Evgeni Malkin – Page 2 – Keefe To The City

Apr 14, 2015

Podcast: 610 Barstool Sports New York

The wait for the playoffs to begin seems like forever, but the Rangers are set up perfectly for a long run into the late spring and that makes it worth the wait.

The days off between the regular season and the postseason feel like forever. And when you add in the fact that the last few weeks of the Rangers’ season was just a formality because of their strong hold on a playoff berth, the wait has been even longer. But the playoffs are about to begin and the Rangers are perfectly set up for an extended run that should take us into the late spring and that makes it worth the wait.

610 of Barstool Sports New York joined me to talk about which team Rangers fans should have wanted to face in the first round, what it’s like to be the team to beat in the playoffs, why Rangers fans shouldn’t be worried about the Penguins this postseason, how the playoff experience has changed for Rangers fans and predictions for the playoffs.

Podcasts • Rangers • Rangers Playoffs

Apr 13, 2015

Podcast: Brian Monzo

The mentality has changed for Rangers fans thanks to the Stanley Cup Final run last season and now this spring it’s Stanley Cup or bust for the Rangers.

The playoffs are here and the Rangers got here the way they wanted to. I’m not talking about by winning the Presidents’ Trophy or by winning the East or the Met or by having home-ice advantage for the playoffs. I’m talking about being healthy for the starts of the postseason, which is the most important thing.

WFAN Mike’s On: Francesa on the FAN producer Brian Monzo joined me to talk about the Rangers’ season and what winning the Presidents’ Trophy means, the first-round matchup with the Penguins, last year’s series against the Penguins, which team the Rangers should have wanted to play in the first round, the Stanley Cup-or-bust mentality in New York and predictions for the playoffs.

Blogs • Rangers

Mar 23, 2015

The Scared of the Rangers Playing Them in the Playoffs Power Rankings Part II

We’re a month closer to the Stanley Cup playoffs, so it’s time to update who Rangers fans shouldn’t want to play in the postseason.

The Rangers are still going to the playoffs. Since the first time I put out these rankings on Feb. 24, the Rangers have gone 10-2-1 and now sit in first in the Metropolitan Division and share the lead league in points (99) with Montreal and Anaheim. However, they have two games in hand on Montreal and three games in hand on Anaheim. So, yes, right now the Rangers are technically the best team in the entire NHL.

I don’t know that anyone could have seen a 35-8-3 run coming after they lost to Detroit on Dec. 6 to fall to 11-10-4. And certainly no one saw the Rangers going 17-3-3 after losing Henrik Lundqvist at the beginning of February. But here we are on March 23, a day after the Rangers embarrassed the Ducks with a 7-2 win at the Garden with the Rangers sitting atop the NHL.

Some things have changed over the last month since the original rankings came out and with 12 games and 19 days left in the season, I thought it was time to revisit them and put out the second installment of The Scared of the Rangers Playing Them in the Playoffs Power Rankings.

1. MONTREAL CANADIENS
Because I follow some Canadiens fans on Twitter, I’m not as scared of the Canadiens as I was a month ago. Yes, they’re still the biggest obstacle between the Rangers and getting back to the Stanley Cup Final, but hearing Canadiens fans complain about how the team isn’t as good as their record indicates, but rather it’s the Vezina- and MVP-like performance from Carey Price that has them in first in the Atlantic and tied with the Rangers in points has me less worried.

After losing six of eight to start March, the Canadiens have gotten back on track with three straight wins and back-to-back shutouts from Price. Price currently has a 1.86 goals against average and .938 save percentage. To put that in perspective, during Henrik Lundqvist’s memorable 1.97/.929 he was unbeatable and Price is having an even better season than that.

I don’t care how upset Canadiens fans might be or appear to be about their team’s recent play. The Canadiens are the team to beat for the Rangers.

2. TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING
The Rangers went 0-3 against the Lightning this year and haven’t seen them since Dec. 1 when the Rangers were a completely different team. So now there is a lot of mystery and unknown in how these two teams match up, but like I said a month ago, losing a playoff series to a team with Ryan Callahan, Brian Boyle and Anton Stralman isn’t exactly how I want this Rangers season to end.

3. BOSTON BRUINS
I know this doesn’t look right having the Bruins this high up when they only have a one-point lead on Ottawa right now for the 8-seed and Ottawa has a game in hand on the Bruins, but this team never dies and the last thing I want them to do is get hot over the next two-plus weeks and then be the Rangers’ first-round opponent. The Bruins are the hardest team to put away in the third period and they seem to always tie up any game once Tuukka Rask heads to the bench in the final minute. They are playoff-tested and still have 11 players from their 2010-11 Cup-winning team and 13 of players from their 2012-13 Cup-losing team on their roster. While New York could use a series win over the Bruins to start to tilt the city rivalry back the right way, I’m not sure the reward is worth the risk.

4. OTTAWA SENATORS
The Senators moved into eighth place in the East on Monday night with a win over San Jose. I watched the third period because of a financial investment in the game and the Senators went into the third trailing 2-1 before turning into Team Canada and scoring four goals en route to a 5-2 win. The Senators opened February with five losses in seven games, but since they are 15-1-1. That’s insane. The Rangers will see them twice in the next two weeks and I will have a better feel for what Rangers fans could be in for in a seven-game series with the Senators, but they are peaking at the right time and after the seven-game scare from them in the 2011-12 playoffs, I don’t want any part of them.

5. NEW YORK ISLANDERS
That sound you hear is nothing. It’s silence. It’s every Islanders fan that chirped Rangers fans with the “Best Team in New York” title for the first four-plus months of the season with nothing left to say.

6. PITTSBURGH PENGUINS
Since 2007-08 everyone has been riding the Penguins and since then they have two Stanley Cup Final appearances (2007-08 and 2008-09) and one Cup (2008-09). There’s a good chance we are looking at a 30 for 30 in the future being made about how much of a disappointment the Sidney Crosby Penguins era was. Here is what the Penguins have done since winning the Cup in 2008-09.

2009-10: Blew 3-2 series lead in first round to Canadiens and lost Game 7 at home.

2010-11: Blew 3-1 series lead in first round to Lightning and lost 1-0 in Game 7 at home.

2011-12: Lost in first round in six games to Flyers and allowed 30 goals in the series.

2012-13: Swept in conference finals by Bruins and scored two goals in the series.

2013-14: Blew 3-1 series lead in second round to Rangers and lost Game 7 at home.

For the first time in the last eight years, no one seems to be backing or hyping or believing in the Penguins and that’s what makes them dangerous. They still have Sidney Crosby and they still have Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury is having the best year of his career. The Penguins are playing without any pressure with a new head coach/general manager regime and without everyone expecting them to play for and win the Cup and that might be the scariest thing of all.

7. DETROIT RED WINGS
Ryan Brandell of Barstool Sports Chicago has been telling me about the Red Wings all year on every podcast we have done. And because the Red Wings are sort of a mystery team because of their move to the East last year coupled with their abundance of injuries in 2013-14 and their first-round, five-game exit in the playoffs, I started to worry about them because I felt like I didn’t know enough about them and hadn’t seen enough of them and wondered how they were having such a remarkable season. But then I watched the Rangers go to Detroit without Henrik Lundqvist and thoroughly dominate the Red Wings for 60 minutes and lose 2-1 in overtime on a fluky goal.

Jimmy Howard was the only reason the Red Wings were even in the game and I would be willing to bet against him having that type of performance for an entire seven-game series because nothing he has done in his career to this point suggests he will. So unless Howard turns into 2002-03 Jean-Sebastien Giguere then I like the Rangers’ chances against the Red Wings.

8. WASHINGTON CAPITALS
The Rangers have played the Capitals since the first installment of these rankings. The game was on March 11 and the Rangers beat them 3-1 in Washington. It was a pretty easy win for the Rangers and despite the Capitals tying the game at 1 in the first period, it felt like the Rangers would win all along, and they did.

A series against the Capitals means the Rangers will play another series after it. Give me the Capitals.

Blogs • NHL

Jan 27, 2015

The 2014-15 NHL All-Animosity Team

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

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

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

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

FORWARDS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DEFENSEMEN

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

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

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

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

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

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

Last year, I said, “I feel like you could stick pretty much anyone and I don’t mean just any NHL player, but rather any actual person on a line with Crosby and they would be good for 15-20 goals,” and I believe that to be 100 percent true. And because that’s true, let’s stop pretending that Chris Kunitz is the type of player that he isn’t.

GOALIE

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blogs • Rangers • Rangers Playoffs

May 16, 2014

The Season’s Not Over for the Rangers

The Rangers are back in the Eastern Conference finals for the second time in three years despite The Hockey News’ Ken Campbell writing them off after Game 4 against the Penguins.

The Rangers weren’t supposed to come back against the Metropolitan-winning Penguins down 3-1 in the Eastern Conference semis. They weren’t supposed to go to Pittsburgh and dominate Game 5, take care of business at home in Game 6 and then let Henrik Lundqvist further prove why he is the best goaltender in the world in Game 7. The Rangers were supposed to lay down and serve as a red carpet for the Penguins to return to the Eastern Conference finals for the second consecutive year. At least that’s what The Hockey News’ Ken Campbell said.

Following the Rangers’ Game 4 loss to the Penguins, Campbell (the man who called U.S.-born hockey players “pampered, entitled rich kids“) wrote an 852-word “column” (I use this word loosely) titled “Season’s over for the Rangers, now it’s time to look to the future” and took the easy route out of having to analyze hockey by going with the lazy rhetoric of “a team down 3-1 can’t come back” and pouring dirt on a still-breathing Rangers team and season. I had always been under the impression that it takes four wins to win a seven-game series, but Campbell informed me that you actually only need three. I could have used Campbell during the 2004 ALCS.

On Friday, the Penguins fired general manager Ray Shero and head coach Dan Bylsma could be next after failing to get out of the second round and failing to reach the Stanley Cup Final since winning it in 2008-09. On Saturday, the Rangers will play Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals in Montreal while the Penguins will actively be looking to rebuild their front office in what will be the fourth day of their offseason. So let’s look back at Campbell’s “column” and his premature thoughts.

Well, the New York Rangers have allowed the star players of the Pittsburgh Penguins to finally find their way in this series. But the reality is that players such as Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury don’t even have to be that good. That’s because the bottom six forwards for the Penguins are outplaying the top six of the Rangers.

This story was written after Game 4. After Game 4, Fleury had produced back-to-back shutouts in Games 2 and 3, Malkin had two goals and three assists and Crosby had one goal and two assists. But over the final three games of the series, Fleury allowed 10 goals, Malkin had a goal and an assist and Crosby didn’t have a point as the Penguins scored three total goals in those games? It looks like the Penguins’ bottom six forwards were actually on the same level as the Penguins’ top six forwards.

And as long as Crosby can keep absorbing the hits to the head from Marc Staal and his merry band of headhunters, the Penguins have basically punched their ticket to the Eastern Conference final. Any team that is down 3-1 to a group as talented and explosive as the Penguins is always in serious trouble. A team down 3-1 whose best player is Mats Zuccarello is basically finished.

Marc Staal is a headhunter? That’s news to me. I would have classified him as someone who could afford to be more aggressive on the ice, but understand why he’s not due to his own history of head injuries and his career-threatening eye injury last season. But hey, let’s call Marc Staal a headhunter because ONE TIME he made high contact with Crosby. And who’s in Staal’s “merry band” of fellow headhunters and what makes them so merry? Does this band have a name? What instrument does Staal play? I could see him as a bass player.

I’m the biggest non-Penguins fan Sidney Crosby fan in the world. I defend and support The Kid against critics from every corner and he’s not the media and he’s not the Pittsburgh and Canadian honks (that’s the first time I ever used the word “honk” but Mike Hurley used it the other day and it stuck with me) that get visibly, emotionally and then literally distraught when something or someone hits him high. But if we’re going to call Marc Staal (the Marc Staal with 254 penalty minutes in 460 career games) a headhunter then what word do we use to classify someone like Matt Cooke? Well, let’s ask Campbell, since just last week he wrote a column titled “Has Matt Cooke really changed? Hell, yeah!”

Nothing against Zuccarello, but if he’s the best player for the Rangers, and he is, it means their highly-paid stars are not doing the job, which they’re not. Full marks to the Penguins for getting the job done, but this is a mediocre team they’re playing at the moment, one that would get ripped to shreds if it had to play in the Western Conference. Perhaps they’ll point to the fatigue factor – and if they’re still tired they should immediately fire their strength and conditioning coach – but this was a Ranger team that played with no urgency, no ability to handle the puck and no pushback. And that’s on the stars of this team, from Henrik Lundqvist out.

Mats Zuccarello was great during the regular season (19-40-59) and has continued that play in the playoffs (3-5-8), but he’s not the Rangers’ best player, not even close. But if you didn’t watch the Rangers during the regular season and just quickly browsed their team statistics page, then that is the conclusion you would come to.

What does “Full marks to the Penguins for getting the job done” mean? What job did they get done? Winning three games? Sending a series to seven games? Reaching the conference semifinals? Blowing a 3-1 series lead? Losing two home games with a chance to eliminate the Rangers?

Is that what I think it is? Is it? No, no, it can’t be. That can’t be a columnist from The Hockey News blaming Henrik Lundqvist for the Rangers trailing 3-1 in the series at one point. But it is. This is real life.

As I have said many times in many ways in many places, Henrik Lundqvist is the sole reason for any post-lockout success the Rangers have had. He is the reason they have reached the playoffs in eight of the nine seasons of his career and he’s the reason the Rangers came back to beat the Penguins in this series. And if the Rangers win the Eastern Conference or the Stanley Cup, it will be because of Henrik Lundqvist. He is the New York Rangers. But that didn’t stop Campbell from looking at the final scores of the first four games of the series to make a judgment. The box score doesn’t show goals that the Rangers scored against Lundqvist, but it does show that in two of the four games the Rangers were shut out. Where was Lundqvist in those two shutout losses? Why didn’t he provide more offense?

All in all, Game 4 was a pathetic effort from a team that fancies itself a contender in the Eastern Conference. But here’s the thing. The Rangers simply aren’t that good. They have a long way to go before becoming anything approximating a legitimate threat to win the Stanley Cup, or even come close. It’s probably safe to assume now that the first-round series between the Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers pitted the two worst teams in this year’s playoffs against one another.

If the Rangers “simply aren’t that good” then what are the Penguins? And what do we make of a team that reaches the conference finals? The Rangers have won two series this postseason, two Game 7s (and they have won their last five Game 7s) and they just won three straight against a team that boasts the best player in the world and possibly the second-best player in the world as well.

If the Rangers and Flyers were the two worst teams in the 16-team tournament then what do we make of the Penguins? What are the Lightning, who lasted four games in the playoffs? What about the Red Wings who lasted five? What about the Avalanche who went down as a 1-seed or the Blues who choked? What do you make of the 12 playoff teams that aren’t playing anymore?

And part of the problem for the Rangers is they remain their own worst enemy. Perhaps it would be different if the Rangers weren’t such a desired destination for players. Then it might not be tempted to try to grab every fading star player just because he happens to be available.

Think about it. Brad Richards came to the Rangers in 2011 on a nine-year deal. Other teams made more lucrative pitches to Richards, but he essentially had his heart set on playing for the Rangers. The moment Rick Nash waived his no trade clause with the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2013, it was basically assumed that the Rangers were going to get him. And when Martin St.-Louis sulked his way out of Tampa Bay prior to the trade deadline, it was to go to one team and one team only – the Rangers.

Thank you for writing how long Brad Richards’ contract is for and for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the Nash trade and for telling us where St. Louis wanted to play.

Each of those acquisitions has been nothing short of a disaster so far. Nash, who had a dreadful game and an equally dreadful playoff for the Rangers, is now getting booed every time he touches the puck. In his own building. Nash has actually been contributing in his own end of the ice, but so does Anze Kopitar and it doesn’t stop him from creating offense. Since the 2006 Olympics, Nash has played a combined 45 Olympic and NHL playoff games and has four goals. Richards has scored some and had a pretty good first season in New York in both the regular season and the playoffs, but seems to be on the decline and is the point man on a power play that hasn’t scored in its past 38 opportunities. And St-Louis? Three goals in 30 regular season and playoff games since coming to the Rangers.

Unless Richards started putting together some Gretzky late-80s stat lines when he came to the Rangers, there’s no way he could ever justify his nine-year, $60 million deal. But who could? That’s what the going price was for him at the time of his free agency and like Campbell said, the Rangers weren’t the only team willing to dramatically overpay for him. Richards wanted to be a Ranger. And I’m not so sure he’s been a disaster. He’s played in 210 of a possible 212 regular-season games in three years and has 56 goals and 95 assists in those games. He is the Rangers’ leading scorer in these playoffs and was their leading scorer when they went to the conference finals two years ago. Aside from John Tortorella inexplicably scratching him during the playoffs last year (I wonder what John Tortorella was doing on Tuesday night?), Richards has been a solid Ranger. He hasn’t been the elite No. 1 center and playmaker the Rangers thought they were signing for nine years, but he hasn’t been as bad as everyone has made him out to be either.

I can’t make any excuses for Nash’s lack of postseason scoring, but to say he has been a disaster is irresponsible. Last season he had 21 goals and 21 assists in 44 games (over a full season that’s 39 goals and 39 assists), and the Rangers were winless in the four games he missed due to a concussion. He didn’t have a great postseason last year (1-4-5 in 12 games), but no one on the Rangers did after the first round. This season, Nash missed 17 games with another concussion suffered in the third game of the season and finished with 26 goals and 13 assists in 65 games. Now that’s not a strong ratio, but Nash has never been one for apples and unsurprisingly he has 336 goals and 292 assists in his career, which is a pretty drastic difference. But his 26 goals this season translate into 32.8 goals over a full season. I wanted Nash at the 2011-12 deadline and was willing to include Chris Kreider in a deal to get him and he ended up being the missing link the loss to the Devils. I was ecstatic when he became a Ranger and becaues of that, I have been an adamant supporter of him and have yet to give up on him after a couple bad postseasons. He’s still creating offensive chances and playing tremendous defense (yes, I’m aware he’s not paid to do those things), so it’s not like he isn’t helping the team win. But to think the Rangers have reached the conference finals without him scoring a goal is incredible, and if one of his patented streaks begins in the conference finals, the Rangers will be playing for the Cup.

What would Campbell’s solution have been for St. Louis? Keep Ryan Callahan, meet his ridiculous contract demands and destroy the Rangers’ future? Campbell probably would have liked that so he could churn out some more “columns” about how the Rangers have cap issues. Callahan was getting traded no matter what once he wouldn’t compromise with Glen Sather and Sather got the best return for him. If it wasn’t a trade for St. Louis, it would have been a trade with the Sharks or Ducks for much lesser packages. And I’m pretty sure it’s St. Louis and his personal life that changed the locker room over their last three games and changed the course of this season. But yeah, what a disaster Martin St. Louis has been!

Which brings us to the future of this team. Yes, it’s time to start looking to the future. The Rangers have $54.9 million committed to salaries for next season. They have only four regular defensemen – Ryan McDonagh , Staal, Dan Girardi and Kevin Klein – signed for next season. Up front, Derick Brassard and Chris Kreider are restricted free agents.

By saying that St. Louis has been a disaster, Campbell implied that trading for him was a bad move and that implies that the Rangers should have kept Ryan Callahan and that implies the Rangers should have signed Callahan and that would have ruined the Rangers’ chances of re-signing most of these players he just named. But like I said, that’s likely what Campbell wanted. You do know 850-word “columns” aren’t going to write themselves.

So, the question must be asked. On which of Nash or Richards should the Rangers use their remaining compliance buyout? Knowing them, probably not either, but it would rid the Rangers of one onerous contract. If it were Richards, the Rangers would be forced to pay $18 million in real money since $33 million of his $60 million deal has already been paid out, but would have a cap savings of $6.7 million for the next six seasons. If they were to buy out Nash, it would cost them $21.3 million in real dollars and would save them $7.8 million against the cap for each of the next four seasons.

If anyone gets bought out, it’s not Nash. But if the Rangers weren’t going to buy Richards out after last season’s playoff embarrassment and Richards’ letdown in play then why does everyone think it’s such a guarantee he is bought out after this year? Yes, the Rangers could use some cap relief and he would provide that, but he has become the captain of this team despite wearing just an “A” and though Ryan McDonagh will be the next captain of the Rangers, it’s obvious Richards has an important role with the team.

In our annual Future Watch issue, THN ranked the Rangers dead-last in terms of its group of prospects. Which means the Rangers are far closer to a tear-down than they are a Stanley Cup championship. Perhaps it’s time to begin that process now.

Campbell has since written an excuse for his “column” saying he isn’t apologizing because he is in the business of making predictions. So what does he do? Make another prediction of course. This time he says the Rangers will lose to the Canadiens.

And the Rangers might lose to the Canadiens, but right now the Rangers are four wins away from playing for a championship. They are eight wins away from winning their first championship in 20 years. It’s only been three days since the collapse of both the Penguins and Campbell’s prediction and they have already been torn down.

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