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Tag: Michael Del Zotto

Podcasts • Rangers

Mar 28, 2014

Podcast: Kevin DeLury

Kevin DeLury of The New York Rangers Blog joins me to talk about the Rangers’ recent run that has them looking like contenders and why we don’t want but need a Rangers-Flyers playoff series

It hasn’t even been two weeks since I was petrified that the Rangers wouldn’t make the playoffs after their 1-0 loss to the Sharks at MSG. Since that devastating defeat, the Rangers have won five straight, Henrik Lundqvist has found his Vezina form, Ryan McDonagh has done everything except actually stitch the “C” on his jersey and Martin St. Louis has finally scored a goal. OK, so maybe the last part hasn’t happened, but it will. It has to.

The Rangers have provided their usual highs and lows this season, like a six-month Texas hold ’em game, with both emotional swings and standings swings. There have been times when they have made me believe they can compete with the Bruins and Penguins and other times when they have made me feel like an Islanders fan. Their current five-game winning streak has me thinking they can go on an extended playoff run and that scares me because it’s never a good idea to get too high on the Rangers.

Kevin DeLury of The New York Rangers Blog joined me to talk about the Rangers’ recent run that has them looking like contenders, if Martin St. Louis will ever score a goal as a Ranger and why we don’t want but need 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 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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Blogs • Team USA

Feb 15, 2014

Team USA-Russia Thoughts: Do You Believe in T.J. Oshie?

T.J. Oshie became a household name after he beat the defending Vezina winner, the face of the KHL and Russian hockey and Russia’s captain in a shootout.

Doc Emrick finished the USA-Russia broadcast by saying, “Many people paid many rubles hoping to see the home team win. Not tonight.” And it was night in Sochi by the time T.J. Oshie finished off Russia, but back in the U.S. it was still early in the morning and the perfect start to the day.

To continue the perfect start to the day, like I did on Thursday, here are the Thoughts from the game.

– Ryan Callahan played the exact type of game that has people questioning why the Rangers would want to trade their captain in the middle of a season in which they are fighting for a playoff berth. Callahan sacrificed his body (including burying Ovechkin from behind), mucked it up in the corners and seemed to be involved in the play every shift throughout the game. It must have made non-Rangers fans laugh at the idea that Glen Sather is actively seeking a trade for him.

– Blake Wheeler is barely on Team USA and barely in the lineup, but there he was turning the puck over in the neutral zone and then taking a tripping penalty to make up for his turnover halfway through the first period to give Russia’s dangerous power play an early chance. I’m going to guess that that’s not the way to increase your already small amount of playing time or ensure your spot in the lineup for the rest of the tournament.

– As for Russia’s power play, their main power play featured a combination of Alexander Ovechkin, Pavel Datsyuk, Evegeni Malkin, Ilya Kovalchuk, Andrei Markov and Alexander Radulov and it was unimpressive for the options they had. Datsyuk’s second goal was a power-play goal, but Russia finished the game 1-for-6 on the power play and several times had trouble setting up in the USA zone and struggled to get shots. When you have two guys like Ovechkin and Malkin both looking for the big one-timer and two guys like Kovalchuk and Datsyuk both trying to control the play and tempo, is it possible that Russia has too many offensive weapons for the the man-advantage?

– The Russian fans made the game from a TV-watching perspective have the feel of a game with special magnitude. Even if the constant horns made it sound like a Tampa Bay Rays home game or vuvuzelas at the World Cup, the crowd made the environment hostile for Team USA and their noise levels when Russia carried the puck into the offensive zone was Stanley Cup-esque.

– I miss watching Ilya Kovalchuk on a regular basis. I’m sure if I really wanted I could still watch Kovalchuk on a regular basis if I wanted to wake up early and put my computer at risk by accessing some sketchy website that streams KHL games if you answer some survey questions and close 29 pop-up windows. As a Rangers fan, I don’t miss watching Kovalchuk the New Jersey Devil beat the Rangers, but as a hockey fan, he was entertaining and one of the best pure scorers in the league. Here’s what I said about him in the Rangers-Devils email exchange from the Stadium Series:

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 the shootout, Kovalchuk made it look easy against Jonathan Quick. His first goal was effortless and his second goal was almost a joke as he pulled Quick to the left (Quick’s right) and casually flipped the puck back across Quick, which could have been the game-winning shootout goal if T.J. Oshie didn’t exist.

You would think that playing with fellow Russians who still play in the NHL and against players he spent a decade playing against that he would miss the North American game. But if anyone doesn’t, it’s the guy who left 12 years and $77 million to return home. Maybe we’ll get to see him play against Team USA one more time in these Olympics, if not, maybe we’ll see him in four years in South Korea.

– When Pavel Datsyuk splits your defense (in this case, John Carlson and Brooks Orpik) and then scores on your Conn Smythe goalie, all you can do is shake your head and laugh. So that’s what I did.

– You have to love the Russian chants of “Shaybu!” which Doc said loosely translates to “Go get the puck.” What do the fans think the players are trying to do? We can relate to this here in the States where we have fans at games using their voices to repeatedly yell “Shoot!” at players on the power play no matter where the puck is or what kind of angle the player with possession has. But imagine everyone at Madison Square Garden repeatedly yelling “Go get the puck!” “Go get the puck!” “Go get the puck!”

– When NBC showed Russia’s coach for the first time and the graphic with his name, I wondered how much it would suck to have his name: Zinetula Bilyaletdinov. That’s eight letters for the first name and 13 for the last name for a total of 21 letters. As Neil Keefe (nine total letters), I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to write Zinetula Bilyaletdinov or to even remember it.

– It was weird to see Mike Babcock, Claude Julien, Lindy Ruff, Steve Yzerman, Peter Chiarelli and Doug Armstrong all together watching USA-Russia even though they are all part of Team Canada, but it wasn’t weird to see everyone laughing and having a good time except for Chiarelli who has never not been serious in his life.

– I have never been a Fedor Tyutin fan. Never. Not for a second. Not when he was drafted by the Rangers, on the Hartford Wolf Pack or when he finally made it to New York. I think I was happier when he was traded to Columbus before the 2008-09 season than when Michael Del Zotto was traded this season. So of course it was Tyutin who almost beat Team USA because that’s how things work out. But thankfully he didn’t.

– At the time of the disallowed Russia goal, I couldn’t believe that call was made. Not because the call went against Russia in Russia with Vladimir Putin in attendance, which seems like it should be enough for the call to stand, but because as an NHL fan, there wasn’t a high-stick and the puck clearly hit the back bar. The problem was that everyone on the NBC broadcast also happens to be trained to judge reviewed goals by NHL standards and weren’t aware of the net being slightly off its mooring. Once the international rule was eventually explained, the replayed showed Quick instantly showing the refs that the net was dislodged and without Quick pointing that out, maybe that goal doesn’t get reviewed and Russia wins and T.J. Oshie isn’t a legend.

– But T.J. Oshie is a legend. Oshie took six of the eight Team USA shootout attempts and scored on four of the six against Sergei Bobrovsky, who just happens to be the defending Vezina winner. There wasn’t a serious hockey fan who had ever heard the name T.J. Oshie prior to the shootout and if you has asked a random person if T.J. Oshie is a congressman from Minnesota, the CEO of Ford, an NHL player on the St. Louis Blues or the bass player for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, there’s no way they would have known. But when you beat the reigning Vezina winner, the face of hockey in Russia and the KHL and the captain of Russia in a shootout and seal the win for the latest chapter of USA-Russia hockey, everyone will know who you are.

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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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