Cory Schneider – Keefe To The City

Jan 27, 2014

Rangers-Devils Stadium Series Thoughts: Mar-ty! Mar-ty! Mar-ty!

Everything about the first hockey game in the history of Yankee Stadium was perfect. Well, unless you’re Martin Brodeur or a Devils fan.

In an 82-game season, you need games like the Stadium Series to break up the monotony of the regular season. You want to have a playoff-like atmosphere at some point between October and early April to remind you of how amazing playoff hockey is and how important it is to be a part of it. You want a game to have the special feel and a seemingly added incentive to win even if the standard two points are on the line.

Sunday was special because it was one of two games on the Rangers’ schedule that stand out from the other 80. The novelty of outdoor NHL hockey isn’t being overexposed as some fans (like John McEnroe) believe with the Stadium Series and the Winter Classic and the Heritage Classic. Each outdoor game has presented it’s own unique element and those who have decided to complain about the increase in the games are likely the type of people who just need something to complain about.

Sunday was a perfect day in the Bronx for Rangers hockey and it might sound ridiculous, but if it were up to me, I would have the Rangers play a month of games at Yankee Stadium. OK, a week of games. OK, I will settle for one more.

– I loved how much the NBC broadcast team talked glowingly about Yankee Stadium. And I especially liked all the Yankees references that Doc Emrick threw into his call of the game including the one to open the game when going over the starting lineups at the opening faceoff:

“Mark Fayne, number 7, you see him at the right of your screen. He is the first home player to wear number 7 in Yankee Stadium since Mickey Mantle had that number retired in 1969.”

– Like the last time the Rangers played an outdoor game (2011-12 Winter Classic), it was the fourth line that kept the Rangers in the game and gave them a chance to win with the team’s first two goals of the game. Sure, the first one was a rebound as a result of Brodeur being interfered with by his own defenseman’s doing and the second one was a lucky bounce that trickled through his five-hole, but who cares? For at least one day, I can commend the fourth line’s work.

– Jaromir Jagr is ridiculous. The man is 41 years old, leads the Devils in scoring (16-28-44), is the active scoring leader in the NHL (697-1035-1732) and played the first period on Sunday as if it were 1993-94 and he were 21 years old. Jagr was the best player on the ice in the first period and looked like he might lead the Devils to a blowout win before the Devils defense and Brodeur fell apart. I wish Jagr would have had a second go-around with the Rangers.

– The Devils should think about changing back to the red and green color scheme over the red and black one. Or at least wear the red and green jerseys more often during the season. (Yes, this is my attempt to bring back the early-90s hockey that I grew up on.)

– What has happened to the Carcillo Effect? Carcillo was having a great shift forechecking in the first period, but when the Devils gained possession and broke it out, you could clearly see that he was tired and instead of changing, he coasted out of the Devils’ zone and then curled back toward the puck right before Ryan Clowe gave Patrik Elias a breakaway pass that led to the first goal of the game. It wasn’t “Car Bomb’s” finest moment, but his line did make up for it by scoring the Rangers’ first two goals. I never believed there was a Carcillo Effect and rather that he happened to join the team as they got hot (which coincides with Rick Nash and Henrik Lundqvist playing like Rick Nash and Henrik Lundqvist), but it would be nice if he did have some effect that was noticeable.

– The Devils’ second goal was a combination of Dan Girardi letting Jaromir Jagr continue toward the net with the puck without doing anything to slow him down, Dan Girardi not caring to look for someone to pick up (in this case it was Patrik Elias) after letting Jagr past him, Ryan McDonagh give a half-assed effort with a stick check on Jagr thinking that would be enough to take the puck from a man three goals away from 700 who is the best at protecting the puck in the world and then Henrik Lundqvist looking like a video game goalie when you accidentally switch to manual control. I think that sums up that disaster of a defensive breakdown.

– I didn’t tally how many junior hockey and college hockey references Pierre McGuire gave us on Sunday, but I did happen to notice this gem of a question for Peter DeBoer when Pierre went on the Devils bench in the first period: “I was really impressed with your practice yesterday. It looked like there was a rhyme and reason to it. What was the rhyme and reason?” If Pierre noticed there was a “rhyme and reason” to the Devils practiced (when I saw the Devils practice on MSG Network they were doing a shootout) then why would he need to ask DeBoer what it was?

– I’m not sure what Derick Brassard was doing when he decided to trip up Stephen Gionta at the Devils’ blue, which gave the Devils a power play, their third goal of the first and a 3-1 lead. Gionta entered the game with eight goals and 14 assists in 100 career games and wasn’t threatening to do anything during the play in which Brassard interfered with him. It was a brain fart and a dumb penalty to take and I can only hope that Brassard’s excuse was that he thought it was Brian Gionta.

– I was asked on Twitter why I went with “Ladies and gentlemen, Dan Girardi!” instead of “Ladies and gentlemen, Henrik Lundqvist!” when the Devils took a 3-1 lead. Is that a real question? It’s going to take a lot more than allowing three first-period goals, two of which Dan Girardi was on the ice for, for me to take shots at Hank. Lundqvist admitted in his postgame interview that he was in the middle of taking a nap because the Rangers had been told they had a long time until the delay would be over and that he wasn’t prepared and on his game in the first, but settled down after that. (He allowed no goals after the first). It was also reported that Marc Staal was eating pasta leading up to warmups since he was also under the impression the delay would last longer than expected. So if someone is eating pasta which isn’t highly recommended immediately before a game, then how can I get on Lundqvist for a sloppy 20 minutes? I can’t.

– The over/under in the game was 5. That total was matched in the first 16:59 of the game. With 10 total goals in the game, it was the most goals in a Rangers-Devils game since Dec. 12, 2008 when the Devils beat the Rangers 8-5. The Devils led 5-1 in that game, but blew their four-goal lead before winning. The Rangers’ goal scorers in that game were Markas Naslund, Nikolay Zherdev, Scott Gomez, Paul Mara and Ryan Callahan.

– I wish Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes played “I Don’t Want To Go Home.”

– On the Rangers’ fourth goal, which was produced by a 2-on-1 and a pass from Derick Brassard to Mats Zuccarello, it all started thanks to an awful pinch by Eric Gelinas, in which he accomplished nothing. Gelinas’ pinch looked like something that Girardi or Michael Del Zotto (has anyone missed him?) would do and I’m happy it happened, not only because the Rangers scored, but because it let me know that there are other teams that have defensemen that make equally as bad decisions as the Rangers defense does.

– The Rangers scored seven goals for the second time this year and the first line was only responsible for one of the goals as a unit (Rick Nash’s second-period goal) with Derek Stepan scoring on a penalty shot. It’s good to know that even if Nash, Stepan and Chris Kreider aren’t carrying the offensive load that the other lines will step up and serve as reliable secondary scoring options. Let’s just hope it wasn’t a one-time thing and the Rangers didn’t use up all their Stadium Series goals in the first of the two games.

– It’s only fitting that since Cory Schneider told the Devils coaching staff he would make their decision easier on who to start in the game by telling them that Martin Brodeur should start and have a chance to play in an outdoor game at Yankee Stadium. And it’s only fitting that Brodeur, being the class act he is, would return the favor and tell the coaching staff to let Schneider play the third period so he would have a chance to play in an outdoor game at Yankee Stadium. The decision to pull Brodeur had nothing to do with him allowing six goals on 21 shots in the first two periods with the Devils fighting to get into the playoff picture. Nothing at all.

The Devils’ season was over when they started 0-4-3 and won just once (beating the Rangers) in their first 10 games. Since then, they have battled back to within one point of the third spot in the Metropolitan Division. The Rangers helped the Devils save their season, but on Sunday, they ruined the Devils’ chance to really get back in it. A perfect day in the Bronx.

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.

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.

Tag: Cory Schneider

Rangers-Devils Stadium Series Thoughts: Mar-ty! Mar-ty! Mar-ty!

Rangers-Devils Rivalry Heads to River Ave.

The Henrik Lundqvist Extension