Chris Kunitz – Keefe To The City

Apr 21, 2015

Rangers-Penguins Game 3 Thoughts: No Reason to Worry

The Rangers won Game 3 against the Penguins to take a 2-1 series lead and proved there was nothing for Rangers fans to worry about.

See, I told you everything is fine. So the Rangers’ two-goal lead was cut to one with 6:48 left in the game and Rangers fans were forced to sit through 408 agonizing seconds watching the Penguins try to tie the game. It all worked out.

The Rangers’ relentless pressure in the first period of the first two games carried over to Game 3 where they outshot the Penguins 7-3 and held another lead heading into the locker room at the end of the 20. I’m still amazed at Carl Hagelin’s decision to rip a bomb on his first-period breakaway goal, especially with Marc-Andre Fleury coming out so far to challenge him, but hey, he got the result.

The first three games of this series have gone as expected. The Penguins haven’t been able to keep up with the Rangers’ speed. The Rangers’ power play has been below average. The Penguins haven’t been able to win when Sidney Crosby doesn’t score. Evgeni Malkin hasn’t been able to find his offense against the Rangers’ defense. Henrik Lundqvist has been better than Marc-Andre Fleury. And because of all this, the Rangers are winning the series 2-1. And, oh yeah, Chris Kunitz has been his usual scummy self.

There was a lot of unnecessary worrying going on in New York following the Game 2 loss after the Penguins completed any road team’s goal of splitting on the road. The Rangers answered the Penguins’ split with a road win of their own to reclaim home-ice advantage in the series and put the Penguins on the brink of staring down elimination for the rest of the series. The 2-1 Game 3 road win cancelled out the Game 2 home loss and meant all of the uneasiness on Saturday night was for nothing.

Despite Games 1, 2 and 3 all being decided by one goal, and the Rangers having lost one of those games and Game 3 being a pivotal game in the series, I’m still not worried about the Rangers. Maybe it’s because I know that when the Rangers are at their best the Penguins can’t beat them or because Henrik Lundqvist is in net, but there’s no real sense of worrying about this Rangers team until they’re faced with an elimination game and the season is on the line.

I expect the Rangers to win and that has never really been the case with them in the playoffs before. In the Henrik Lundqvist era, the only two playoff series I expected them to win before this season were the first round against Atlanta in 2006-07 and the first round against Philadelphia in 2013-14. Even when they were the 1-seed in the East in 2011-12, I still didn’t feel confident about their chances against 8-seed Ottawa in the first round because I didn’t think that Rangers team was that great, but rather a team that had put together a long list of improbable come-from-behind and last-second wins. This postseason, I expect the Rangers to win and that’s changed the playoff experience.

Past postseasons, especially last year, were about seeing how far the Rangers could go. This one is about how far they need to go and how far they need to go is the Stanley Cup Final and if they continue to play the way they have in three first periods against the Penguins, they will get there.

Blogs • Rangers • Rangers Playoffs

Apr 17, 2015

Rangers-Penguins Game 1 Thoughts: It’s Too Easy

The Rangers’ Game 1 win over the Penguins felt like the easiest playoff win ever for a team that has made winning in the postseason a challenge.

I didn’t know a 2-1 playoff win could feel easy. I didn’t know clinging to a one-goal lead the final 33:45 of a playoff game could feel easy. I didn’t know any playoff game could feel as easy as Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals against the Penguins felt. But that easiness has to do with Sam Rosen screaming for a Rangers goal just 28 seconds into the postseason.

When Derick Brassard split the Penguins defense untouched and unnoticed to bang home a rebound on Rick Nash’s textbook far-side rebound-chance shot to open the playoffs and send the Garden into five-alarm gongshow status before fans could enjoy the first sip of their first-period beers, the game was over. Even if was just a one-goal lead and even if the Rangers would lead by only one goal for 48:23 of the 59:32 following Brassard’s goal, the game never felt close. It never felt like a one-goal game.

I have never felt this confident about the Rangers, especially in the playoffs. Usually the Rangers are in the Penguins’ position. Usually they’re the underdog that clinched on the last day of the season and can’t find a way to score consistently and whose superstars are nowhere to be found in the postseason.

But it was Rick Nash’s shot that led to Derick Brassard’s first-period goal and it was Ryan McDonagh who scored the Rangers’ second goal on assists from Keith Yandle and Mats Zuccarello. The Rangers’ highest-paid player, their $25 million center, their captain, their biggest trade acquisition and their latest contract extension came through. And in net, Henrik Lundqvist was his usual self, as their $59.5 million goalie stopped 24 of the 25 shots he faced.

Meanwhile, for Pittsburgh, Sidney Crosby was pointless, minus-1, held to one shot on goal and limited to 3:42 of ice time in the first period because of the Penguins’ four first-period penalties. Evgeni Malkin was also pointless and had just two shots on goal. Chris Kunitz, also pointless (but if Crosby is pointless then so is Kunitz since that’s the only way he scores) didn’t register a shot on goal and his goalie interference penalty was the first of those four.

The Penguins ran around in the first and were out of position and undisciplined summarizing the team that lost it’s hold on the Met earlier in the season and didn’t clinch a playoff berth until Game 82. However, oddly enough, Crosby didn’t think so.

“We were thinking a little too much, trying to play the right way, be disciplined, play our position,” Crosby said. “But sometimes when you’re thinking out there you’re not reacting and you get behind.”

I don’t know if there has ever been a worse review of a performance (maybe the critics who said Dumb and Dumber To was worth going to see), but that has to be the worst evaluation ever of something that happened. Crosby didn’t get one thing right and his Penguins did the exact opposite of everything he said.

The Rangers dominated the Penguins in the way that everyone who has picked the Rangers to reach the Final for the second straight season imagined they would. Even though most of the Rangers’ quality scoring chances came in the first period, it never felt like the Penguins were really in the game despite the score, and it never felt like they were going to steal the momentum of the game. Martin St. Louis agreed.

“I didn’t think they ever really had the momentum, I don’t think it was a situation where we were trapped.”

It didn’t matter that the Rangers didn’t score again after McDonagh’s goal or that they weren’t able to amount the same type offense in the second and third periods that they had in the first. Like St. Louis, said, “It’s about winning the game, you know? It’s about winning the game.”

And now it’s about winning the next one.

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.

May 5, 2014

Rangers-Penguins Game 2 Thoughts: Make It a Baker’s Dozen

The Rangers had a chance to put the Penguins and Pittsburgh in panic mode with a Game 2 win, but the Rangers lost a game with the series lead for the 13th time in a row.

Here’s what you need to know about Game 2: Henrik Lundqvist finished as the third star of the game as the goalie of a team that lost a playoff game 3-0.

Lundqvist played his best game of this postseason and the offense couldn’t score against Marc-Andre Fleury, who only a year ago was forced to bench in the playoffs by the Islanders in favor of 36-year-old Tomas Vokoun. The only offense the Rangers could provide in Game 3 was for the Penguins as Dan Girardi scored against Lundqvist for what now seems like the 11th or 12th time since the beginning of the 2012-13 playoffs.

Game 2 was such a “Rangers’ Game 2 performance” that I don’t know why I chose to watch it over watching Game of Thrones and Veep live. The Rangers have now lost eight consecutive Game 2s going back to their Game 2 loss in Washington in the 2008-09 playoffs

– Let’s start with Dan Girardi since he started the scoring in the game by deflecting a Kris Letang pass intended for Chris Kunitz right past Lundqvist in the second period. As soon as Lundqvist realized the puck had gone in, he turned to his left and looked behind the net where Girardi was sliding into the boards, and you could tell by Lundqvist’s body language he said, “Are you effing kidding me?” And if he didn’t say it, which I’m almost 100 percent sure he did, he was at least thinking it. After Girardi gave the Bruins a lead in the conference semis series last year by scoring against Lundqvist a handful of times, here he was again giving the desperate Penguins a 1-0 lead and easing their nerves and the nerves of the crowd who were potentially looking at heading to New York down 2-0 if the Rangers could win Game 2. It would be one thing if Girardi had deflected a puck in by trying to move someone from in front of the net or if some fluky shot or pass had gone off him and into the net, but this goal happened because Girardi thought sliding on the ice with his stick extended was a better defensive decision than picking up Kunitz in front and defending him. If Girardi had just played defense on Kunitz through the slot then he’s not sliding on the ice and his stick is never extended to block a pass or shot and the puck never touches his stick and deflects it in and the Penguins don’t score and it’s still 0-0. And after Girardi’s sloppy defense and his brain fart interference penalty, I only wish he had said in the postgame that he was either drunk or hungover during the game because then his performance would have made sense and I could forgive him.

– I’m not mad at Derek Dorsett for taking an untimely and undisciplined penalty with 4:52 left to play in a 1-0 game. That’s what Derek Dorsett does and that’s what should be expected of him when’s he in the lineup or on the ice. I blame Alain Vigneault for Dorsett’s penalty because he is the one who had Dorsett on the ice with 4:52 left in a 1-0 game. What is Dorsett going to do for you at the point in the game? Is he out there to give your top forwards a rest? I hope you’re not giving your top forwards a rest at that point. Do you think you’re going to catch lightning in a bottle and he’s going to score for you? I hope you’re not thinking that since he had four goals in 51 games this year, has 31 goals in 331 career regular-season games and no goals in 23 playoff games. So why was Dorsett on the ice there? The best-case scenario is that the score remains the same, but time, which is the only thing that mattered then, would have come off the clock while he was out there wasting it. And the worst-case scenario is that he would take a stupid penalty.

– It’s too bad James Neal still has four years to go after this season on his six-year deal with the Penguins because he would make a great Flyer. He has the perfect amount of “scum” about him and in his game to fit in Philadelphia.

– If Henrik Lundqvist doesn’t stand on his head for the entire game, there’s a chance this game could have been 19-0. I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. It probably could have been worse than 19-0.

– Even though Lundqvist kept the Rangers in the game, the Rangers were never really in the game. They were dominated up and down the ice, the power play had another solid 0-for-4 showing and the Penguins outshot and outhit and won more draws than them. The Penguins played like a team that knew they had to win Game 2 and this game could have gone on for 20 more minutes or 200 more minutes of hockey and the Rangers were never going to score.

Thirteen consecutive losses with a series lead now for the Rangers. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse than 29 consecutive power plays without a goal.

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.

Tag: Chris Kunitz

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