 and 23-20. In 2010, the Ravens won 17-14 and the Steelers won 13-10. In 2009, the Ravens won 20-17 in overtime and the Steelers won 23-20. In 2008, the Steelers won 23-20 in overtime and 13-9.

That’s 12 games with 10 of them being decided by three points, one being decided by four points and one being decided by 28 (the Steelers had seven turnovers, yes seven turnovers, in that loss). Forget picking the Ravens to cover, is there a prop bet that this game will be won by exactly three points?

This game will be decided by three points. And when you know that, how can you not take the points?

Detroit +2.5 over CAROLINA
The Lions’ 35-14 win over the Giants could have probably been 56-0 if the Lions didn’t play Lions football and have several brain farts and commit stupid penalties along the way. But even though there’s a new coaching regime in Detroit, the Lions proved on Monday night that they are still the same old Lions and at any moment they will shoot themselves in the foot and turn a sure-thing into a close thing.

Miami -1 over BUFFALO
The Bills upset the Bears on the road as seven-point underdogs in Week 1, put a massive dent into every survivor pool in the world and were sold to Terry Pegula, the owner of the Sabres, who is obviously going to keep the team in Buffalo. This week has been the best week for Bills fans in over 20 years, but as a franchise and a fan base, good times can’t be sustained in Buffalo.

The Dolphins cost me my New England -5 pick last week, but if I have to take a loss on a pick, I’m happy to take one if it means a loss for the Patriots. Prior to the start of Week 1, you would have thought it was 2004 with the way the Patriots were being picked to win the Super Bowl this year. But after the Dolphins exposed the Patriots’ offensive line as possibly worse than the Giants’ offensive line, and picked apart the Patriots’ so-called revamped defense, it doesn’t seem like the glory days are returning to New England with their personnel.

Jacksonville +5.5 over WASHINGTON
Somewhere someone who isn’t a Jaguars fan or a Redskins fan is going to bet on this game and watch it in its entirety. Think about that.

TENNESSEE -3.5 over Dallas
After the 1:00 games ended on Sunday and my parlays and teasers had been destroyed and the Yankees had lost their second game in three days in which they didn’t allow an earned run, Tony Romo stepped in to save my Sunday with a season-opening three-interception game.

When I picked San Francisco -5 over Dallas last week, I said:

If you saw the Cowboys roster and it was listed as the roster for “Team X” and Team X didn’t happen to be a national team with a heavy gambling presence, this line would be a lot higher than 5 for one of the NFL’s elite teams on the road against a team that’s headed for a six- or seven-win season.

Now take that and apply it to this week. If Vegas thinks that the Cowboys as the most nationally-followed team with the biggest fan base and most money wagered on their games are 3.5-points underdogs in Tennessee, what are the Cowboys really supposed to be?

NEW YORK GIANTS +2.5 over Arizona
If I could believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy and that the 2014 Yankees can win 16 of their 19 remaining games and make the playoffs, then I can talk myself into believing that the Giants’ offense, which looked like 11 guys who met five minutes before the game on Monday night, can turn it around for Week 2.

OK, I understand that the Giants’ offense is likely going to be a disaster again this week and that it’s a “work in progress” and that there really isn’t a home-field advantage at MetLife and if anything the Giants play worse at home, but the Giants need to win this game. And as long as Carson Palmer is the opposing quarterback, it might not matter that the Giants’ receivers seem to know the new offense as well as I know how to cook chicken or … well … anything.

MINNESOTA +3.5 over New England
My girlfriend is a Vikings fan and all week I have let her know the important position her team is in. I’m not talking about the Vikings going 2-0 and being at least tied for first place in the NFC North through Week 2. I’m talking about the chance to drop the Patriots to 0-2, a place they haven’t been since 2001 (they actually started that season 1-3, but did win the Super Bowl), put Boston into a state of panic after the city was without a baseball season this summer and put the bet every overconfident Patriots fan made on the Patriots having over 11 wins this seasons on life alert.

If Knowshon Moreno could tear up the Patriots for 134 yards on 24 carries (5.6 yards per carry), what is Adrian Peterson capable of against that defense? I’m getting a little too happy thinking about it.

New Orleans -6.5 over CLEVELAND
I never, ever, ever, ever pick or trust the Saints on the road. The Outside the Superdome Saints can’t be trusted. But there is one circumstance when they can be. That circumstance is when they are playing in Cleveland and Josh Gordon is suspended and the availability of Jordan Cameron and Ben Tate is unknown.

CINCINNATI -5 over Atlanta
Atlanta made me look good last week by not only covering against the Saints, but by beating them in overtime. Unfortunately the Bengals also made me look good by covering and beating the Ravens on the road, and now the Bengals return home where they went 8-0 last year and won those eight games by an average of 17.6 points. The Bengals haven’t lost at home since Dec. 9, 2012 in Week 14 and it was a one-point (20-19) loss to the Cowboys. Could Paul Brown Stadium be turning into the Superdome?

TAMPA BAY -6 over St. Louis
After losing to a Cam Newton-less Panthers team in Week 1, there are a lot of open seats on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers bandwagon as it gives us a preview into what Yankee Stadium will look like in 2015. The Buccaneers now get a Sam Bradford-less Rams team in Week 2 before heading on the road for three straights week to Atlanta, Pittsburgh and New Orleans. If the Buccaneers can’t win a convincing game against the 2014 Rams, who were run out of their own building by the Vikings, then their 2014 is going to go the way 2013 went.

SAN DIEGO +6 over Seattle
I have thought about this game more than any other game this week and after going over everything, I have narrowed all the information down to two basic questions:

1. Do I want to get burned by the Super Bowl champion Seahawks and the best defense in the league for the second time in as many weeks?

2. Do I want to trust that Philip Rivers can keep it close against and possibly even beat the Super Bowl champion Seahawks and the best defense in the league?

And when I write the two questions out, it’s easy for me to see that . If I lose this game taking the best team in football coming off a 20-point win against the so-called “best” quarterback in the league on 10 days rest, I can deal with it. But what I can’t deal with is if I take the Chargers and then watch the Seahawks do what they did to Aaron Rodgers and the Packers on opening night.

Houston -3 over OAKLAND
Oakland is playing for the first overall pick at the 2015 NFL Draft and after having watched Draft Day this week, I can definitely see the Raiders making the same decisions Sonny Weaver Jr. made if he had never eventually gotten his first-round picks back for the next three years back.

GREEN BAY -8.5 over New York Jets
No one seems to know what checkpoint Rex Ryan needs to reach to be the Jets head coach in 2015, whether it’s a .500 season or a winning season or reaching the playoffs or winning a playoff game, but watching Ryan celebrate a Chris Ivory 71-yard touchdown run against the lowly Raiders as if he just received word he’s going to be brought back for next season wasn’t a good look for Rex. It’s the Raiders. The Raiders! They started a rookie quarterback making his NFL debut and helped him out with 25 rushing yards. That’s 25 rushing yards on 15 carries in a 60-minute game!

When I did the Jets preseason podcast with my friend and most optimistic Jets fan Tim Duff, we talked about the Jets’ need to beat the Raiders before the six-week gauntlet from Weeks 2-7 that will decide their season. The Jets took care of business against in Week 1, but now the gauntlet begins and it begins in Green Bay where a healthy Aaron Rodgers and the Packers are looking to bounce back after their season-opening rout at the hands of the Seahawks and avoid falling to 0-2 and Green Bay is where Duff will be, in his Sheldon Richardson jersey likely getting ridiculed and abused by Packers fans. I’m looking forward to my next podcast with Duff following the Jets-Packers game because I know it’s going to have a much different tone than it did before Week 1 when he was taking shots at the Giants and glowing over the phone with optimism about the Jets.

DENVER -13 over Kansas City
Last year I saw “good value” in taking the 9-0 Chiefs’ money line against the 8-1 Broncos in Denver in Week 11. I was at MSG for Rangers-Kings checking my phone for score updates and still felt confident in the bet despite trailing 17-10 at halftime. But eventually, the Broncos pulled away, winning 27-17 and covering the 7.5-point line.

When the teams met two weeks later in Kansas City, I once again saw “good value” in taking the money line of the 9-2 Chiefs over the 10-1 Broncos at home where the Chiefs had only one loss, which came the week prior against the Chargers on a game-winning touchdown with 31 seconds left. The Broncos won again, this time 35-28, and covered again.

The lesson I learned: Don’t trust Alex Smith and Andy Reid against Peyton Manning.

Chicago +7 over SAN FRANCISCO
The Bears are in a bad spot. Not only are they playing the 49ers this week, but six of their next eight games are on the road in tough places: San Francisco, New York (Jets), Carolina, Atlanta, New England and Green Bay. No one saw a Week 1 loss at home to the Bills coming for the Bears and that includes Bills fans. It was a terrible teaser-killing loss and one the Bears couldn’t afford to give away playing in the best division in the league and with their challenging schedule. Had the Bears blown out the Bills and covered their 7-point spread like most assumed, this line in San Francisco would be somewhere around 3.5-5, but instead it’s 7, and 7 seems too high for a 49ers team that suffered devastating secondary injuries. Did I just take Jay Cutler on Sunday Night Football against one of the league’s elite teams in a game in which they will open their new stadium? I probably won’t regret this decision …

INDIANAPOLIS -3 over Philadelphia
Back-to-back primetime spots for Andrew Luck. Earlier this week, Mike Francesa said Luck “is about to become the best player in the league” and that might be true, which means a lot more primetime for Luck for a long, long time.

The Giants’ best chance (and possibly only chance) at reaching the postseason is going to come by winning the division. (Yes, I’m talking Giants’ postseason chances three days after a 21-point in which their offense and offensive coordinator looked like 12 guys who all spoke 12 different languages.) And if the Giants are going to stay in the hunt, they are going to need the rest of the NFC East to be mediocre as well. The Cowboys and Redskins proved they are ready to fight for an 8-8 or 9-7 playoff berth with their Week 1 performances and the Eagles looked like they would happily join in as well before their 34-point second-half outburst against the Jaguars. The only thing standing in the way of the Giants and meaningful late-season football and a potential playoff berth they don’t deserve is if the Eagles don’t run away with the division.

Last week: 8-8-0

NHL • Podcasts

Sep 11, 2014

Podcast: Brian McGonagle

Brian McGonagle, who is also known as Rear Admiral, of Barstool Sports Boston joins me to talk about the rumors of expansion in the NHL and the state of sports in New York and Boston.

The recent rumors of expansion in the NHL only made me sad to know that the Whalers are never returning to Hartford and the NHL isn’t going back to Connecticut. Even though the rumors of an NHL team in Las Vegas being “a done deal” and a second team in Toronto and a team returning to Quebec and a team in a Seattle are somewhat farfetched and misreported, it’s fun to think about the idea of new teams popping around the league and which cities would make the most sense in the U.S. and Canada.

Brian McGonagle, who is also known as Rear Admiral, of Barstool Sports Boston joined me to talk about the possibility of expansion in the NHL, the state of sports in New York and Boston, how different the two cities are when it comes to sports media and the pain of one of your teams missing an opportunity at a championship.