Alexander Ovechkin – Keefe To The City

Apr 15, 2015

Podcast: Adam Herman

The Rangers have never been a team that performs well with expectations and this spring they will play with expectations they haven’t had in 21 years.

The Rangers have never been a team that performs well with expectations and starting on Thursday night, they will play with expectations they haven’t had in 21 years. The post-lockout Rangers have thrived when no one believes in them and when the spotlight is elsewhere, but that will have to change this spring if they are to take the next step in their progression and win in June.

Adam Herman of Blueshirt Banter joined me to talk about how the Rangers quickly built themselves from a mediocre team to an elite one, the expectations and pressure on the Rangers, a review of the Keith Yandle trade and what should worry Rangers fans about the team in the postseason.

Blogs • NHL

Jan 27, 2015

The 2014-15 NHL All-Animosity Team

This year’s team is a little different, but there are some familiar faces in the lineup, including a goalie on his way out of the league.

NHL All-Star Weekend has always held a special place in my heart. My feelings about a skills competition and an exhibition game in which there’s no physicality, defense or anything that resembles NHL hockey other than nasty dangles are probably unshared. But when you’re a kid growing up with stars like Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Ray Bourque and Brian Leetch and watching them wear those black and orange gems each winter on a weekend afternoon, it’s something that stays with you.

Even though Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin weren’t in Columbus this weekend and Henrik Lundqvist was home in favor of goalies of much lesser abilities (Hi, Jaroslav Halak), I still watched and still paid attention to the 60th NHL All-Star Game, the first in three years. Well, I paid more attention to the skills competition than the game, but I still paid attention. And since I don’t always agree with the selections for the All-Star Game, a couple of years ago I decided to build my own version of an All-Star team. The one difference is that this team is built up of players I don’t like.

(Of course the first time since I started creating these teams that Brian Boyle is eligible to be on it, he isn’t.)

FORWARDS

Milan Lucic
Welcome back, once again! After leading the 2012-13 team and 2013-14 team, Lucic is back on the 2014-15 team.

It wasn’t long ago that Lucic was considered to be Cam Neely 2.0 in Boston following his 30-goal regular season in the Bruins’ Cup winning 2010-11 season. But after watching his goal totals decline over the last three years, Lucic has just nine goals in 47 games for the Bruins this year. Instead of hearing from Boston about Lucic’s all-around game, it’s more likely you’ll hear about Lucic connected to trade rumors. During the Bruins’ struggles around the holidays, the Boston sports media was hoping they could create some package involving Lucic to send him to Edmonton in exchange for Taylor Hall because every team is willing to give away their former No. 1 overall pick for a power forward in the middle of a three-plus year slide. (Actually, Edmonton would be the team willing to do that.)

The Bruins have cap issues and because of this, Lucic could be playing for another team in 2015-16, and judging by every team’s eagerness to give out bad contracts and throw money at any and every free agent, teams will be lining up to offer Lucic a big payday. If he plays himself out of Boston and off the Bruins, there might not be a place for him on the All-Animosity Team going next year, but his three-year run on the team will always be a memorable one.

Alexander Ovechkin
My animosity toward Ovechkin has declined since Sidney Crosby officially won the Crosby-Ovechkin Debate (which was never really much of a debate anyway) and I no longer have to spend time and energy defending and supporting the best player in the world against a pure goal scorer, who couldn’t care less about what happens in his own zone.

In the Road to the NHL Winter Classic on EPIX, Capitals owner Ted Leonsis referred to Ovechkin as the most pouplar athlete of the four majors sports in Washington D.C. and I questioned it at first, but when put against Bryce Harper, Robert Griffin III and John Wall, I agreed with Leonsis. After watching Ovechkin attend the Wizards game in the EPIX series and seeing him act like a normal person and not a four-time 50-plus goal scorer and one-time 65-goal scorer, I actually kind of liked him. And then watching him hope to be the last pick in the All-Star Game to win a free car, despite being possibly the best pure scorer in the world, I actually liked him a little more. I’m a Crosby guy and always will be, but maybe there’s room to be a fan of both? Maybe Ovechkin’s personality is playing him off this team?

I’m sure I will be back to being anti-Ovechkin in March when the Rangers and Capitals play again and he spends the entire night taking shots at every Ranger on the ice. Even though I will annoyed, it will put a smile on my face that my animosity toward Ovechkin is back.

Brad Marchand
I had to figure out a way to make room for Brad Marchand on the team and that meant either cutting Alexander Ovechkin or Chris Kunitz. I didn’t cut Ovechkin, even though I actually don’t have as much out-of-game animosity toward him as I do for Kunitz. By “out-of-game” animosity, I mean that I don’t mind Ovechkin when he’s not playing a game against the Rangers, or a playoff game, and putting fear into me every time he’s on the ice or every time the Capitals get a power play. Kunitz, on the other hand, makes me angry to just think about since his career has taken off with the Penguins thanks to playing with Sidney Crosby, yet people continue to consider among the league’s elite players, which was never more true when he was given a spot on Team Canada in the 2014 Olympics. I thought about putting Kunitz on D for this team and sort of making a power-play unit out of the team, but then I decided … actually, wait, that’s a great idea! Put Kunitz on defense and cut Dion Phaneuf, who couldn’t be any more irrelevant as the captain of the downfall of the Maple Leafs.

Marchand is the ultimate player who you hate to watch your team play against, but would love if he were on your team. He’s dirty and annoying, he’s a pest and nuisance, but he’s good. Or at least he can be good. There are stretches where you wonder why it looks like he doesn’t care and other stretches where he’s involved in every play and leading an unstoppable forecheck. His lapses in judgment and total disregard for player safety are what makes him hated and in the Rangers-Bruins game on Jan. 15, there he was earning a two-game suspension for slew-footing Derick Brassard (a technique that Marchand turns to frequently). The only thing worse than Marchand’s antics in that game were Jack Edwards and Andy Brickley calling the game for NESN and saying they didn’t see a slew-foot.

DEFENSEMEN

Zdeno Chara
I don’t know how Chara would feel knowing that on this team Milan Lucic wears the “C” instead of him, but if he were upset about it, I would have no problem throwing an “A” on his jersey for him.

It’s weird to think that the Bruins will retire Chara’s number one day considering the team they were when they signed him and the team they have become now seven years later. But Chara is as big of a reason as anyone in the Bruins’ turnaround from finishing the 2006-07 season with 76 points to eventually winning the Cup and being in another Cup Final. It felt like it would be at least another three decades until the Bruins won again when Chara arrived in Boston and he should be recognized for … wait a second … this is supposed to be about why I don’t like Chara. In that case, let me repurpose what I said about him last year:

Jack Edwards will likely tell you that Chara is the best defenseman in the league, but he’s the same guy who thinks fights are decided by whichever plays ends up on top of the other player on the ice. Is there anything worse than when broadcasters talk about Chara’s 108-mph slap shot in the Skills Competition in a real game? No, there’s not. Because there are a lot of times in real games when you get to sprint untouched from the blue into a still puck in the slot and rip a bomb into an open net. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg that is the lovefest for the 6-foot-9, one-time Norris Trophy winner.

Chris Kunitz
The Rangers’ 3-1 series comeback against the Penguins in the Eastern Conference semifinals last year was an amazing five days, in which any shot, bad bounce or deflection could have ended the Rangers’ season a month earlier than it lasted. And aside from the jubilation from watching the Rangers come back against a team that had its way with the Rangers in the postseason forever, came the jubilation of watching Chris Kunitz score once in the series.

I moved Kunitz back on D on this team just to keep him on and it was a move I had to make after originally thinking of leaving him off this year’s roster. But the more I thought about him and the more I thought about him putting up stats and getting paid as the product of playing on a line with the best player of this generation, I had to find a way to keep him on the team.

When I was in college in Boston, there was a place called New York Pizza next to the Boston Common on Boylston St. that I would always eat at 2 a.m. at the earliest when I wasn’t exactly sober. I swore to everyone that visited me that New York Pizza was the best pizza in Boston and every person I told this to agreed with me because I would take them there after a night of drinking. It wasn’t until one time when I went to New York Pizza in the middle of the day and had a slice and could barely get two bites down that I realized that the alcohol had masked the true taste of the pizza. Chris Kunitz’s career pre-Sidney Crosby was me eating New York Pizza sober in the middle of the day and Chris Kunitz’s career with Sidney Crosby has been me eating New York Pizza drunk.

Last year, I said, “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,” and I believe that to be 100 percent true. And because that’s true, let’s stop pretending that Chris Kunitz is the type of player that he isn’t.

GOALIE

Martin Brodeur
Like last year … was there any other choice? And unless you’re a Devils fan or have changed your stance on the Ten Commandments, then you will agree with Brodeur as the starting goalie once again.

Yes, I stole that line from myself from last year. And maybe there were other choices (cough, cough, Carey Price, cough, cough), but with Brodeur set to retire on Thursday after trying to play at the age of 42 for the St. Louis Blues, it made sense to bring him back one more time.

Rather than ride off into the sunset as a lifetime Devil, who could have enjoyed a final game in New Jersey last season, Brodeur had to come back this season. After 1,259 games with the Devils, his stats will always have those glaring seven games at the bottom of the list. Sure, he added three more wins to his all-time record of 691 wins, but it’s unlikely that number will ever get touched, so instead of leaving it at 688, it’s now at 691 with a little bit of stink on it.

There are some players that are just supposed to play for one franchise forever and Brodeur is one of those players, considering he has been on the Devils since I was in kindergarten. Yes, I said KINDERGARTEN! Very rarely does a Ray Bourque-like move work out and instead it just gets weird when someone like Brian Leetch, who was a Ranger for 17 years, ends up playing 15 games for the Maple Leafs and 61 games for the Bruins at the end of his career.

I also said that about Brodeur last year and now that he’s no longer a one-team career guy, it’s a shame that he put on another jersey in an attempt to try to hang on to the only thing he has known to do in the winter for his whole life. I thought Martin Brodeur would retire at the end of last year and he should have. But now that he will make it official on Thursday (barring another Roger Clemens-like midseason comeback) it’s time for me to say it again:

I will miss Martin Brodeur when he retires, but my animosity for him will stay the same.

Blogs • Team USA

Feb 15, 2014

Team USA-Russia Thoughts: Do You Believe in T.J. Oshie?

T.J. Oshie became a household name after he beat the defending Vezina winner, the face of the KHL and Russian hockey and Russia’s captain in a shootout.

Doc Emrick finished the USA-Russia broadcast by saying, “Many people paid many rubles hoping to see the home team win. Not tonight.” And it was night in Sochi by the time T.J. Oshie finished off Russia, but back in the U.S. it was still early in the morning and the perfect start to the day.

To continue the perfect start to the day, like I did on Thursday, here are the Thoughts from the game.

– Ryan Callahan played the exact type of game that has people questioning why the Rangers would want to trade their captain in the middle of a season in which they are fighting for a playoff berth. Callahan sacrificed his body (including burying Ovechkin from behind), mucked it up in the corners and seemed to be involved in the play every shift throughout the game. It must have made non-Rangers fans laugh at the idea that Glen Sather is actively seeking a trade for him.

– Blake Wheeler is barely on Team USA and barely in the lineup, but there he was turning the puck over in the neutral zone and then taking a tripping penalty to make up for his turnover halfway through the first period to give Russia’s dangerous power play an early chance. I’m going to guess that that’s not the way to increase your already small amount of playing time or ensure your spot in the lineup for the rest of the tournament.

– As for Russia’s power play, their main power play featured a combination of Alexander Ovechkin, Pavel Datsyuk, Evegeni Malkin, Ilya Kovalchuk, Andrei Markov and Alexander Radulov and it was unimpressive for the options they had. Datsyuk’s second goal was a power-play goal, but Russia finished the game 1-for-6 on the power play and several times had trouble setting up in the USA zone and struggled to get shots. When you have two guys like Ovechkin and Malkin both looking for the big one-timer and two guys like Kovalchuk and Datsyuk both trying to control the play and tempo, is it possible that Russia has too many offensive weapons for the the man-advantage?

– The Russian fans made the game from a TV-watching perspective have the feel of a game with special magnitude. Even if the constant horns made it sound like a Tampa Bay Rays home game or vuvuzelas at the World Cup, the crowd made the environment hostile for Team USA and their noise levels when Russia carried the puck into the offensive zone was Stanley Cup-esque.

– I miss watching Ilya Kovalchuk on a regular basis. I’m sure if I really wanted I could still watch Kovalchuk on a regular basis if I wanted to wake up early and put my computer at risk by accessing some sketchy website that streams KHL games if you answer some survey questions and close 29 pop-up windows. As a Rangers fan, I don’t miss watching Kovalchuk the New Jersey Devil beat the Rangers, but as a hockey fan, he was entertaining and one of the best pure scorers in the league. Here’s what I said about him in the Rangers-Devils email exchange from the Stadium Series:

To me, Kovalchuk was always the most underrated superstar in the league. With 108 goals by the age of 21 after his first three years in the league, following the 2003-04 season it seemed like Kovalchuk would be one of the premier names in the league for well over the next decade. But after the lockout, Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin emerged, took over as the faces of the league and Kovalchuk was pushed aside and somewhat forgotten about because of the other two and because of where he played.

In the shootout, Kovalchuk made it look easy against Jonathan Quick. His first goal was effortless and his second goal was almost a joke as he pulled Quick to the left (Quick’s right) and casually flipped the puck back across Quick, which could have been the game-winning shootout goal if T.J. Oshie didn’t exist.

You would think that playing with fellow Russians who still play in the NHL and against players he spent a decade playing against that he would miss the North American game. But if anyone doesn’t, it’s the guy who left 12 years and $77 million to return home. Maybe we’ll get to see him play against Team USA one more time in these Olympics, if not, maybe we’ll see him in four years in South Korea.

– When Pavel Datsyuk splits your defense (in this case, John Carlson and Brooks Orpik) and then scores on your Conn Smythe goalie, all you can do is shake your head and laugh. So that’s what I did.

– You have to love the Russian chants of “Shaybu!” which Doc said loosely translates to “Go get the puck.” What do the fans think the players are trying to do? We can relate to this here in the States where we have fans at games using their voices to repeatedly yell “Shoot!” at players on the power play no matter where the puck is or what kind of angle the player with possession has. But imagine everyone at Madison Square Garden repeatedly yelling “Go get the puck!” “Go get the puck!” “Go get the puck!”

– When NBC showed Russia’s coach for the first time and the graphic with his name, I wondered how much it would suck to have his name: Zinetula Bilyaletdinov. That’s eight letters for the first name and 13 for the last name for a total of 21 letters. As Neil Keefe (nine total letters), I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to write Zinetula Bilyaletdinov or to even remember it.

– It was weird to see Mike Babcock, Claude Julien, Lindy Ruff, Steve Yzerman, Peter Chiarelli and Doug Armstrong all together watching USA-Russia even though they are all part of Team Canada, but it wasn’t weird to see everyone laughing and having a good time except for Chiarelli who has never not been serious in his life.

– I have never been a Fedor Tyutin fan. Never. Not for a second. Not when he was drafted by the Rangers, on the Hartford Wolf Pack or when he finally made it to New York. I think I was happier when he was traded to Columbus before the 2008-09 season than when Michael Del Zotto was traded this season. So of course it was Tyutin who almost beat Team USA because that’s how things work out. But thankfully he didn’t.

– At the time of the disallowed Russia goal, I couldn’t believe that call was made. Not because the call went against Russia in Russia with Vladimir Putin in attendance, which seems like it should be enough for the call to stand, but because as an NHL fan, there wasn’t a high-stick and the puck clearly hit the back bar. The problem was that everyone on the NBC broadcast also happens to be trained to judge reviewed goals by NHL standards and weren’t aware of the net being slightly off its mooring. Once the international rule was eventually explained, the replayed showed Quick instantly showing the refs that the net was dislodged and without Quick pointing that out, maybe that goal doesn’t get reviewed and Russia wins and T.J. Oshie isn’t a legend.

– But T.J. Oshie is a legend. Oshie took six of the eight Team USA shootout attempts and scored on four of the six against Sergei Bobrovsky, who just happens to be the defending Vezina winner. There wasn’t a serious hockey fan who had ever heard the name T.J. Oshie prior to the shootout and if you has asked a random person if T.J. Oshie is a congressman from Minnesota, the CEO of Ford, an NHL player on the St. Louis Blues or the bass player for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, there’s no way they would have known. But when you beat the reigning Vezina winner, the face of hockey in Russia and the KHL and the captain of Russia in a shootout and seal the win for the latest chapter of USA-Russia hockey, everyone will know who you are.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Rangers

Jan 25, 2014

Rangers-Devils Rivalry Heads to River Ave.

The Rangers and Devils meet in the first of the two Stadium Series games at Yankee Stadium and that calls for an email exchange with John Fischer of In Lou We Trust.

The Rangers gave the Devils their first win of the season back on Oct. 19. Since then, they have given the Devils two more wins (Nov. 12 and Dec. 7) and are 0-2-1 against them this season. When the two teams meet again, it will be under much different conditions where the New York January elements will be a major factor.

With the Rangers and Devils set to play in the first of the two Stadium Series games at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, I did an email exchange with John Fischer of In Lou We Trust to talk about how the Devils have rebounded from their disastrous start, how the team has recovered from the loss of Ilya Kovalchuk with the performances from their older players and what to expect from the Metropolitan rivals in the Bronx.

Keefe: The Devils’ leading scorer is 41 years old and averages .78 points per game. Their second-leading scorer has seven goals and is 37 years old. Their 41-year-old goalie has a 2.36 goals against average and .905 save percentage and has played in the majority of the team’s games. They lack elite scoring, big-time playmakers, superstars and All-Stars and didn’t win their first game until the eighth game of the season (against the Rangers, of course) and had one win in their first 10 games. Yet here they are on Jan. 24 with a winning record at 21-19-11 and are just three points out of the playoff picture. The Rangers wouldn’t have been able to come half of the adversity the Devils have this season and probably would have just packed it in and kept on losing after the disastrous start to the season. The roster keeps changing (except in goal), but the Devils continue to succeed. How does Lou Lamoriello keep doing this?

Fischer: Magic. No, seriously, I believe the New Jersey Devils are a lot more analytical than they let on. Having one or two seasons where they’re strong in possession or defense is one thing. To continually be ahead of their opponents in terms of stinginess or attempts at evens across multiple coaches and players strongly suggests that they’re monitoring and judging players on how well they do at both. The point totals for Travis Zajac and Adam Henrique may not be gaudy, but they do so well in both ends of the rink that they garnered big contracts. I don’t think other teams would have done that, but I’m confident the organization values players beyond how many points they earn.

The shortened 2013 season was a good example of how being a strong possession team keeps teams competitive even when the bounces don’t go their way. They really weren’t eliminated until the last few weeks of the season. Even so, they put up a fight nearly every night; they just couldn’t score any goals. This season, the shooting percentage is far better and they remain strong in possession; but they are just terrible at generating shots. Since most of the current roster are veterans, Peter DeBoer has been behind the bench for now three seasons, and Lou Lamoriello has seen it all, then this is a squad that knows not to get too frustrated or down on themselves if there’s a bad run of games or they go weeks without scoring much. So that has helped preventing 2013-14 from spiraling out of control. Granted, they continue to play on a knife’s edge given the Metropolitan Division and how so many of their games are decided by a goal and/or post-regulation play. But it keeps them in it and likely will through this season.

Keefe: I thought it was a report from The Onion when I heard that Ilya Kovalchuk was retiring from the NHL at the age of 30 and leaving 12 years and $77 million remaining on his contract with the Devils. But then when I heard he wanted to return home to play in the KHL it made sense.

To me, Kovalchuk was always the most underrated superstar in the league. With 108 goals by the age of 21 after his first three years in the league, following the 2003-04 season it seemed like Kovalchuk would be one of the premier names in the league for well over the next decade. But after the lockout, Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin emerged, took over as the faces of the league and Kovalchuk was pushed aside and somewhat forgotten about because of the other two and because of where he played. In seven years in Atlanta, Kovalchuk went to the playoffs just once (2006-07) and that trip lasted four games with a sweep at the hands of the Rangers. And then in his eighth season in Atlanta, he was put on the block.

When Kovalchuk became available, I wanted the Rangers to be in on the wing whose lowest season goal total was 29, which came when he was 18 years old. The Rangers needed pure scoring (and they still do unless Rick Nash is going to score two goals a game for the rest of the season), but they weren’t able to trade for him and he instead went to the worst possible place for the Rangers.

Kovalchuk left the NHL with exactly a point-per-game average for his career (816 points in 816 games) and left New Jersey after playing in 222 games over four seasons, but he left a massive reliable scoring hole for the team.

How devastated were you about Kovalchuk leaving? What are your thoughts now after more than half a season in the post-Kovalchuk era?

Fischer: I was honestly shocked. I needed to read Tom Gulitti tweet that it wasn’t a joke. The initial reaction was summed up by Mike Stromberg perfectly: What? I’ve written further about the announcement later in the day after a few hours to take it all in. Even if Kovalchuk stayed, scoring goals figured to be a big challenge. Unfortunately, that fear came true as the Devils are among the league’s lowest scoring teams. I wrote back in July that in the long run it may not be a big deal. But in the short term like this season, the Devils absolutely miss a high-shooting winger who oozes skill. The Devils’ power play, one of the worst in the league at generating shots, absolutely misses Kovalchuk at the point. It may have been a regular play to set up a one timer to him but at least they had a regular play. The Devils really could use more offensive production from the wings and that’s what Kovalchuk would normally provide.

That all said, I really do not want Kovalchuk to come back to the league or the Devils. He made his choice to back out of his deal and take a better one with an inferior league. He’d rather be the biggest fish in the smaller pond. That’s fine but I want him to live with that choice. I believe they will find productive players through free agency and the draft later such that he team will not need him in a few years. So I’d rather have the Devils suffer without him in the short term.

Keefe: Martin Brodeur has played 1,247 regular-season games and 205 playoff games. He has been in an NHL net for 86,130 minutes or 1,435 hours and 30 minutes or 59.8 days. He’s 41 years old, has played in 27 of 51 games this year and has a 2.36 goals against average and .905 save percentage. He’s going to play forever, isn’t he?

Fischer: No, he’s not. For the first few months of this season, Cory Schneider has been held back due to playing well while Martin Brodeur was playing well or not playing well when Brodeur was not playing well. In November, Schneider and Brodeur weere both great. In December, Schneider was poor and Brodeur was poorer except for a handful of great games. It wasn’t until this month where Schneider has improved whereas Brodeur really didn’t. As a result, Schneider’s started seven games this month (with a .960 save percentage) to Brodeur’s four (at an .890 save percentage). It’s not that Brodeur can’t have a good game anymore or that the team can’t win with him. It’s that he’s not consistently good enough while Schneider has been. So more and more fans want Schneider to be the regular starter. I think we will see that come to fruition after the Olympic break. After this season, I wouldn’t be surprised if Brodeur calls it a career. It’s not as if he has anything left to prove. But then he hasn’t had anything to prove for years now.

Keefe: The first Stanley Cup I remember watching was the 1990-91 Cup when I was four years old and my mom woke me up to see the Penguins celebrating their championship. Jaromir Jagr was on that team and was 19 when he first got his name on the Cup and a year later he got his name on it for a second time. The 1990-91 finals was 23 years ago. I said 23 years ago. Jaromir Jagr is still playing in the NHL.

When the Devils signed Jaromir Jagr during the offseason, I thought it was a necessary move to try and add scoring following the departure of Kovalchuk. Jagr did have 35 points in 45 games last season and 54 points in 73 games for the Flyers in 2011-12. I thought he would have to be a complimentary piece given his age and not his name, considering his last 20-plus goal season in the NHL was six years ago with the Rangers.

Jaromir Jagr will be 42 on Feb. 15 with no signs of slowing down. How long can he do this for?

Fischer: Admittedly, I was not a fan of the Jaromir Jagr signing. I thought it was rushed in part of Kovalchuk’s decision to quit on the team. I didn’t think he would have much left in the proverbial tank. As I wrote back in July, I wasn’t confident that he would be a significant scorer. Well, I look foolish now since he’s the team’s leading scorer with 42 points in 52 games. He leads the team in goals (16), assists (26), and shots (130). He’s been excellent in possession; he’s not just picking up points and doing little else. He actually has been seen in the defensive end of the rink trying to do something. Most impressively, he plays down low so, so well. Jagr essentially posts-up defenders and works very hard along the perimeter. He maybe lost a step or two speed-wise, but he’s still strong enough to battle with the toughest of defenders, skilled enough to make some of them look stupid, and smart enough to know when to pass it out or continue control of the puck. He’s 42 by birth, but he’s playing like a game-hardened 29-year-old looking to earn a fat contract this summer. I am enamored with how he’s been playing with the Devils this season. I’m at a point where I wouldn’t think it would be a terrible idea if the Devils re-signed him. Father Time always wins but Jagr has put in monumental effort to defy him as long as he has been doing. I hope he can continue playing like this through the rest of this season and, honestly, nothing that I’ve seen from him suggests he won’t or can’t.

Keefe: The Devils started the season 0-4-3 before they hosted the Rangers. The Rangers were in the seventh game of their season-opening nine-game road trip and lost 4-0 to give the Devils their first win of the season. Nearly a month later, the Rangers lost to the Devils again, this time 3-2. And nearly a month after that, the Rangers lost to the Devils again, this time 4-3 in overtime. Each Rangers-Devils game this season has come following a Rangers win and the Devils have stopped them from building a winning streak or have stopped their current winning streak. What kind of game do you expect on Sunday and what are you feelings on the Stadium Series game?

Fischer: I expect an absolutely fantastic game on Sunday. Devils-Rangers games are always big affairs. The Devils and Rangers legitimately don’t like each other. The Rangers are surely peeved that they haven’t beaten the Devils yet this season. The Devils organization from top to bottom despises the Rangers. On top of that, the game is important in the short term. With a win, the Devils can catch the Rangers in the standings. The Rangers dropped their last two and, as we are seeing from the Capitals, a losing streak is a fast ticket down the Metropolitan. They want to avoid dropping three games regardless of the rivalry. Throw all of that onto a massive national stage and you have the makings for a regular season classic. I’m looking forward to being there, but I will admit a win will make it even more worthwhile to attend.

That all said, both teams aren’t big scoring teams and they are strong possession teams this season. I expect it to go like the two games at MSG: a close, perilous affair where one or two bounces or defensive miscues makes the difference. I wish Schneider was starting this one, then I’d feel even better about the Devils’ chances. I hope Brodeur and the team makes my concerns be wrong.

Podcasts

Nov 13, 2013

Podcast: Brian Monzo

Brian Monzo of WFAN joins me to talk about why he supposedly didn’t care about the NHL entering this season and where Henrik Lundqvist will play next year.

It took the Rangers nearly a month to get their season on track, but they have done so by winning seven of their last 10 games and climbing out of their early 2-6 hole. I wasn’t sure if Mike’s On: Francesa on the FAN producer Brian Monzo had even watched the first month-plus of the NHL season after he wrote a blog on Opening Night saying how he didn’t care that the NHL was back.

Monzo joined me to talk about the state of the NHL, why he is against the league’s front office and rule changes, whether or not NHL players should play in the Olympics, if the Islanders made the right decision trading Matt Moulson for Thomas Vanek and where Henrik Lundqvist will play next season.

Tag: Alexander Ovechkin

Podcast: Adam Herman

The 2014-15 NHL All-Animosity Team

Team USA-Russia Thoughts: Do You Believe in T.J. Oshie?

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