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Tag: Martin Brodeur

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.

Martin Brodeur

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.

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Podcasts • Rangers

Jan 28, 2014

Podcast: Brian Monzo

Brian Monzo of WFAN joins me to talk about the Stadium Series and why he doesn’t like, Team USA and the Olympics and who the Rangers should target at the trade deadline.

The Rangers picked up two points with a win over the Devils in the first of the two Stadium Series games at Yankee Stadium and now they will try to sweep the series with a win over the Islanders on Wednesday night.

WFAN Mike’s On: Francesa on the FAN producer Brian Monzo joined me to talk about the Stadium Series (which he actually doesn’t like), just how good Henrik Lundqvist and Rick Nash are and which Jets defenseman the Rangers should target at the trade deadline.

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Blogs • Rangers

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.

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Rangers

Jan 25, 2014

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.

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Blogs • NHL

Feb 19, 2013

The 2012-13 NHL All-Animosity Team

It’s the first ever NHL All-Animosity Team.

Last week during the third and last (well the last for now) Rangers-Bruins game, Milan Lucic took exception to the way the Ryan McDonagh plays hockey and decided he was going to try to prove that he’s tough. This wasn’t the first time the two had had sort of mixed it up since last March, Lucic didn’t like that McDonagh didn’t like that Lucic hit from behind. So Lucic, the owner of 30 penalty minutes in 2013 and 555 career penalty minutes (in 371 games) decided that McDonagh and his 66 career penalty minutes (in 136 games) was someone worth bullying.

But this is who Milan Lucic is. He’ll try to intimidate the guys that are in the league because they can play and every once in a while he will prove to those that are in the league even though they can’t play that he is in the league because he can. And it was this latest example of Lucic’s “toughness” that led me to create the first edition of the NHL All-Animosity Team the way I had for MLB.

Five years ago this list would have been a lot easier to make. Ten years ago, this list would have written itself. But in 2013, things are a little trickier. It actually took time to complete a defensive pair (and it’s not even a real defensive pair) for the team when in 2002-03 I would have had to make three separate weeks of cuts just to get it down to six or eight.

But to go along with the MLB All-Animosity Team, which will celebrate its fourth season this spring, here’s the first edition of the NHL All-Animosity Team. (Note: Brian Boyle wasn’t ineligible to make the team.)

FORWARDS

Milan Lucic
I’m not sure there’s anything left to be said about Lucic that wasn’t captured in the opening of this column. But if I could add anything to justify his placement on this team it would be his unnecessary running of Ryan Miller and that Boston fans so badly want him to be Cam Neely 2.0 and some are even crazy enough to think that he is. (FYI: He’s not and it’s not even close.) And there’s nothing worse than a Boston sports fan overrating their player’s talent and ability. (Hey, it’s Trot Nixon!) Also, according to Jack Edwards, Lucic still hasn’t lost a fight.

Matt Cooke
Show me someone outside of Pittsburgh that likes Matt Cooke and doesn’t have the last name Cooke and I will show you a liar. Cooke has become the unanimous number 1 choice as the most hated player in the league (though Raffi Torres really wants that spot), and had I not cared about this column flowing, I would have listed him first instead of Lucic.

Cooke has supposedly changed his dangerous ways and knack for hits and cheap shots that make you wonder what goes through someone’s mind right before they decide to go through with a hit like this.

But it’s not the hit from behind on Fedor Tyutin that I will always think of when I think of Matt Cooke. When I hear Cooke’s name I will always think of him starting the end of Marc Savard’s career with an elbow to the head, which he wasn’t suspended for. And while Cooke continues to play, Savard is left tweeting things like this one from Nov. 8 or this one from Dec. 17. No big deal.

Cooke has been suspended five times and four of those have come while with the Penguins. (If Colin Campbell had never been the league disciplinarian, that number could be doubled.) After being suspended for the remainder of the 2010-11 regular season and the first round of playoffs the year for elbowing Ryan McDonagh in the head, Cooke said, “I don’t want to hurt anybody. That’s not my intention. I know that I can be better.” At the time, no one believed him. I’m not sure if anyone does yet.

Alexander Ovechkin
You probably didn’t expect to see this name here. He’s the cleanest player of the group and a Top 3 talent in the world. But for me Ovechkin has been a problem as I have had to argue against him in what seemed like a never-ending Crosby vs. Ovechkin debate that has now ended with Crosby at the clearly better player.

Ovechkin has 15 goals and 14 assists in 29 regular season games against the Rangers and has been a key player in two first-round exits for the Rangers (2008-09 and 2010-11). On top of that, it seems like every time I get to see him in person he doesn’t do anything (which is both good and bad), including on Sunday night at the Garden and the first time I ever saw him play on Jan. 26, 2006 in Boston, he missed a shorthanded breakaway and then also failed to score on a penalty shot. Give me Crosby every day of the week.

DEFENSEMEN

Zdeno Chara
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.

It’s tough to say that Chara won’t fight or fight frequently since there aren’t many willing opponents to go against his reach, but unlike Lucic, when Chara picks his spots, he picks them correctly, except when he intentionally tries to injure someone like Max Pacioretty (listen to Jack Edwards blame it on the geometry of the rink), which I wrote about after it happened. But it’s not tough to say that outside of being a massive body on the ice with the longest stick in the league, Chara’s game is overrated by everyone and anyone willing to form an opinion based on his name alone (except for maybe Mike Milbury who thought that Chara, Bill Muckalt and the pick that turned into Jason Spezza was worth Alexei Yashin). But Chara has always been good at standing in front of the net on the power play, which has always been good for a good laugh when rebounds appear at his feet.

Maxim Lapierre
I know Maxim Lapierre isn’t a defenseman, but here’s the thing: there are a lot more forwards in the league to hate than defensemen (probably because there are a lot more forwards in the league than defensemen), so for the sole purpose of not trying to fake hate someone for the sake of this team, I’m going to make a forward play defense for the sake of this team. And when you’re talking about Maxim Lapierre, it’s easy to bend the rules and make exceptions and change things to make sure he’s part of something that includes “Animosity” in the title.

It was hard to pick a Western Conference player since the Rangers play the Canucks once a year and won’t play them at all this year, but Lapierre’s antics go back to his time when he was in the Eastern Conference with the Canadiens. And any Bruins fan taking exception for Lucic and Chara making the team should forgive me for including the 2010-11 Final agitator.

I’m not sure which of the dozens of Lapierre cheap shot moments or examples to break down here, but I think this attempt to draw a penalty against fellow Animosity teammate Zdeno Chara proves his worth to this team. And on top of me breaking the rules and putting a forward on defense just to get him in the lineup, Lapierre is part of the first tier of the “Athletes I Hate To Look At” List, which is led by Josh Beckett. And I’m not the only one who thinks so since someone made a video of his many punchable faces from one game.

The problem with Lapierre is that even though he plays the game in a way that no one should play the game, he does it within the rules because the rules allow for players like him to run around without the fear of paying the price for their actions. But in order to fix that, the NHL would have to care about the game, its integrity and the fans, and there’s a better chance of me giving Nick Swisher a welcome applause when the Indians arrive in the Bronx this season than there is of the NHL caring about any of those things ever.

GOALIE

Martin Brodeur
Was there any other choice?

It’s simple: If you’re a Rangers fan, you don’t like Martin Brodeur. If you’re any other fan, you (most likely) like Martin Brodeur. (Unless you’re a fan of the Ten Commandments.)

Brodeur has been a part of the Rangers-Devils rivalry for 20 years now. Twenty! And when I watch highlights from the ’94 season (since those are all the memorable moments the Rangers have provided in the last 19 years) I can’t believe that he’s still the Devils goalie.

I have friends that try to discredit most of (and sometimes all of) Brodeur’s career by citing the depth and system Lou Lamoriello built around him, and I will agree that there is some truth to the situation he was put in in 1993-94 and the one he has played in since. But that’s sports and there’s no way of knowing if Brodeur would be the NHL’s all-time winningest goalie as part of another franchise or if the Devils would have three Cups if someone other than Brodeur had been their goalie.

In 2008-09 this theory looked real when career backup Scott Clemmensen went 25-13-1 for the Devils with a 2.39 goals against average and .917 save percentage. The theory looked even more real in 2010-11 when injuries to the core of the Devils forced Brodeur to be outstanding and he posted a career-low .903 save percentage and posted a sub-.500 record for the first time in his career (though age could obviously be cited as a factor). But then Brodeur had to go and record 31 wins in 59 games in 2011-12 and beat the Rangers along the way to his fifth Stanley Cup Final appearance at the age of 40 even if he didn’t look like the three-time Cup winner in the process.

Brodeur isn’t the same goalie in 2012-13 at 40 that he was in 2002-03 at 30 when he won his first of four Vezinas. But my animosity for him remains the same.

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