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Tag: James Neal

Blogs • Rangers • Rangers Playoff Thoughts • Rangers Playoffs

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.

New York Rangers v Pittsburgh Penguins - Game Two
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.

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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.

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Blogs • Rangers

Feb 1, 2013

Rangers Look Lost in Latest Loss

The Rangers haven’t looked like a team capable of winning the Stanley Cup this season. There’s still 41 games left to play, but at the same time, there’s only 41 games left to play.

The New York Rangers are going the same place the two Russians were at the beginning of Boondock Saints, according to Detective Greenly. That place? “Nowhere!” OK, that’s not completely true since there are 41 games left and the entire conference is separated by eight points, but for anyone who watched Thursday night’s 3-0 loss to the Penguins, you can’t help but think the Rangers are the NHL’s version of two dead guys on top of trash bags in a South Boston alley.

Thursday night was bad. It started off bad, got worse and then became unwatchable, so I headed for the exit with over two minutes left and left the booing of the Blueshirts to those fans who either called out of work on Friday or who struggled through the workday on Friday despite an abundance of Gatorade, greasy food and Advil.

My girlfriend surprised me with tickets to the game an hour before the puck dropped and it was the first time I would be seeing the Penguins in person since they lost to the Bruins 3-0 on Nov. 10, 2009 in Boston. Evgeni Malkin didn’t play in that game, James Neal was in Dallas and Bill Guerin was still in the league and on the Penguins. (Eric Godard even dressed for the Penguins!) So as a hockey fan, I was excited to see Sidney Crosby with Malkin and Neal, but as a Rangers fan, I was worried about what they could do the Rangers’ search for consistency. It only took 1:24 for Malkin to justify my worrying.

Before I could tell my girlfriend about his one-timing abilities from the right side, Henrik Lundqvist was late to his left and it was 1-0 Pittsburgh. Had I known the Rangers would Sunday Skate their way to their fourth loss of the year over the next 58:36, I would have gladly walked over to The Flying Puck and watched a game or a team worth watching.

The box score says the Rangers were outshot 29-28. Either the official scorer at MSG is a relative of Tomas Vokoun or part of the new CBA is that the league is recording shots the way points are given out on Around the Horn because there’s no way the Rangers had 28 shots or one shot less than the Penguins. And even if the Rangers did have 28 shots, which I don’t think they did, how many of those shots were high-quality scoring chances? I think I remember two and I had one beer at the game, so I can’t blame my memory of the Rangers’ scoring chances on that. At most there were three, possibly four. (Apparently Derek Stepan had six shots last night! Six! He still wears number 21 right? Maybe I did have more than one beer?) But I’ll stick with two because I remember those and one of them came from the guy who is here to score big goals against teams like the Penguins and to be the focal point of the offense. So let’s start with him in an attempt to turn the Rangers’ season around before this season turns into a countdown to baseball’s Opening Day the way the Giants’ season turned into a plea to end the lockout and then a countdown to start the hockey season.

Rick Nash
Rick, Rick, Rick. Am I really writing something negative about you after just seven games? No, of course not. It’s not all that positive, but there isn’t much positivity to go around with this team. And I’m not here to wish Brandon Dubinsky and Artem Anisimov were still on the team rather than Nash because even if he finishes the rest of this season with the same exact numbers he has through seven games, I won’t say that.

The number 1 criticism of Nash prior to becoming a Ranger (well, aside from nonsensical postseason career arguments and cap-hit BS) was that he didn’t pass the puck. Now only unintelligent people would use that as a criticism for an elite goal scorer who actually had no one to pass to on his team (and even if he did, he’s a goal scorer, not a playmaker), but in nine years in Columbus, Nash finished with more goals than assists five times, which is semi-unheard of for one of the best scorers in the world.

We are seven game into the season. Rick Nash has one goal. It’s not like he isn’t getting the scoring chances because he is getting several every game, he’s just not finishing when he does. But for all the one-on-one moves and the amazing highlights of him creating space and using hesitation for a shot in the slot, it’s time for Rick Nash to carry the team for a few games in a way that only he, Marian Gaborik and Henrik Lundqvist can.

Henrik Lundqvist
Remember, Lundqvist is in the selective Jeter/Rivera/Eli class of complete immunity to criticism (unless it’s done sarcastically). So this isn’t me questioning Lundqvist’s play over the first seven games. This is me asking Hank to kindly play like the Vezina winner he was last year.

Lundqvist has started all seven games this year and has allowed 18 goals. Last season, Lundqvist allowed his 18th goal in the eighth game of the year, so he hasn’t been that off when it comes to the start of the season. It just feels differently because that season started in October and this one started in January and that season was 82 games and this one is 48 games. Do you see what I’m getting at? There isn’t an October, November and December and 34 other games to balance things out. Lundqvist is going to play as much as he did at the end of the 2010-11 season when the Rangers didn’t have a backup and there isn’t time for Henrik Lundqvist to not be Henrik Lundqvist. Unless he plans on sprinkling 11 shutouts in at some point.

John Tortorella
The Rangers have a depth problem. (I’m aware that Ryan Callahan and Chris Kreider are out. Thanks for clarifying that.) Is that Tortorella’s fault? No. That’s the guy upstairs who could do pretty much anything at this point to destroy James Dolan’s life and still hold his job. But complaining about Glen Sather’s track record in New York would be like complaining about the Noroton Heights, Rowayton, Green’s Farms and Southport stops on the Metro North. They’re always going to be there and there’s nothing you can do about it, so just deal with it. (But really does Norwalk need a South Norwalk and East Norwalk stop? Two stops? This is worse than BU having three stops on the B train in Boston.)

But what is Tortorella’s fault is the way he chooses to use the players that Sather has given him. Is there anyone who still loves that Tortorella loves Brian Boyle? Is there anyone in the Kings organization who thinks, “Man, I really wish we didn’t trade Boyle to the Rangers in exchange for that third-round pick” when they see Boyle playing? Of course not. But Boyle is going to continue to play in important spots because of his “defense,” which is almost as ironic as James Shields being called “Big Game James” or Matt Ryan being called “Matty Ice.” Unfortunately, Boyle isn’t the only issue.

Do we really need to see the fourth line following the Penguins taking a 2-0 lead? There’s 19:32 left in the game. You’re trailing by two goals to the Penguins. So let’s put out the fourth line for an energy shift to bang some bodies and likely provide nothing offensively since the clock is not a factor!

Did Michael Del Zotto getting sent down for part of the 2010-11 season get him off the hook for the rest of his Rangers career when it comes to playing defense? Or does his career .45 points per game allow him to only worry about offense?

I don’t want to get on John Tortorella too much here because it’s only seven games and he did lead the team past the first two rounds of the playoffs last year and he did win the Stanley Cup with Tampa Bay nine years ago, so it’s hard to criticize the man given his incredible amount of success in New York. But if Tortorella wants to tilt his head and look at media members asking him questions in his press conferences like a dog who ate something dogs aren’t supposed to eat from the trash and then recycled it on to the living room floor, he might want to get his team over .500. Acting the way John Tortorella does is fine when you’re winning more than every other game. Right now the Rangers aren’t even doing that.

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Rangers

Jan 31, 2013

Rangers and Penguins Searching for Consistency

The Penguins are back in New York for their second game against the Rangers and with both teams struggling early on this season it called for an email exchange with James Conley of PensBurgh.

The Rangers and Penguins were supposed to be the class of the Eastern Conference. And they still might be at the end of the season, but after six games the East’s best two teams from last year are both 3-3-0.

James Conley of PensBurgh joined me for an email exchange to talk about what’s wrong with the Penguins right now, what happened in the playoffs against the Flyers last year and how Matt Cooke completely changed his style of play.

Keefe: From the moment the lockout ended until Game 1 of the season, I told anyone who would listen to me that the Rangers, Penguins and Bruins would be the class of the East (in no particular order). But after six games, only the Bruins have held up their end of my preseason prediction bargain. The Rangers and Penguins? They’re both 3-3-0 with one-eighth of the season gone.

The Rangers’ three losses have come against the Bruins, your Penguins and the Flyers. Three postseason teams a year ago, and two of the three teams I believed to be the best in the East this year.

The Penguins’ three losses have come against the Maple Leafs, Jets and Islanders. Three non-postseason teams a year ago and having seen the Leafs against the Rangers on Saturday night, I can’t believe the Penguins lost to them.

After starting out 2-0 against the Flyers and Rangers, the Penguins are 1-3-0 and have been outscored 14-6 against some very inferior opponents (on paper). It’s early, but then again with only 48 games, it’s not that early.

Let’s open this up with how concerned you are, if at all, about the Penguins right now.

Conley: Concern is a good word for the Penguins right now. The shortened season really makes it hard to implement changes and it’s becoming apparent that something must change. The margin for error is just so, so slim. Like you mentioned, it’s only six games at 3-3-0, but it’s still a significant chunk of the season. If the Penguins decide they need to make some changes — whether that’s matching lines, new personnel or going deep and making an organizational change — they aren’t going to have the kind of time they’d like to let something new work itself out.

The other concern, and maybe this is related to the first, is their inability to make tactical changes and apply them within a 60-minute game window. It started in Pittsburgh last Wednesday with Toronto. The Maple Leafs pressured the Penguins in one-on-one battles where the Flyers and Rangers didn’t, and the Pens weren’t able to respond. Teams are feasting on the Penguins’ cute setups and turning them into goals. That has gone on for the last four games, and it seems like every team that is willing to do the work can upset the Penguins’ game plan exactly as the Flyers were able to do last Spring.

Is it just rust? It stands to reason that a team that relies on high-skilled, timing plays would need some adjustment time to account for the joke training camps following the lockout. But the Penguins’ problems seem to go back to late last season, when the team quit “beating” their opponents and simply outscored them. It seems like they’re hesitant to beat clubs by playing the physical game, by cycling the puck, by chipping and chasing. The team was successful in the spring of 2011 even after Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin went down with injuries because they adjusted their game plan to address their weaknesses. With those two in the lineup, it seems like no one wants to make the smart, simple but boring plays that a team has to make a thousand times in any one game if they want to be successful. That it carried over from last year’s playoff thud to now seems less like an aberration and more like a fundamental flaw. I’m not sure that’s a problem that can be addressed with line-matching and a bag skate.

Keefe: I know what it feels like to be concerned because I feel the same way with the Rangers. Maybe not to the extent that you do since the Rangers’ losses were against the Bruins, Penguins and Flyers, but because every loss is that magnified this season and every win seems to feel like things are fixed. But I also like that each game and each game’s two points are so significant and that each week is packed with three-plus games and the postseason is just three months away.

You mentioned last season, which I wanted to talk about because I don’t think anyone could have envisioned it ending the way it did for the Penguins. They were the four seed in the playoffs even though they had the second-best record in the East (Ladies and gentlemen, the NHL playoff system giving the division winners the top seeds!) and missed out on having the No. 1 overall seed by a point. But then they lost to the Flyers in six games, after having a 2-1 series lead, (though I don’t think I need to remind you), because of 30 goals allowed in a six-game series! 30! Three … zero! (Not that the Flyers were that much better having allowed 26, including 10 in Game 3.)

Despite the Rangers’ No. 1 seed last year, I thought the Penguins were the best team in the league. And if the season were 83 games instead of 82 then maybe the Penguins win the East and their playoff path changes and they are spending the summer with the Cup. But for a team that struggled to get by the Flyers in the first round, maybe it didn’t matter who the Penguins faced last season in that their early postseason exit was inevitable.

Conley: All about the matchup. The Penguins took the regular season series from the Rangers 4-2. Ditto the Bruins (3-1-0), Capitals (2-1-1) and Panthers (3-1-0), and split their series’ with the Devils (3-3-0) and Senators (2-2). The Flyers were the only East playoff team of a year ago to have a winning record against the Penguins (4-2-0).

That’s not to say another team couldn’t have beaten them. In fact, the losses now are definitely indicative of problems that first surfaced late last year and were loudly exploited by a fast, smart Flyers team (as in the Pens outscoring teams as opposed to actually outplaying them, as I mentioned before). The Flyers had the formula for success against the Pens before anyone else, and now we’re seeing other teams implement that game plan. It was definitely the worst possible matchup they could have drawn. But as we’ve seen in the losses this year, clubs are taking cues from the Flyers — pressuring the Pens into making bad plays, capitalizing on their turnovers and slamming the door shut on Bylsma’s infuriating faith in the stretch pass. The Pens like to talk ad nauseum about “getting to their game.” Opposing teams are starting to get to the Pens’ game regularly. These things do have a shelf life.

At this point, the book is out on how to beat the Pens. It only took two games to figure out the new power play, which after Wednesday’s practice had Malkin on the point and James Neal back to the position where he scored 18 power play goals last season. Still, the other elements of their game — high-risk puck retrieval, using the boards to make the tip-pass deep into the offensive zone, the blue line power-play drop pass — all those things have been figured out. Simply showing up and competing at a level commensurate to their opponents would be a good place to start, but there need to be serious, systemic changes to the breakout and power play if they ever plan to adjust to the clubs which have already adjusted to them.

Keefe: I hope John Tortorella has time to read this before Thursday’s game as you give away the Penguins’ never-changing game plan because the Rangers haven’t defeated the Penguins since Jan. 6, 2012 and have lost the last five matchups.

On Tuesday night, the Islanders’ Colin McDonald became the second player suspended by Brendan Shanahan this season when he ran the Penguins’ Ben Lovejoy from behind.

Matt Cooke has been suspended five times (four with the Penguins), including the first round of the 2010-11 playoffs for his ridiculous actions. Cooke changed his game following that suspension and played in all 82 games last season, the first time he had done so in nine years, and scored a career-high 19 goals and posted his highest points total (38) in nine years as well. He also recorded a career low in penalty minutes with 44.

If someone started watching hockey and the Penguins in 2011-12 for the first time, they would have thought Cooke was an effective player and a great secondary scoring option for the Penguins. But for anyone who watched Cooke was prior to last season, it seems unfathomable that he could completely change his style of play and not be the most dangerous and reckless player in the league.

To me, Matt Cooke will always be the guy extending his elbow after hitting Marc Savard in the head or the guy who created the textbook video for boarding when he rocked Fedor Tyutin from behind. But that doesn’t mean that’s the case for everyone.

What do you think of Cooke now and what’s your perception of his style of his play pre-2011-12 and post-2011-12?

Conley: The change certainly seems to be genuine. The players obviously have great respect for Ray Shero, and I can’t imagine a more influential voice in all of hockey than Mario Lemieux. Both of them laid out an ultimatum for Cooke. Cooke’s obviously an intelligent player and person, so it’s not unfathomable that he could make that change.

I think for a lot of guys, that style of play used to be their ticket into the league. It almost became Cooke’s ticket out. Every player is doing what he needs to do to stick, whether it’s score goals, block shots or fight and piss people off. For Cooke, the agitator role was his meal ticket. The culture of the game changed, so he had to change with it.

For fans who only see Cooke a few times a year, that reputation is going to precede the player. Maybe that’s why no one thought Cooke could reinvent his game at his age. But I think being a little older played to his advantage, being experienced enough to know what was at stake. The reputation before his suspensions was obviously awful, and at least in Pittsburgh the shift in his style was a big story last year. I don’t know how he’s perceived league-wide, or whether all is forgiven, but anyone who can’t acknowledge that he has adapted and adopted a cleaner style is probably still a little salty about his past.

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