Keefe To The City

Feb 13, 2014

Team USA-Slovakia Thoughts: It’s Not Worth Winning If You Can’t Win Big

Team USA started their quest for the gold medal with a 7-1 win over Slovakia in a game that actually had me nervous past the first period.

I have always wondered what it would be like to live on the West Coast during football season and wake up just in time to watch the 1:00 p.m. games at 10:00 a.m. Instead of waiting for the football day to start by watching one of the dozen pregame shows, tinkering with fantasy teams or putting together improbable parlays in hopes of seven underdogs winning so I can retire to Hawaii, it would be nice to just wake up, turn the TV on and have the game start. I got a taste of that life on Thursday.

When I woke up on Thursday morning, I was greeted by Doc Emrick for Team USA hockey against Slovakia in the first game of the 2014 Olympics at 7:30 a.m.

– The troubling thing about the Olympics is that you don’t know what to expect. Sure, Team USA has one of the best rosters in the tournament, but you don’t know how the players and line combinations are going to work out or what kind of on-ice chemistry there will be once the first game starts. While they are coming off a silver-medal performance, it’s not like they are really coming off of a silver-medal performance since that was four years ago. So entering the game I was worried that the team would have trouble scoring goals like the Rangers and that fear was growing in the first period for the 14:27 of the game before John Carlson blasted one top tit past Jaroslav Halak.

Looking back at the game now, knowing that Team USA won 7-1, it’s funny to think at 0-0, 1-0 USA, 1-1 and 2-1 USA, I was worried about losing this game. After Slovakia tied it up to start the second, I envisioned a 2-1 loss and started to have flashbacks from 2006 in Turin. I’m glad I can now laugh at my unnecessary worrying from the first 22:32 of the game.

– I kept forgetting that the actual game was on Eastern Standard Time and had to remind myself that Doc Emrick couldn’t possibly be this fired up before 8 a.m. since he actually wasn’t. When the puck dropped, it was already 4:30 p.m in Sochi and Emrik wasn’t rattling off Slovakian names with such enthusiasm in the early hours of the morning. But in the words of David Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey) in Dazed and Confused, “It would be a lot cooler if he did.”

For as enjoyable as it is to listen to Emrick, that’s how painful it is listening to Pierre McGuire as one of the first voices you hear to start your day. That also goes for Ed Olczyk in this game as he didn’t have his A-game with him for the U.S. opener. How about Olczyk (I refuse to call him “Edzo”) throwing out the early “active boards” in the game. And then with eight minutes left in the second, there was the casual “Boy, they are using those boards a lot, aren’t they?” on the broadcast.

– In the second period, Team USA scored six times. Here are their goals:

1:26 – Ryan Kesler (Patrick Kane)

2:32 – Paul Stastny (Max Pacioretty, T.J. Oshie)

8:16 – David Backes (Phil Kessel)

13:30 – Paul Stastny (Kevin Shattenkirk, T.J. Oshie)

14:20 – Phil Kessel (Ryan Kesler, James van Riemsdyk)

15:17 – Dustin Brown (John Carlson, Patrick Kane)

So Team USA scored at 1:26 then they scored 1:06 after that, 5:44 after that, 5:14 after that, 50 seconds after that and 57 seconds after that. At that point, I thought Dan Bylsma was going to have to tell the team they were to make five passes before shooting in the third period and I think he did. Team USA had 11 shots in the first period and 16 in the second, but just six shots and no goals in the third. Yes, 7-1 was enough that point, and Team USA should have no problem getting one of the four bye seeds in the quarterfinals, but the second tiebreaker for the tournament (after head-to-head matchup) is goal differential. Pierre was right when he said, “It’s international hockey, you’ve got to run it up.”

– Even though I have known it for some time, I still find it intriguing/interesting/odd that Paul Stastny plays for Team USA even though he was born in Quebec, while his dad played Slovakia. Paul has dual citizenship for the United States and Canada and could technically play for either team, but I think he made the right choice since he probably wouldn’t be in Sochi if had chosen to be Canadian over American and Team USA wouldn’t be as good as they are without him. Everybody wins because Paul Stastny wants to be American instead of Canadian.

– I’m not going to make a big deal out of the missed offside call given the outcome of the game. But yes, had Slovakia won the game or won by a goal, I would probably already have a few thousand words about it.

– One of my friends said that he thinks Ryan Miller should get the start on Saturday against Russia to which I asked “Whyyyyyyyyy?” If Quick was the No. 1 goalie entering the Olympics, which he clearly was and is since he started against Slovakia, then why would he not start every game of the tournament until he proves he isn’t the No. 1? Against Slovakia, he let in one goal on 23 shots and deserves to start on Saturday. If Miller were to start, Bylsma and the Team USA front office would be starting Miller because of his MVP performance in the 2010 Olympics. If they were going to reward him for that, they should have made it clear he was the No. 1 goalie before the Olympics and made it clear Quick would be the No. 2. But now they can’t start him based on his performance from four years ago after they left players off this roster because they didn’t want to reward past performances. And if Miller did start on Saturday and Team USA wins, who starts on Sunday against Slovenia?

Coaches want to make less decisions and things as easy as possible for them. Creating an unneeded goalie controversy isn’t something you want to do for a team coming off a dominant win and about to play the best team in their group.

Podcasts • Yankees

Feb 12, 2014

Podcast: Mike Hurley

Mike Hurley of CBS Boston joins me to talk about Derek Jeter announcing his retirement and how he will an end an era of baseball for a generation of fans.

I knew this day would come, I just never really wanted to believe it would. Derek Jeter won’t be a Yankee in 2015 after announcing he will retire at the end of the 2014 season. Writing that doesn’t feel right and I’m not sure it will until a year from now when the Yankees get ready to head to spring training without Jeter as their starting shortstop for the first time in 20 seasons. Maybe then I will be ready to accept this news. Maybe.

With Jeter announcing his retirement and taking a piece of my childhood and the game of baseball with him, Mike Hurley of CBS Boston joined me to talk about ending an era of baseball for a generation of fans, how his retirement will change how fans in their 20s watch the game and why it’s hard for outsiders to understand how big of a deal this retirement is.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Rangers

Feb 7, 2014

Final Pit Stop for Rangers-Penguins

The Rangers and Penguins meet for the last time this season in what is their last game before the Olympic break and that calls for an email exchange with Jim Rixner of PensBurgh.

After Friday, there will be three weeks without Rangers hockey. I know, it’s devastating. But in place of Rangers hockey is Olympic hockey and Team USA hockey, which will do more than fill the void left by the NHL. In the final game for the Rangers before the Olympic break, they meet the Penguins for the final time this season and the last thing you want to do before having a long layoff is play the best the team in the Eastern Conference on the road, but that’s how the Rangers are set up.

With the Rangers and Penguins meeting on Friday night in Pittsburgh, I did an email exchange with Jim Rixner of PensBurgh to talk about if Chris Kunitz is the luckiest player in the league, whether or not Penguins fans trust Marc-Andre Fleury and if Dan Bylsma should have received his contract extension.

Keefe: Chris Kunitz is the luckiest man in the world. Or at least the luckiest hockey player in the world. A solid player and reliable scorer through the majority of his career, Kunitz did have 161 points in 163 games with the Ducks between 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons. But prior to the 2012-13 season, Kunitz’s career single-season high for goals was 26, which he scored in 82 games in 2011-12 with the Penguins. And then last season as a linemate of Sidney Crosby’s, Kunitz’s production took off and he scored 22 goals … in 48 games! This season, also as a linemate of Crosby’s, Kunitz has 27 goals in 56 games and is on pace for at least a 40-goal season.

Not only is Kunitz riding Crosby to career point totals and contract extensions, but the wing is also on Team Canada this year over some very worthy candidates and you would have to think he will also be a linemate of Crosby’s there.

I feel like you could stick pretty much anyone and I don’t mean just any NHL player, but rather any actual person on a line with Crosby and they would be good for 15-20 goals. Am I wrong for constantly bringing up this argument with others (you’re not the first) about Kunitz being lucky to be on a line with Crosby? Is it wrong for me to cite Crosby as the sole reason for Kunitz having career years in his mid-30s?

Rixner: I don’t think it’s wrong to cite Sidney Crosby as being a great help in the production of Chris Kunitz. Kunitz is sitting in the top 10 in the league in scoring, and if he’s on a team that’s not the Pittsburgh Penguins, we all know that’s not going to happen. Crosby’s the best player in the game, so of course he’s going to boost his linemates statistics and that’s definitely been the case for Chris Kunitz.

But I don’t really think it’s luck that’s made the Kunitz-Crosby combination a success, or the sole reason that Chris Kunitz is a productive player. First of all, his skill-set meshes perfectly with Crosby in that they both like to play low in the offensive zone and use a grinding, cycle-based game to use their lower-body strength to outwork opponents and drive chances from right in front of the net. Kunitz also has underrated in-zone playmaking ability, he has good vision and is capable of playing the puck very well in the offensive end with touch passes. He’s tough enough to hang in front of the net on power plays and that can pay off with chances. His hands are quick enough to convert them.

Then there’s also familiarity. Crosby and Kunitz have played 2,200-plus minutes together at even strength in their careers and even more on power plays and in practices for the past five years. They know what each other’s tendencies are and how each will react in every situation. Crosby knows what Kunitz will do, say on the forecheck should the defenseman break to the left. He knows where Kunitz is going to go if he gets the puck, and he knows precisely when he’ll arrive there. That’s something, that in a short tournament like the Olympics, will be very useful. Players like Crosby and Gretzky and Lemieux are said to be “two steps ahead” of everyone and if you give Crosby a linemate he knows, likes and is productive with, that removes one more element of unknown variables on the ice and helps push him even further ahead of the competition.

To that end, Crosby scored seven points in seven games last Olympics, but consider that three of those were assists against a weak Norway team. Another was a shootout goal (which counts to stats). Aside from the flashy golden goal in overtime, Sidney Crosby wasn’t really that consistently productive in the 2010 Olympics with Patrice Bergeron, Eric Staal and Jarome Iginla (the three linemates they tried him with).

Keefe: Marc-Andre Fleury was the goalie for a championship team and was also the goalie for a team that lost in a Game 7 for the Cup. He can win in the playoffs because he has proven he can even if those two seasons were five and six years ago.

But after his 2011-12 playoff debacle against the Flyers when the Penguins were bounced in six games by a 7-seed and the disaster last postseason against the Islanders that saw him lose his job to Tomas Vokoun, it seemed like maybe Fleury was ruined. However, so far this season, he has played better than he has any other year and he might set career bests in wins, goals against average, save percentage and shutouts. What’s different about Fleury this year compared to last spring and do you trust him?

Rixner: I trust Marc-Andre Fleury, but shakily so. The most unsettling thing about his meltdowns in 2012 and 2013 in the playoffs was that he had pretty good regular seasons before the bottom dropped out and now again this year, we’re seeing another strong regular season. The hope is that there are some changes from year’s past. The Penguins have a new goaltending coach. Fleury’s seen a sports psychologist that’s hopefully helped get his mind to a better place. The Pens now have Rob Scuderi back, a defensive defenseman who’s thrived in the playoffs in L.A. and Pittsburgh. And they also have Jacques Martin as an assistant coach to lend a defensive conscious to the team.

Will it work? I’d be lying if I said I was 100 percent confident, but there certainly are enough changes to at least believe they’re not just trying the same thing every year. Also, I think it’s important to remember that the Pens failures have been more than just on Fleury. In 2012 when the Pens met the Flyers, Philly got under their skin and had the speedy and skilled forwards to trade chances with them. Ditto the Islanders last year in terms of having impressive team speed and ability to counter-punch a wide open Pittsburgh team. All we as Pens fans can do right now is hope that they play more responsible hockey in front of Fleury and that he can continue his strong regular season into the playoffs.

Keefe: After the Penguins’ Cup win over the Red Wings in 2008-09, I thought we were about to see an Oilers-esque run from the Penguins built around Crosby and Malkin. And if they had Henrik Lundqvist the last few years, they might have put one together. But since winning the Cup, the Penguins have lost in the second round, the first round twice and the conference finals despite usually being the best or one of the best regular-season teams.

Dan Bylsma took over the team during their Cup-winning season and has led them to the playoffs in each of his four seasons. But after the Penguins were swept by the Bruins last year following to straight years of first-round exits, it seemed like there was a lot of backlash and criticism toward Bylsma and that he might be on his way out. Then the Penguins went and gave him a two-year extension through the 2015-16 season. Are you a fan of Bylsma and were you a fan of the extension?

And on another note, what can I expect from Bylsma over the next few weeks as the Team USA head coach in the Olympics?

Rixner: Well, the Oilers didn’t have a formal salary cap and were able to keep their Gretzky, Kurri, Messier, Coffey, Anderson and Fuhr for much of the ’80s in their run. The Pens have had to drop Jordan Staal, Sergei Gonchar and even role players like Scuderi, Matt Cooke and Tyler Kennedy due mainly to the salary cap within a few years of winning it all. Their team depth has definitely diminished since winning it all in ’09.

I’m fine with Bylsma, because like you mentioned he is a solid regular-season coach. The Penguins have, by far, lost the most man-games to injury in the league this season, but they’re still the best team in the East. It helps having a good team anchored by Crosby and Malkin, but the coaching staff has plugged lesser guys into big roles and it’s worked. They also have the No. 1 power play and the No. 1 penalty kill in the league so far right now. Again, a lot of that credit goes to the execution and skill of the players, but that’s also a credit to the coaches for their preparation and instruction. And, at least they keep the team invested and do more than “just go through the motions” on most nights.

Team USA ought be great for Bylsma, because it has so many players who fit perfectly for the philosophy of his north-south style. Zach Parise, Dustin Brown, David Backes, T.J. Oshie, Ryan Kesler and, yes, Rangers captain Ryan Callahan. It’s a match made in heaven for Bylsma who likes his wingers big, physical and active on the forecheck. He also stresses the defensemen making the long, vertical stretch pass, and I think the skill and ability of the USA personnel defensively really fits what he looks for as well. It’ll be interesting because Bylsma usually has the stud centers in Crosby-Malkin, and center is probably the biggest weak point on Team USA (compared to the talent that Canada, Russia and Sweden has) so we’ll see how he handles that.

Keefe: The Shawn Thornton-Brooks Orpik incident and that whole Penguins-Bruins game as a whole (including James Neal and Brad Marchand) got a lot of attention for the gongshow that it was. As someone who went to college in Boston and who has friends from there and who live there and even some who covers the Bruins, I’m certainly aware of the Boston perspective of everything that occurred in that game and their take on the suspensions and injuries that resulted from it. Do you think your Penguins are a dirty team?

Rixner: I don’t think the Penguins are necessarily dirtier than any other team (especially since they no long employ Mr. Cooke). They certainly have some hot-heads, but NHL players are basically all alpha-male young men with a lot of testosterone who are playing a physical and emotional game that moves really fast. There’s no excuse for James Neal’s actions that night, but consider that he kneed the same guy in the head who pretty viciously boarded him five months earlier. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, but it’s not just the Penguins players who are starting incidents or behaving badly, as the cowardly action from Thornton showed as well.

Keefe: I attended both of the Rangers-Penguins games at Madison Square Garden this season and in the first game (Nov. 6), the Rangers won 5-1 and in the second game, (Dec. 18) the Penguins won 4-3 in a shootout. In their only game in Pittsburgh this season (Jan. 3), the Penguins won 5-2.

I go into every Rangers-Penguins game with a pessimistic view because to me, the Penguins are a terrible matchup for the Rangers. They rely on their offense and power play to win games, while the Rangers rely on Henrik Lundqvist and pretty much only Henrik Lundqvist. That’s why the Rangers’ 5-1 win back on Nov. 6 was so surprising and also why their late comeback on Dec. 18 was as well. You would think the Jan. 3 game is how a Rangers-Penguins game should play out, but so far this season the Rangers have gotten three of a possible six points against the Penguins and I’m content with that.

But since the last time these two teams met, the Rangers have gone off on an 11-3-1 record and are playing their best hockey of the year as Alain Vigneault’s system is finally coming together. What do Penguins fans think of the Rangers and what kind of game do you expect on Friday night?

Rixner: Most Pens fans, to be honest, aren’t all that concerned about any threat within the division. With every team 17-20-plus points back in the rear-view mirror and being non-threats all season, the focus has been more on injuries and seeing the team play well more-so than worrying about anyone chasing Pittsburgh. Personally, I’ve always thought Washington, Philadelphia and the Rangers would be the biggest division challenges for the Pens, and I even picked the Rangers to win the division in my pre-season predictions. Maybe I slept on the transition time Vigneault would need, but I’m not surprised that now the Rangers are playing good hockey lately.As far as the game goes, we’ll have to see. Right on the eve of the Olympics, a lot of players might have their minds on vacation, or heading over to Russia. I know Evgeni Malkin has been just sensational recently and really seems motivated and focused on getting his game in gear in time for his big homecoming. The Pens are an amazing 23-4-0 so far this year at home. They’ve been beyond impressive on special teams and have had pretty good goaltending too. They’ll look to use their strengths to get out to a good start and an early lead and then just coast on to victory. Hopefully the Martin/Orpik combo can get ready for the Olympics by keeping Rick Nash off the scoreboard and limiting his chances as much as possible and the Pens will go into the break on a high note.But, if they check out a game too soon, as we saw in November, the Rangers definitely have the firepower and ability to beat Pittsburgh in a relatively easy fashion. It’s cliché, but the first period will be key. If Lundqvist can come up big on the Pens and keep it 0-0, I like the Rangers chances. If the Pens can punch through and get a 1-0 or 2-0 lead, obviously the chances that they’ll end up getting the win go way, way up.

Blogs • Rangers

Feb 5, 2014

The Ryan Callahan Conundrum

By the time you read this, Ryan Callahan might no longer be a Ranger … or he might be one for the rest of his career.

If Ryan Callahan played for the Panthers or Sabres or Oilers or Flames, he would already be gone. But he doesn’t. He plays for the Rangers. If the Rangers were a last-place team looking at playing out the string after the Olympic break, this would be easier. But they aren’t. They are in second place in the Metro. If the only thing on Ryan Callahan’s jersey aside from “New York” or “Rangers” was the Number 24 then this wouldn’t be so hard. But they aren’t. He has the “C” on his jersey. If Ryan Callahan wasn’t an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year then this would have never gotten this far. But he is. And he is looking for a seven-year deal worth $42 million.

Ryan Callahan was drafted by the Rangers, groomed in Hartford and including this season, he’s spent eight years in New York and has given the organization everything he has had. But despite being the captain of the team and willingly offering every part of his body from his ankles to his face to block bombs from the point over the years, he is the first important and impending unrestricted free agent Glen Sather has decided to draw a line in the sand with.

Sather’s decision reminds me of the scene in Slap Shot when Ned Braden tells Tim McCracken, “Somebody’s gonna kill you, ya dumb son of a bitch, but it’s not gonna be me,” but instead Sather’s telling Callahan and his agent Steve Barlett, “Somebody’s gonna overpay for you, ya dumb son of a bitch, but it’s not gonna be me.” It’s just weird that Sather has finally decided to not overpay for someone when that someone is the captain of his playoff-bound team. After 14 years of overpaying for once-upon-a-time talent, of which most of the time was spent in an attempt to build a mid-to-late 90s All-Star team, Sather has now decided to put his foot down when it comes to the heart of the team (Henrik Lundqvist is the brain).

It would be easier to side with Sather if the Rangers were a playoff bubble team looking at making a run in three to four years rather than a win-now team built around a 31-year-old goalie and a 29-year-old scorer in their prime. And it would be easier to side with Sather if he hadn’t been so eager to overpay for free-agent talent in the past, but not take care of his own.

Ryan Callahan is making $4.825 million this season, but if he were to make $6 million, which would be the average annual salary of the deal he is looking for, he would be making as much as Taylor Hall, Jordan Staal, Tyler Myers and Tuukka Rask. Or in other words he would be making as much as a former No. 1 overall pick and face of the Oilers, an overpaid 20-goal scorer with a prominent last name, the face of the Sabres and one of the best goalies in the world. In comparison to Staal, he is worth $6 million a year through the 2020-21 season, but in comparison to the other three, he isn’t.

The situation is unique and complicated because of who Ryan Callahan is, what his status to the Rangers is, the Rangers’ window of opportunity, the team’s place in the standings, their cap situation, Callahan’s demands and his knowing his demands can be met on the open market. The entire dilemma can be categorized into three main reasons for Glen Sather to not want to extend (or re-sign) Callahan that all the other reasons stem from, so let’s look at those.

Seven Years, $42 Million Is Too Much for His Style
If Ryan Callahan gets the deal he wants, he will be 36 when it’s over at the end of the 2020-21 season. Since the start of the 2008-09 season, by season Callahan has missed 1, 5, 22, 6 and 3 games and so far this season he has missed 17 games. While it does seem that Callahan is always injured or out of the lineup, it’s really only been 2010-11 and this season that he has missed a substantial amount of regular-season games and the 2010-11 playoffs after Zdeno Chara broke his ankle with a slap shot at the end of the regular season. But his game is built around high-energy, end-to-end shifts in which he plays solid defense, mucks it up and sacrifices his body and over time (or seven years in this case), that style of play won’t hold up.

Callahan lacks finesse and hands and looks choppy with the puck, but he does always manage to get the job done when a scoring opportunity is presented (especially with shootout snipes) and he does have a goal-scorer’s touch (his first goal on Tuesday showed this) and the puck does seem to have a way of finding him and his tape in the slot (his second on Tuesday showed this). The problem is that players with that style of play aren’t those you want to need to produce in their mid-to-late 30s or want to commit a large portion of your payroll to. The other problem is the way Callahan finds the back of the net because when you’re unable to create your own scoring chances, it’s risky to rely on needing the puck to find your tape to get your goals.

His Trade Value Could Give the Rangers Depth and Help Avoid Salary Cap Issues
The Rangers aren’t the best team in the Eastern Conference or even the second-best team. Their overall game and effort is too inconsistent, their secondary scoring is too unreliable and their defense is too shaky to know which Rangers team will show up on a given night. But they are certainly a playoff team and with Henrik Lundqvist they are certainly a team that could make a lengthy playoff run this spring like they did in 2011-12. And it’s the vision of a lengthy playoff run more than anything why the Rangers need to keep Ryan Callahan. The only problem is if they keep him for the remainder of the season, they have to extend him or re-sign him because letting him leave via free agency and getting nothing in return following a Cup-less season would be a disaster.

I have always said that the Rangers can’t keeping wasting years of Henrik Lundqvist’s prime and Lundqvist is now 31 years old and in the heart of his prime. They wasted the 2011-12 season by not successfully trading for Rick Nash before the 2011 deadline and lost to the Devils in six games. They wasted last season by letting John Tortorella turn the entire team into shot-blocking pylons and by forcing a three-time 40-goal scorer out of New York and by benching a former Conn Smythe winner in the playoffs. The last thing they need is for me to add another sentence to this paragraph next year by saying this season was wasted when the Rangers traded away their captain, which destroyed the team and led to a first-round playoff exit (or worse).

The easy fix here would be if the NHL got rid of the salary cap today and the Rangers could meet Ryan Callahan’s unreasonable demands (yet also reasonable since he knows someone … cough, cough Buffalo … will meet them) and Sather could start writing ridiculous checks like he used to. But committing over nine percent of your payroll (the cap is $64.3 million this year though it’s expected to go up, which puts even more of a wrinkle into this dilemma) to a player of Callahan’s abilities right now isn’t the best move when it comes to finances or rational thinking. But since when is Sather worried about finances or being rational? When it comes to dealing with his team’s 28-year-old captain, that’s when.

He Doesn’t Fit Into Alain Vigneault’s System
If John Tortorella were the coach right now, Ryan Callahan would have likely already received his extension and it would have been close to the one he wants or would have been the one he wants. But John Tortorella is in Vancouver trying to get the Canucks into the playoffs and trying to avoid being suspended again for putting out a gongshow fire with gasoline. Alain Vigneault is the Rangers coach and after this year he has four years and $8 million remaining on his contract. Vigneault isn’t going anywhere … at least not today. And that’s all that matters right now since he isn’t the one facing a decision by either Friday at 3 p.m. or March 5 at 3 p.m.

I have no idea about the relationship between Callahan and Vigneault, but I do know that Callahan’s style of play doesn’t fit into Vigneault’s offense-first and open-ice system. Callahan lacks the speed, offensive talent and scoring ability to be a key part of what Vigneault is trying to build in New York and that’s part of the reason that before Tuesday’s win over Colorado, Callahan had just nine goals in 39 games. But after a sluggish 20-20-2 start to the season the “Vigneault is wrong for the Rangers” narrative has stopped thanks to an 11-3-1 record since Jan. 4 and a current season-high four-game win streak. And it’s hard to say that Vigneault’s system isn’t working and isn’t finally coming together since the Rangers have averaged 3.47 goals per game over the last month.

I’m torn on whether the right move is to extend or trade Ryan Callahan and really both sides of the debate are equal. The last time I remember being this indecisive about two equal choices was when I had to pick between binge-watching Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad to catch up in the spring of 2012 (I went with Game of Thrones and then eventually did Breaking Bad). You don’t want to overpay for a 20-plus goal scorer whose skills will likely diminish rapidly in his 30s, but you don’t want to trade your captain and vital piece of the team while in a win-now window for the franchise.

There’s a chance Ryan Callahan scored his last goal in Madison Square Garden as a Ranger and saluted the crowd as a member of the home team for the last time on Tuesday night. I hope it wasn’t the last time for either. Not because I want the Rangers to extend to Ryan Callahan, but because I don’t know that they should trade him. And if Tuesday night wasn’t the last time for either, it means I have more time to make up my mind.

Blogs • Giants • NFL

Jan 30, 2014

Super Bowl XLVIII Pick

After an up-and-down picks season that mirrored the Giants’ season, there’s just one pick left to make.

When your team isn’t in the Super Bowl, it’s devastating. Not only because it means your season is over or has been over and there’s no hope at winning the Super Bowl, which should be every fan’s aspiration every season, but because the two weeks between Championship Weekend and Super Bowl Sunday are the two most painful weeks in sports and the conversations and hype won’t involve your team.

The last two weeks have revolved around Richard Sherman’s postgame rant, Marshawn Lynch’s decision to not entertain the media’s unnecessary questions and Peyton Manning’s legacy. If it weren’t for these topics, Radio Row would have spent the last two weeks only reciting weather reports and forecasts. And even with the top-rated offense and defense and the two No. 1 seeds meeting, the weather managed to be the most talked about storyline.

Those who don’t attend the Super Bowl are kept in the loop by the media who do. And when you’re a media member who’s given a free all-expenses-paid trip at the end of January/beginning of February, of course you don’t want to go to New York/New Jersey. You want to be in Miami or New Orleans or San Diego or Tampa or somewhere with a dome and climate control. You want to be able to enjoy the week or two on the company dime and not have to worry about how you’re going to fit coats, jackets, fleeces, hats and gloves in your suitcase or wondering how many pairs of socks you need to wear to go do your job. But it’s a “job” (sort of) and every media member who complained about the weather since arriving in New York/New Jersey should be embarrassed the way those who complain about the quality of coffee on Amtrak should be.

But aside from whether Richard Sherman was out of line or if Marshawn Lynch owes it to anyone to talk about football or if Peyton Manning HAS to win this game or if it will be cold and windy at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, there’s something more important: the last pick of the season.

Looking back at my 2013 picks season is probably something I will only do this once, or rather something I should only do this once. I’m sure Eli Manning doesn’t want to be relive his three INTs in Week 1 or his four INTs in Week 2 or his three INTs in Week 5 or his three INTs in Week 6 or his five INTs in Week 15 and I don’t want to relive this mediocre season. As I said several times throughout the season, my picks season mirrored the Giants’ season, so let’s look back at how I did during the regular season in comparison to the Giants’ scores.

Week 1: Cowboys 36, Giants 31 (3-12-1)
Week 2: Broncos 41, Giants 23 (7-8-1)
Week 3: Panthers 38, Giants 0 (7-8-1)
Week 4: Chiefs 31, Giants 7 (7-7-1)
Week 5: Eagles 36, Giants 21 (5-9-0)
Week 6: Bears 27, Giants 21 (5-9-0)
Week 7: Giants 23, Vikings 7 (9-6-0)
Week 8: Giants 15, Eagles 7 (7-6-0)
Week 9: BYE (6-6-1)
Week 10: Giants 24, Raiders 20 (9-5-0)
Week 11: Giants 27, Packers 13 (5-8-2)
Week 12: Cowboys 24, Giants 21 (4-10-0)
Week 13: Giants 24, Redskins 17 (8-7-1)
Week 14: Chargers 37, Giants 14 (9-7-0)
Week 15: Seahawks 23, Giants 0 (10-5-1)
Week 16: Giants 23, Lions 20 (OT) (3-13-0)
Week 17: Giants 20, Redskins 6 (10-6-0)

So far this postseason, I’m 3-6-1 in the 10 games. And along with the regular season, that’s 265 picks down. One to go.

DENVER -2.5 over Seattle
This pick is more about me wanting Peyton Manning to win than wanting the Broncos to win or the Seahawks to lose.

Four years ago, I rooted hard for Peyton to win his second Super Bowl (not just to make sure that Sean Payton and Jeremy Shockey didn’t win, though it was a large part of it) but for Peyton to cement his own legacy (there’s that word again) as the best quarterback ever. This was for personal reasons created during my time living in Boston in college. But Peyton didn’t win Super Bowl XLIV because of a Pierre Garcon drop, an onside kick and his own pick-six. The following year he was knocked out in the first round by the Jets, the year after that he missed the entire season and then last year his season was ended by a 70-yard, game-tying touchdown pass and a field goal in double overtime.

Peyton Manning is 37 years old and even though he might be getting better with age, he isn’t getting any younger and the number of potential trips to the Super Bowl is dwindling and championship trips aren’t likely to come with as much ease as this one did (Hello, Tom Brady). And with rumors and reports that this could be Peyton’s last game (win or lose, I don’t believe it) because of his neck and health, this might be his last chance to take the title of The Greatest of All Time.

If Eli can’t defend the Manning name on his own field then the right man to do so is Peyton.

Last week: 0-2-0
Playoffs: 3-6-1
Regular Season: 117-138-10