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Tag: Martin St. Louis

Podcasts • Rangers

Mar 26, 2014

Podcast: Sam Carchidi

Sam Carchidi of The Philadelphia Inquirer joins me to talk about joined me to talk about how the Flyers have survived the gauntlet portion of their schedule and how everyone is pulling for a Rangers-Flyers playoff series.

The Flyers were supposed to be eliminated by now. After their 1-7-0 start, a coaching change three games into the season and a scoreless Claude Giroux through the first 15 games of the season, the Flyers were supposed to be eliminated before Thanksgiving. And then after getting back into the race, with a post-Olympic break schedule that included the Sharks, Rangers, Maple Leafs, Penguins (twice in two days), Blackhawks, Blues, Kings and Rangers twice, they weren’t supposed to make it. But here we are with three weeks left in the season and the Flyers trail the Rangers by one point and have two games in hand.

Sam Carchidi, the Flyers beat writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, joined me to talk about how the Flyers have survived the gauntlet portion of their schedule, the similarities between Martin St. Louis and Claude Giroux’s seasons and how everyone is pulling for a Rangers-Flyers playoff series.

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Blogs • Rangers

Mar 24, 2014

The Real Stretch Run for the Rangers

There are 10 games left in the Rangers’ season and the next three weeks will be the difference in the Rangers making the playoffs or in me hate-watching the playoffs this spring.

It seems like just yesterday I turned to the start of the Rangers’ season to console me after the Yankees ended the their season without a trip to the postseason and the Giants were off to an 0-4 start. The Rangers didn’t exactly make me forget about an 85-win Yankees team or a winless Giants team as they lost seven of their first 10 games and were shut out four times in those 10 games. But since that 3-6-0 road trip to open the season and the 2-0 loss to the Canadiens in the home opener in Game 10, the Rangers have been a pretty good team (they are 36-22-4 since the 3-7-0 start).

At times they have made me believe they are capable of competing against the Bruins or Penguins in a seven-game series and at other times they have made me think they will miss the playoffs in a Game 82-shootout setting like they did to finish the 2009-10 season. I have learned not to be surprised by the Rangers over the years and even with a team that rosters Henrik Lundqvist, Rick Nash, Martin St. Louis and Brad Richards, I’m still not surprised by the inconsistent efforts.

After losing back-to-back road games to Carolina and Minnesota (and scoring only one goal in each game), it seemed Rangers fans would have to endure the usual March charades from the Rangers that would force them to play for their season in the final week of the season. With Columbus continuing to win and Philadelphia laughing at the gauntlet portion of their schedule that was supposed to keep them from making a playoff push, the dreaded “Games in hand” phrase that always seems to work against the Rangers at this time of the year began to make its annual appearance on every TV graphic. But over the last five games, the Rangers have looked more like that team that is capable of competing with the Bruins and Penguins and less like the team that let their season come down to an Olli Jokinen shootout attempt.

Three weeks from today the 2013-14 regular season will be over, and three weeks from today there’s a chance the 2013-14 Rangers’ season will be over too. The Rangers have 10 games to earn their way into the playoffs and to make sure I’m not hate-watching the NHL playoffs during my favorite time of the year. In those 10 games, we will get the answer to a few questions I have about the state of the Rangers down the stretch.

Are We in the Middle of One of Rick Nash’s Patented Streaks?
Rick Nash has played 99 regular-season games for the Rangers. He has scored 44 goals in those 99 games. That looks like steady production and without watching him you might think he is a model for consistent goal scoring in the NHL. But while Nash’s final numbers will look the way his final numbers have looked since he entered the league over a decade ago, he is anything but consistent, which makes him the perfect Ranger.

Let’s look at Nash’s 2012-13 regular season:

In seven games from Jan. 19 to Jan. 31, Nash had one goal.

In 12 games from Feb. 2 to March 8, Nash had eight goals.

In eight games from March 10 to March 24, Nash had one goal.

In eight games from March 26 to April 8, Nash had seven goals.

In nine games from April 10 to April 27, Nash had four goals.

And now let’s look at what Nash has done this season:

In 11 games from Nov. 21 to Dec. 10, Nash had six goals.

In 11 games from Dec. 12 Jan. 4, Nash had one goal.

In 11 games from Jan. 6 to Jan. 26, Nash had 11 goals.

In 15 games from Jan. 29 to March 16, Nash had two goals.

In the last three games, Nash has three goals.

Nash has admitted he is a streaky goal scorer and this season, like last, has once again shown that. His 23 goals have come from two 11-game stretches with the rest of them coming in this current three-game streak. Nash scores in spurts and when he does, they aren’t usually in short spurts like three games. They are usually for a couple of weeks. The Rangers need an extended Nash scoring streak that continues through the end of the regular season and into the postseason, which is what didn’t happen last year. (More on that later.)

And how about Nash even deciding to mix it up in his Columbus homecoming? When I told David Singer, founder of HockeyFights.com, on our podcast last week that the Rangers were going to need to get tougher and some Rangers would need to appear on his site in the coming weeks to make the playoffs, I didn’t mean Rick Nash. But Nash has proven to be a leader for this team and it his decision to become one on the ice and the scoresheet couldn’t have come at a better time.

How is Anton Stralman Still in the NHL?
It’s scary to think if John Moore wasn’t currently battling a concussion that Antron Stralman would still be in the lineup. If you’re Raphael Diaz, who is only playing because of Moore’s concussion, you have to be thinking that you’ll never get into a game as long as Moore, Stralman, Ryan McDonagh, Dan Girardi, Marc Staal and Kevin Klein are healthy.

Prior to Moore’s concussion, Stralman was still dressing and still part of the Top 6 defensemen on the team despite doing nothing and I mean actually nothing to earn or deserve to be in the lineup. He has become the new Michael Del Zotto of the Rangers (who is having his own trouble staying in the lineup in Nashville) in that he isn’t an offensive defenseman (or at least he doesn’t produce like one) and he clearly isn’t a defensive defenseman since I would consider him the biggest defensive zone liability in the entire NHL.

Stralman hasn’t looked like an NHL player since the Olympic break and nowhere near the type of player that should be considered for an extension. He hasn’t even been the type of player that should be involved in contract extensions rumors (whether true or false) the way he was a few weeks ago. If Raphael Diaz is back out of the lineup once Moore is back and Stralman doesn’t see the press box for at least one game then there’s a serious problem. And if you see Diaz in line to buy beers between periods at MSG as a healthy scratch, let him know he’s doing the right thing.

Is Martin St. Louis Ever Going to Score?
In 10 games with the Rangers, Martin St. Louis’ production line looks like something Brian Boyle would post: 0-3-3. If you believe in being snake-bitten, then St. Louis is certainly that. And if you believe in being due, then St. Louis is certainly that as well.

During the playoffs last year, the Rangers got past the Capitals in the quarterfinals despite getting just two assists from Rick Nash in seven games. If the Rangers could overcome a 2-0 series deficit and eventually win a Game 7 without their best player scoring a goal, I thought they would be able to make another conference finals appearance and possibly even a Cup appearance once Nash got hot and started scoring, since he would have to get hot and start scoring eventually … right? Wrong. Against the Bruins, Nash had one goal and two assists in the five-game series loss and if it weren’t for Tuukka Rask giving the Rangers the weirdest/craziest goal of all time in Game 4 (and possibly betting against his team in the game), the Rangers would have been swept thanks to a lack of scoring from their pure scorer and too much scoring on his own net from Dan Girardi.

Now even though my theory about Nash eventually getting hot and carrying the Rangers never came to fruition last May, I’m putting it out there again, only this time it’s for St. Louis. At some point, St. Louis is going to get hot and start scoring. His 976 points in 1,051 regular-season games and 68 points in 63 playoff games tell us he’s going to. I just hope his “due” isn’t supposed to come in the playoffs and we never get to experience it because his lack of production over the final 10 games keeps the Rangers out of the playoffs.

Is Henrik Lundqvist Playing for the Rest of the Season?
Before the season, Alain Vigneault said he wanted to keep Henrik Lundqvist to 60 games. Lundqvist has played 55 games so far and that would mean he would only play five of the remaining 10 games, and that’s not going to happen. And I’m fine with it.

Here is how many games Lundqvist has played in each season of his career and how many he didn’t play in:

2012-13: 43/5
2011-12:  62/20
2010-11: 68/14
2009-10: 73/9
2008-09: 70/12
2007-08: 72/10
2006-07: 70/12
2005-06: 53/29

With 10 games left and the Rangers trying to make the playoffs let alone trying to not be a wild-card team, I’m not sure Vigneault can start Cam Talbot until the Rangers have the “x” next to their name in the standings representing a playoff berth has been clinched. And really how can you give Lundqvist a night off when he is 6-2-0 and has allowed just 11 goals in those eight games since March 7?

Maybe when Vigneault said he would try to limit Lundqvist’s starts he thought his Rangers team wouldn’t be fighting for a playoff spot over the final 10 games of the season (if he thought this then he clearly wasn’t in tune with what was going on in New York while he was in Vancouver). But now Vigneault has no choice but to play and ride Lundqvist down the stretch, and in his first season he learned you can’t try to plan ahead for how you will or won’t use Lundqvist over the course of a season.

Once again the Rangers getting to the playoffs will come down to Henrik Lundqvist. I guess I wouldn’t want it any other way since it’s the only way I know.

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Podcasts • Rangers

Mar 11, 2014

Podcast: 610 Barstool Sports New York

610 of Barstool Sports New York joins me to talk about if the Rangers are better now than they were before the trade deadline and how Ryan Callahan didn’t think the Rangers would call his bluff and actually trade him.

A week ago, Ryan Callahan was the captain of the Rangers and trying to work out a deal to make him a career Ranger. Now the Rangers are without a captain, Callahan is playing for the Tampa Bay Lightning and we are four games into the Martin St. Louis era in New York.

610 of Barstool Sports New York joined me to talk about if the Rangers are better now than they were before the trade deadline, how Ryan Callahan didn’t think the Rangers would call his bluff and actually trade him and if Brad Richards can avoid a buyout now that his old teammate is his new linemate.

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Blogs • Rangers

Mar 6, 2014

The Ryan Callahan Trade

Ryan Callahan is no longer a Ranger and the only reason is because he didn’t want to be one.

Sixty million dollars. That’s what Ryan Callahan wanted from the New York Rangers when he began his negotiations over the summer. An average annual salary and cap hit of $7.5 million was the initial asking price for the captain of the Rangers and it was the initial moment that Ryan Callahan began his exit from New York.

If Callahan had received that deal and started earning $7.5 million in 2014-15, his contract would have the same cap hit as Steven Stamkos and Pavel Datsyuk and a higher cap hit than Drew Doughty, the Sedins, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews.

If you don’t think that’s ridiculous, maybe trying to figure out who these three players are will make you think it is.

Player A: 28 years old, 450 GP, 132 G, 122 A, 254 PTS

Player B: 27 years old, 478 GP, 95 G, 176 A, 271 PTS

Player B: 29 years old, 421 GP, 132 G, 122 A, 261 PTS

Player A is Ryan Callahan. Player B is Brandon Dubinsky. Player C is Nikolai Zherdev. That’s right. The player who started this fallout by asking for $7.5 million per year has very similar stat lines to two former Rangers, who were and are viewed to have much less value. The difference is Dubinsky will make $4.65 million this year ($4.2 million cap hit) and Zherdev plays in the KHL and hasn’t played in the NHL in three years. What if John Tortorella had named Dubinsky the captain before the 2011 season? He was coming off a 24-30-54 season and was younger, as blue-collar as Callahan and just as homegrown as him too. Would it be reasonable for Dubinsky to ask for an eight-year, $60 million contract?

Callahan is 28 years old (he will be 29 on March 21). He has scored 22-plus goals three times and has eclipsed the 50-point mark once (54 in 2011-12). He has missed 18 games this season; he missed three last season, six in 2011-12, 22 (and the playoffs) in 2010-11 and five in 2009-10. And the games played isn’t going to improve once he’s on the other side of 30 and mucking it up in the corners and blocking shots with his face.

Yes, he was the captain, homegrown and possesses the “intangibles” that make rooting for him easy and watching him enjoyable. And it’s because of these qualities and attributes that negotiations carried on for as long as they did and forced Glen Sather to continue to up his offer as far as he did, no matter how financially unsound it would be to pay first-line money to a third-liner. But blue-collar players don’t make white-collar money, and even if sometimes you would like them to, in this NHL they can’t.

So Callahan left Glen Sather no choice. The Rangers couldn’t afford to commit over nine percent of their payroll to a player of Callahan’s level and Sather’s offer turned out to not be enough for Callahan, even though it was actually too much for him.

The Rangers’ captain is now with the Lightning and not because he wasn’t wanted here or because the Rangers didn’t do everything they could to retain him. He isn’t here because he overvalued himself (or his agent Steve Barlett overvalued him) and he wasn’t able to take advantage of a perfect storm even if the Rangers gave him the opportunity to do so. That perfect storm was the idea that the Rangers would have to re-sign their captain in a win-now window to please their fans and their locker room. And they almost did. They almost overpaid for their captain, but thankfully they didn’t over-overpay for him the way he wanted.

The Rangers are a better team with Martin St. Louis than they were with Ryan Callahan. They now have an elite player and the scoring depth they have lacked and needed for so long and all it cost them was an impending free agent unwilling to accept his true value and two draft picks, who will likely never make an impact in the NHL.

This trade wasn’t the Rangers trading their captain for St. Louis. This trade was the Rangers’ captain forcing the Rangers to trade him for something before he walked in free agency and left them with nothing. It just happened to work out that St. Louis became available and only wanted to play one team and that happened to be the Rangers. And for the first time in the history of a team trying to re-sign a homegrown player, let alone their captain, the majority of the fans sided with the team. (I said “the majority” even though I wanted to say “every fan,” but I’m sure there’s someone out there who thinks he’s worth what he’s asking for.)

There is nothing to bash Callahan about for what he did for the Rangers on the ice since getting called up at the end of the 2006-07 season. He was a good Ranger and a good captain and an integral piece of getting the team over their first-round playoff hump and eventually into a conference finals appearance. But he certainly deserves to be bashed for his off-the-ice actions and negotiating tactics in which his demands would have tied too much money up in a third-liner and would have prevented the Rangers from getting over the conference finals hump for the first time in 20 years.

Callahan had the right to overvalue himself and to ask for more than he’s worth as an impending free agent and (somewhat of a) businessman. He wants to get paid what he thinks he’s worth or what his agent tells him he should think he’s worth. Unfortunately, for him and the Rangers and their fans, his self-evaluation has been and still is wrong.

If you’re ecstatic that the Rangers now have an elite talent and real scoring depth, you should be. If you’re sad that Ryan Callahan is no longer a Ranger, don’t be. Ryan Callahan could have stayed, but he didn’t care about being a Ranger. If he did, he would still be one.

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Podcasts • Rangers

Mar 3, 2014

Podcast: Kevin DeLury

Kevin DeLury of The New York Rangers Blog joins me to talk about whether the Rangers should sign or trade Ryan Callahan and why Glen Sather is deciding to draw the line for the first time with his team’s captain.

The clock is ticking on Ryan Callahan and the Rangers. With Wednesday’s 3 p.m. deadline quickly approaching, I realize that at any moment I can open Twitter and see that the Rangers have signed Callahan to a six-year deal or that they have traded him, which would send a confusing message to the rest of the Rangers and the fans of the team. But after what has now been a month of trade rumors surrounding Callahan, we will soon have a resolution.

Kevin DeLury of The New York Rangers Blog joined me to talk about whether the Rangers should sign or trade Ryan Callahan, why Glen Sather is deciding to draw the line for the first time with his team’s captain and how far the Rangers can go this season.

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