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Tag: Cam Talbot

Blogs • Rangers

Mar 24, 2014

The Real Stretch Run for the Rangers

There are 10 games left in the Rangers’ season and the next three weeks will be the difference in the Rangers making the playoffs or in me hate-watching the playoffs this spring.

It seems like just yesterday I turned to the start of the Rangers’ season to console me after the Yankees ended the their season without a trip to the postseason and the Giants were off to an 0-4 start. The Rangers didn’t exactly make me forget about an 85-win Yankees team or a winless Giants team as they lost seven of their first 10 games and were shut out four times in those 10 games. But since that 3-6-0 road trip to open the season and the 2-0 loss to the Canadiens in the home opener in Game 10, the Rangers have been a pretty good team (they are 36-22-4 since the 3-7-0 start).

At times they have made me believe they are capable of competing against the Bruins or Penguins in a seven-game series and at other times they have made me think they will miss the playoffs in a Game 82-shootout setting like they did to finish the 2009-10 season. I have learned not to be surprised by the Rangers over the years and even with a team that rosters Henrik Lundqvist, Rick Nash, Martin St. Louis and Brad Richards, I’m still not surprised by the inconsistent efforts.

After losing back-to-back road games to Carolina and Minnesota (and scoring only one goal in each game), it seemed Rangers fans would have to endure the usual March charades from the Rangers that would force them to play for their season in the final week of the season. With Columbus continuing to win and Philadelphia laughing at the gauntlet portion of their schedule that was supposed to keep them from making a playoff push, the dreaded “Games in hand” phrase that always seems to work against the Rangers at this time of the year began to make its annual appearance on every TV graphic. But over the last five games, the Rangers have looked more like that team that is capable of competing with the Bruins and Penguins and less like the team that let their season come down to an Olli Jokinen shootout attempt.

Three weeks from today the 2013-14 regular season will be over, and three weeks from today there’s a chance the 2013-14 Rangers’ season will be over too. The Rangers have 10 games to earn their way into the playoffs and to make sure I’m not hate-watching the NHL playoffs during my favorite time of the year. In those 10 games, we will get the answer to a few questions I have about the state of the Rangers down the stretch.

Are We in the Middle of One of Rick Nash’s Patented Streaks?
Rick Nash has played 99 regular-season games for the Rangers. He has scored 44 goals in those 99 games. That looks like steady production and without watching him you might think he is a model for consistent goal scoring in the NHL. But while Nash’s final numbers will look the way his final numbers have looked since he entered the league over a decade ago, he is anything but consistent, which makes him the perfect Ranger.

Let’s look at Nash’s 2012-13 regular season:

In seven games from Jan. 19 to Jan. 31, Nash had one goal.

In 12 games from Feb. 2 to March 8, Nash had eight goals.

In eight games from March 10 to March 24, Nash had one goal.

In eight games from March 26 to April 8, Nash had seven goals.

In nine games from April 10 to April 27, Nash had four goals.

And now let’s look at what Nash has done this season:

In 11 games from Nov. 21 to Dec. 10, Nash had six goals.

In 11 games from Dec. 12 Jan. 4, Nash had one goal.

In 11 games from Jan. 6 to Jan. 26, Nash had 11 goals.

In 15 games from Jan. 29 to March 16, Nash had two goals.

In the last three games, Nash has three goals.

Nash has admitted he is a streaky goal scorer and this season, like last, has once again shown that. His 23 goals have come from two 11-game stretches with the rest of them coming in this current three-game streak. Nash scores in spurts and when he does, they aren’t usually in short spurts like three games. They are usually for a couple of weeks. The Rangers need an extended Nash scoring streak that continues through the end of the regular season and into the postseason, which is what didn’t happen last year. (More on that later.)

And how about Nash even deciding to mix it up in his Columbus homecoming? When I told David Singer, founder of HockeyFights.com, on our podcast last week that the Rangers were going to need to get tougher and some Rangers would need to appear on his site in the coming weeks to make the playoffs, I didn’t mean Rick Nash. But Nash has proven to be a leader for this team and it his decision to become one on the ice and the scoresheet couldn’t have come at a better time.

How is Anton Stralman Still in the NHL?
It’s scary to think if John Moore wasn’t currently battling a concussion that Antron Stralman would still be in the lineup. If you’re Raphael Diaz, who is only playing because of Moore’s concussion, you have to be thinking that you’ll never get into a game as long as Moore, Stralman, Ryan McDonagh, Dan Girardi, Marc Staal and Kevin Klein are healthy.

Prior to Moore’s concussion, Stralman was still dressing and still part of the Top 6 defensemen on the team despite doing nothing and I mean actually nothing to earn or deserve to be in the lineup. He has become the new Michael Del Zotto of the Rangers (who is having his own trouble staying in the lineup in Nashville) in that he isn’t an offensive defenseman (or at least he doesn’t produce like one) and he clearly isn’t a defensive defenseman since I would consider him the biggest defensive zone liability in the entire NHL.

Stralman hasn’t looked like an NHL player since the Olympic break and nowhere near the type of player that should be considered for an extension. He hasn’t even been the type of player that should be involved in contract extensions rumors (whether true or false) the way he was a few weeks ago. If Raphael Diaz is back out of the lineup once Moore is back and Stralman doesn’t see the press box for at least one game then there’s a serious problem. And if you see Diaz in line to buy beers between periods at MSG as a healthy scratch, let him know he’s doing the right thing.

Is Martin St. Louis Ever Going to Score?
In 10 games with the Rangers, Martin St. Louis’ production line looks like something Brian Boyle would post: 0-3-3. If you believe in being snake-bitten, then St. Louis is certainly that. And if you believe in being due, then St. Louis is certainly that as well.

During the playoffs last year, the Rangers got past the Capitals in the quarterfinals despite getting just two assists from Rick Nash in seven games. If the Rangers could overcome a 2-0 series deficit and eventually win a Game 7 without their best player scoring a goal, I thought they would be able to make another conference finals appearance and possibly even a Cup appearance once Nash got hot and started scoring, since he would have to get hot and start scoring eventually … right? Wrong. Against the Bruins, Nash had one goal and two assists in the five-game series loss and if it weren’t for Tuukka Rask giving the Rangers the weirdest/craziest goal of all time in Game 4 (and possibly betting against his team in the game), the Rangers would have been swept thanks to a lack of scoring from their pure scorer and too much scoring on his own net from Dan Girardi.

Now even though my theory about Nash eventually getting hot and carrying the Rangers never came to fruition last May, I’m putting it out there again, only this time it’s for St. Louis. At some point, St. Louis is going to get hot and start scoring. His 976 points in 1,051 regular-season games and 68 points in 63 playoff games tell us he’s going to. I just hope his “due” isn’t supposed to come in the playoffs and we never get to experience it because his lack of production over the final 10 games keeps the Rangers out of the playoffs.

Is Henrik Lundqvist Playing for the Rest of the Season?
Before the season, Alain Vigneault said he wanted to keep Henrik Lundqvist to 60 games. Lundqvist has played 55 games so far and that would mean he would only play five of the remaining 10 games, and that’s not going to happen. And I’m fine with it.

Here is how many games Lundqvist has played in each season of his career and how many he didn’t play in:

2012-13: 43/5
2011-12:  62/20
2010-11: 68/14
2009-10: 73/9
2008-09: 70/12
2007-08: 72/10
2006-07: 70/12
2005-06: 53/29

With 10 games left and the Rangers trying to make the playoffs let alone trying to not be a wild-card team, I’m not sure Vigneault can start Cam Talbot until the Rangers have the “x” next to their name in the standings representing a playoff berth has been clinched. And really how can you give Lundqvist a night off when he is 6-2-0 and has allowed just 11 goals in those eight games since March 7?

Maybe when Vigneault said he would try to limit Lundqvist’s starts he thought his Rangers team wouldn’t be fighting for a playoff spot over the final 10 games of the season (if he thought this then he clearly wasn’t in tune with what was going on in New York while he was in Vancouver). But now Vigneault has no choice but to play and ride Lundqvist down the stretch, and in his first season he learned you can’t try to plan ahead for how you will or won’t use Lundqvist over the course of a season.

Once again the Rangers getting to the playoffs will come down to Henrik Lundqvist. I guess I wouldn’t want it any other way since it’s the only way I know.

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Podcasts • Rangers

Mar 11, 2014

Podcast: 610 Barstool Sports New York

610 of Barstool Sports New York joins me to talk about if the Rangers are better now than they were before the trade deadline and how Ryan Callahan didn’t think the Rangers would call his bluff and actually trade him.

A week ago, Ryan Callahan was the captain of the Rangers and trying to work out a deal to make him a career Ranger. Now the Rangers are without a captain, Callahan is playing for the Tampa Bay Lightning and we are four games into the Martin St. Louis era in New York.

610 of Barstool Sports New York joined me to talk about if the Rangers are better now than they were before the trade deadline, how Ryan Callahan didn’t think the Rangers would call his bluff and actually trade him and if Brad Richards can avoid a buyout now that his old teammate is his new linemate.

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Podcasts • Rangers

Mar 3, 2014

Podcast: Kevin DeLury

Kevin DeLury of The New York Rangers Blog joins me to talk about whether the Rangers should sign or trade Ryan Callahan and why Glen Sather is deciding to draw the line for the first time with his team’s captain.

The clock is ticking on Ryan Callahan and the Rangers. With Wednesday’s 3 p.m. deadline quickly approaching, I realize that at any moment I can open Twitter and see that the Rangers have signed Callahan to a six-year deal or that they have traded him, which would send a confusing message to the rest of the Rangers and the fans of the team. But after what has now been a month of trade rumors surrounding Callahan, we will soon have a resolution.

Kevin DeLury of The New York Rangers Blog joined me to talk about whether the Rangers should sign or trade Ryan Callahan, why Glen Sather is deciding to draw the line for the first time with his team’s captain and how far the Rangers can go this season.

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Blogs

Dec 24, 2013

My Christmas Wish List

I won’t be getting playoff football this year, so that means I will have to ask for some other things this Christmas.

When I put together my Christmas list for this year, I didn’t bother to ask for anything to do with the New York Football Giants. At 6-9, their season has been lost since their Week 12 loss to the Cowboys and this season marks the fourth time in five years the Giants won’t play in the postseason.

After reaching the playoffs in each of the first four years of Eli Manning’s career as the full-time starting quarterback (2005-08), the Giants’ lone playoff trip since their loss in the 2008 divisional round as the No. 1 seed was in 2011 when they won the Super Bowl. I’m very grateful for the two Super Bowls since 2007 and that Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin prevented Tom Brady and Bill Belichick from being 5-0 in the Super Bowl and football immortality as the best quarterback-coach combination in history. But at this time of the year with the Cowboys and Eagles playing for the NFC East title and the Bears, Packers, Panthers, Saints, Seahawks, 49ers, Cardinals, Patriots, Dolphins, Bengals, Ravens, Steelers, Colts, Broncos, Chiefs and Chargers all playing for something this Sunday, it’s not fun being on the outside looking in.

Yes, it’s another Week 17 of wondering what could have been, but I’m not going to let the Giants ruin Christmas since they already ruined October and November (the Yankees ruined September). And if I can’t have playoff football this year, which I can’t, then this is what I want.

Something That Resembles A Starting Rotation That Can Compete In the AL East
If it seems like I have asked for that before, it’s because I have. Back in 2010, I asked for the same exact thing after the Yankees lost out on Cliff Lee and I was staring at a potential rotation of CC Sabathia, Phil Hughes, A.J. Burnett, Ivan Nova and at the time no one else. (That’s right, Phil Hughes, coming off an 18-win season, was going to be the Yankees’ No. 2 starter.) Thankfully Bartolo Colon decided to get some “help” and Freddy Garcia reinvented himself and the Yankees won 97 games and the AL East before the heart of the order went missing in a five-game series loss to the Tigers in the ALDS.

So far this offseason the Yankees have signed Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann, Carlos Beltran and Brian Roberts and lost Robinson Cano to the Mariners. The November 2013 Yankees are better than the September 2013 Yankees were and are better in theory than the 2013 Yankees were ever going to be at their healthiest point. But the rotation is still a problem just like it was at this time last year and the year before that.

The best free-agent options for the rotation are Matt Garza, Ervin Santana, Ubaldo Jimenez, Bronson Arroyo, Paul Maholm and …. wait for it …. wait for it …. wait for it … A.J. Burnett! The only one of these six options I would be OK with would be Garza, but even then he’s going to command (and receive) a ridiculous contract in this market for someone who has a career .500 record (67-67), a 3.84 ERA and has started only 42 games over the last two years.

Brian Cashman said going into this winter that he was going to have to find 400 innings from somewhere and I don’t think the Yankees are going to sign one of the “top” free agents just because they are the best available right now like they would have in the past with Carl Pavano or Jaret Wright or Burnett. That means that “somewhere” will likely be from within the organization and some combination of the current favorites Michael Pineda, David Phelps and Adam Warren. Unless, the Yankees can give me the next thing on my list …

Cliff Lee
Yes, three years later I’m still asking for Cliff Lee. I don’t need to explain it. Just read this. But since Lee isn’t exactly realistic, I will ask for someone who is …

Masahiro Tanaka
I know nothing about Masahiro Tanaka other than from searching “Masahiro Tanaka” on YouTube and watching a video titled “Best of Mashahiro Tanaka” that is synced to what sounds like nearly four minutes of an instrumental version of a song by The Offspring. But I’m going to guess that the only knowledge most North American “experts” who talk about how good Tanaka is happens to be this same exact video. No one knows for sure how Tanaka’s Japanese success will translate to the majors and given the history of highly coveted Japanese pitchers coming to North America, there’s a better chance that Tanaka will be more like Daisuke Matsuzaka than Yu Darvish. But as long as he’s not Kei Igawa (I haven’t typed that name in so long), I’ll take him.

2013-14 Henrik Lundqvist To Be 2011-12 Henrik Lundqvist
Since signing his seven-year extension, Henrik Lundqvist is 2-4-2. I’m not sure if you want your franchise player, who you recently locked up through 2020-21 to be saying he “kind of expected” that a rookie backup would be starting in place of him for the second consecutive game and night. And after recording two wins and allowing just two goals combined in 48 hours, I’m not sure that Alain Vigneault is necessarily going to go back to Lundqvist over Cam Talbot on Friday night in Washington.

Lundqvist has admitted to over-anticipating plays and being jumpy and it has shown this season. While it’s hard to fault him for a five-goal loss to the Islanders on Friday night when you consider they were getting shorthanded breakaways and odd-man rushes left and right, he isn’t bailing out the team that way he used to. And because Lundqvist isn’t bailing out his team the way he used to, it brings me to the next thing I’m asking for …

A New Rangers Defense
I asked for this last because this is going to be the most unrealistic of them all. It would be like asking for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 this year.

Since 2008-09, the Rangers’ problem has been scoring goals, but now with Lundvist struggling and having a down year so far, preventing goals is even more of a problem. And if Lundqvist is going to be more human-like than King-like this season, the Rangers aren’t going anywhere because they don’t have the defense (especially with Marc Staal injured) many thought they did. Through the first 46 percent of the season, Lundqvist hasn’t been bailing out the incompetence of the Rangers defense the way he has through his entire career. But rather than focus on his entire career, let’s focus on since 2011-12 when the current Rangers defensive core started to become the foundation of the defense.

We all know that I don’t think the 2011-12 Rangers were worthy of the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed or as close as “two wins away from the Stanley Cup Final” as they technically were. They earned the top seed and won two series in Game 7 before losing the Devils in six because of Henrik Lundqvist. Not because of their offense and certainly not because of their defense. Lundqvist made everyone believe Dan Girardi was an All-Star and that Michael Del Zotto could be trusted in his own zone the same way Sidney Crosby has made everyone believe Chris Kunitz is some kind of superstar despite his career season-high in goals being 26 and now as a linemate of Number 87, he has 20 goals in just 39 games.

Prior to Lundqvist signing an extension, there was a worrying sense that overpaying Lundqvist would cost the Rangers a chance at re-signing Girardi this offseason. But right now I’m not sure anyone would want to sign Girardi. When he’s not falling down or giving the puck away, he’s busy scoring goals against his team, a stat which he must lead the league in by at least 15.

As for Del Zotto, it’s pretty obvious his time with the Rangers is dwindling. When the Rangers beat the Maple Leafs on Monday night at the Garden, I watched Del Zotto intently as the Rangers saluted from center ice and wondered if Del Zotto was thinking it could be one of the last times he would salute the MSG crowd. If it is, the Rangers will be a better team.

Merry Christmas!

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Blogs • Rangers

Dec 4, 2013

The Henrik Lundqvist Extension

Glen Sather made the one move he’s absolutely had to make as Rangers general manager: extend Henrik Lundqvist.

Here were my reactions in order after hearing Alain Vigneault was going to bench Henrik Lundqvist in favor of Cam Talbot.

1. (Laughter)

2. What?

3. Is this real life?

4. Are you effing nuts, AV?

Henrik Lundqvist has been the sole reason for any Rangers success in the post-lockout era with maybe the exception of his rookie season in 2005-06. Then again, the Rangers’ success that season was going to be defined by just making the playoffs for the first time in forever (or nine years) and that’s why their five-game, first-round loss to the Devils wasn’t viewed as much of a disappointment. The face of the franchise, the backbone of the organization and the one man responsible for the Rangers’ postseason drought not running into its 17th year was going to be benched for a 26-year-old rookie with seven career starts? Oh …

Benching Lundqvist wasn’t going to go over well with Lundqvist (even if he pretended like he was fine with the decision) and it wasn’t going to go over well with a fan base wondering why a first-year Rangers head coach would decide to shake things up like Coach Orion taking over for Gordon Bombay. The only way for the controversy to end would be if the Rangers were to lose when Talbot started in place of Lundqvist. So in order for everything to be righted, the Rangers would need to give up two valuable points. And that’s what happened.

But let’s live in an “if” world for a minute. What if the Rangers had won against the Jets on Monday night? Talbot would have to start in Buffalo on Thursday after winning back-to-back games as the now No. 1 goalie, which would then turn a seemingly harmless one-game break for Lundqvist in an Olympic-condensed season into a full-blown controversy. A win over the Jets would have forced the Vigneault-created crisis to take on a life of its own. What would be made of AV’s inability to manage goalies after the Roberto Luongo-Cory Schneider disaster in Vancouver? What would become of Lundqvist if Talbot were to win again in Buffalo on Thursday and consistently win? What would happen with the relationship of the new head coach and the face of the franchise? What would this do for Lundqvist’s impending free agency? Most importantly, what would become of Lundqvist’s contract negotiations and extension?

Luckily, none of that matters now and not because the Rangers lost to the Jets in their quest to never separate themselves more than one game over the .500 mark. It doesn’t matter now because Glen Sather did the one general managerial he absolutely had to do since becoming Rangers general manager in 2000: extend Henrik Lundqvist.

Lundqvist will be a Ranger next year. After signing a seven-year extension, he will be a Ranger for the next seven years. He will be a Ranger for his entire career (well, unless he is looking for some money when he’s 38 and the Rangers aren’t willing to give it to him, but that’s something we can worry about for the 2020-21 season).

A lot of people are unhappy with the years and dollars committed to the 31-year-old and the belief of paying him for what he has done over the last seven years and not what he will do over the next seven years. But it was going to take the Rangers giving Lundqvist a seventh year and it was going to take at least $8 million per season to keep him in New York with the free-agent market waiting and teams with better futures and more realistic Cup-winning chances ready to break the bank. So if you wanted Lundqvist to retire as a Ranger and one day watch him raise his Number 30 in MSG then that means you were fine with what it wound up costing. And if you wanted Lundqvist to stay, but at a lesser price, then you never really wanted him to stay or at least were fine with him leaving.

Sure, there’s a very good chance and pretty much a certainty that the 37- and 38-year-old Lundqvist won’t be posting the 1.97 GAA that the 29-year-old Lundqvist did or the 11 shutouts that the 28-year-old Lundqvist did. But right now this Rangers team (and by “this Rangers team” I mean the 2014-15, 2016-17, and so on teams because he is already on and under contract with the current Rangers team) needs Lundqvist. They can’t worry about what his level of play will be like in 2019-20 and 2020-21. This June it will be 20 years since the Rangers won the Stanley Cup and without Lundqvist the chances of that drought ending in the near future weren’t going to improve. In the spirit of Christmas, let’s borrow the Ghost of Rangers past to show how every post-Cup Rangers season has ended.

1994-95: Lost second round
1995-96: Lost second round
1996-97: Lost conference finals
1997-98: Missed playoffs
1998-99: Missed playoffs
1999-00: Missed playoffs
2000-01: Missed playoffs
2001-02: Missed playoffs
2002-03: Missed playoffs
2003-04: Missed playoffs
2005-06: Lost first round
2006-07: Lost second round
2007-08: Lost second round
2008-09: Lost first round
2009-10: Missed playoffs
2010-11: Lost first round
2011-12: Lost conference finals
2012-13: Lost second round

Still worried about and want to complain about having a 36-, 37- and 38-year-old Lundqvist? Does anyone really want to complain about having the best goalie in the world in 2014-15 because of what he might be in five-plus years?

The biggest knock on Lundqvist during his career has been his “inability” to lead the Rangers to the Cup or even the Stanley Cup Final, which is a comical knock since one person isn’t going to lead any team to the Cup by single-handedly winning four seven-game series against only the best teams in the league. Once the 83rd game of the season starts everyone seems to forget that Lundqvist is actually the one mostly responsible for getting the Rangers to that 83rd game and the “What have you done for me lately?” crowd takes over. The same crowd that booed Marian Gaborik because he didn’t want to use 40-goal scoring body as a shot-blocking pylon for John Tortorella and muck it up in the corners like a fourth-line grinder. The same crowd that jumps on their seat and causes chaos in the aisles over free T-shirts during TV timeouts. But here’s something that crowd probably doesn’t know or doesn’t care enough to know.

The Rangers have reached the postseason in four of the last five years. In that time, they are 19-25 in the playoffs, which means Lundqvist is 19-25 in the playoffs over that time. In those 25 playoff losses, the Rangers have scored 36 goals or 1.44 goals per game. Here is the breakdown by goals scored in the losses and how many times they scored each amount of goals:

0 goals: 5
1 goal: 9
2 goals: 8
3 goals: 3
4 or more goals: 0

That’s 14 playoff losses when the Rangers couldn’t score more than one goal and 22 when they couldn’t score more than two.

No, Lundqvist’s career will never be complete without winning it all. He knows that. That’s why the thought of going to the open market and a better place caused these negotiations to drag on through the first two-plus months of the season. He knows that when it comes time to raise his Number 30 that if it he must do so without his name on the Cup, it will as empty as buying a brand new house, but being unable to furnish it.

The Rangers and their fans need new memories. The 1993-94 season was two decades ago and the team, the Garden and the MSG Network have exhausted every possible perspective to recapture and remember the Cup run. The first step in trying to create those memories has always been locking up Henrik Lundqvist.

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