fbpx

Tag: New York Rangers

Blogs • Rangers • Rangers Playoff Thoughts • Rangers Playoffs

May 26, 2013

Rangers-Bruins Game 5 Thoughts: The End

The Rangers’ season ended with a Game 5 loss to the Bruins ending any chance at an epic 3-0 series comeback.

When the Rangers took a 1-0 lead 10:39 into the game with a power-play goal I started to think ahead about winning Game 5, taking Game 6 at MSG and being back in Boston for Game 7 and a chance to avenge the Yankees’ 2004 ALCS loss. But the Bruins scored 3:48 into the second period and then again 9:53 later and I knew it was over. The Rangers had gotten incredibly lucky scoring once and they weren’t going to score again. So I left.

I left the house in Nantucket I was staying in for Figawi and Memorial Day weekend and I walked the seven-tenths of a mile to The Chicken Box, the bar on the island you need to get in line by 7:30 p.m. on the Saturday of the weekend to have any chance of getting in at all. The temperature had dropped into the 40s and it was pouring rain. Given that it was May 25 and should have been at least 30 degrees warmer without rain, it felt like it was freezing. I walked to The Box in the “freezing” rain and stood in line for at least 30 minutes in the same rain in shorts and a T-shirt knowing that inside hundreds of Bruins fans were watching their team enjoy the finality of the Rangers season.

I didn’t see how the Rangers season ended. I missed most of the third period walking to the bar and standing in line to get into the bar. I didn’t see the Bruins’ third goal (an empty-net goal) with 51 seconds left in the season. I didn’t see the last minute or the last second of the 2012-13 Rangers and I’m happy I didn’t. I want to forget about the 2012-13 Rangers because there isn’t much good to remember about them. It shouldn’t be hard since they are a forgettable team.

(More to come to look back at the season.)

Read More

Blogs • Fake Mailbag

Mar 15, 2013

Fake Mailbag: March 15, 2013

It’s the debut of the Fake Mailbag with questions from Sam Rosen, Derrek Lee, Brian Cashman and Mark Teixeira.

I wanted a way to tie in multiple sports to one column without writing things in bullet points and trying to keep some sort of flow to it all and I didn’t really know how to make it all work. So I finally came up with the idea of a Fake Mailbag, which would allow me to create questions that I want to answer (it’s not as weird as it sounds … OK, maybe it’s a little weird) from real sports figures since they would never actually ask me these questions or ask anyone these questions. (Except for Brian Cashman. He actually did ask the question I wrote for him.)

We’ll take it slow with just a few questions this week and try to build it in the coming weeks, but I thought for this week it was important to address the Rangers’ and Yankees’ situations.

Why does John Tortorella always yell at me after his team loses?
– Sam R., New York, N.Y.

After Tuesday’s loss to Buffalo, Sam Rosen started John Tortorella’s postgame press conference by asking, “Do you think the Sabres were the hungrier team in this game?” Here’s how Tortorella responded.

“Oh, no … they were … no, no I don’t think the Sabres were the hungrier team. I thought we stunk and I’m not going to give Buffalo any credit. Well, I will give their third line credit. They outplay our top players and that can’t happen. I couldn’t be more disgusted and disappointed with the way our top guys played, the way we handled ourselves through it. That team was ripe to be beaten and we simply did not play the way we’re supposed to play. I don’t know what to tell you. Did you ask them? Did you ask them any questions? I don’t know why I always have to answer these questions. You should ask them occasionally about what happened. Did they answer your questions? Were they in the room? What did they say? Tell me. Let me ask some questions here.”

When Vince Vaughn’s character, Jamie O’Hare flips out on Rudy in Rudy at practice for his effort and Coach Parseghian asks him, “What’s the problem, O’Hare?” O’Hare responds, “Last practice and this asshole thinks it’s the Super Bowl.” Coach Parseghian answers, “You just summed up your entire sorry career here in one sentence!”

That’s what John Tortorella did with his Tier I meltdown. In 53 seconds, Tortorella summed up his time as head coach of the New York Rangers and discredited the Sabres’ win along the way (even though they were playing without Ryan Miller). It’s always everyone else’s fault. The players, the opponent, the media. It’s never John Tortorella’s fault.

But it didn’t end there.

After Tortorella asks the media if they asked his players any questions, which they obviously did since that’s their job, Rosen asks Tortorella to “talk about hunger around the net too,” and Tortorella looks at Rosen and then looks away and asks, “Does anybody else have a question?” Rosen goes to put the microphone to his face and Tortorella responds, “I’m sure you do, Sam.” So Rosen asks, “Well, the inconsistency, it’s got to be a little frustrating when you think that you’re starting to get inconsistent…” Tortorella cuts him off and says, “I just, I just told you what I thought. I told you what I thought.”

The Rangers aren’t good. They’re not bad. They’re average. That’s what you are when you win half of your games. And at 13-11-2 that’s what the Rangers have done in what has been a disastrous 62 percent of the season. And through that 62 percent, Tortorella hasn’t even hinted at the idea that any of the 13 losses could be any bit his fault.

I fully understand why Tortorella yells at and belittles Rosen in the postgame press conferences. Rosen broadcasts the Rangers games from high above ice level and has appeared in zero games for the Rangers this season or any season and he doesn’t create the line combinations or fill out the lineup, so it makes complete sense as to why the head coach of the team would take out his frustration on the MSG Network’s play-by-play man. Rosen clearly had a negative impact on Tuesday’s loss and it’s not like Tortorella has the power to decide who plays and when and who plays with who, and it’s not like it’s up to him to get the best out of the Rangers players. So while you might think I would feel sympathetic for Rosen, I don’t. It’s your fault the Rangers are in ninth place and can’t find any offensive consistency, Sam Rosen. Leave John Tortorella alone. He has nothing to do with this.

I’m 37 years old. I haven’t played in a baseball game since Sept. 28, 2011. I hit .267/.325/.446 in 2011. Why do Brian Cashman and the New York Yankees want me to play first base for them?
– Derrek Lee, Sacramento, Calif.

I’m not sure if Cashman suffered a concussion along with his broken ankle during his skydiving accident, but The Golden Knight is looking at his second-worst offseason as Yankees general manager. (The first obviously being when he decided that he would go into 2007 with Carl Pavano and Kei Igawa making up 40 percent of his rotation.)

If Cashman were to sign Lee, that would give the Yankees an Opening Day infield of Lee, Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter and Kevin Youkilis. The outfield would be Brett Garden, Ichiro Suzuki and we’re not sure of the third outfielder yet. The catcher will probably be Chris Stewart to catch CC Sabathia since personal catchers are always a good idea. That lineup would be good for the mid-2000s Orioles, but the 2013 Yankees?

Lee last played in a Major League game on Sept. 28, 2011. He hit .267/.325/.446 in 113 games for the Orioles and Pirates. It would be one thing if Lee was looking to rebound off a bad 2012 and could come on the cheap after a solid 2011 to show that he isn’t that far removed from being productive. But Lee isn’t looking to rebound off a bad 2012 because he didn’t play in 2012 and he isn’t coming on the cheap after a solid 2011 because he wasn’t good in 2011.

But none of this really even matters since Lee turned down the Yankees’ offer. That’s right. Derrek Lee, at 37, turned down FREE MONEY to put on the pinstripes and serve as a role player with no pressure for the most prestigious and popular team in baseball. He didn’t want guaranteed money and to be a major leaguer again for the MakeShift Yankees. And I thought things hit rock bottom when Cliff Lee left money on the table to go to Philadelphia. But I think Derrek Lee not taking an offer from the Yankees when he has no other offers and isn’t playing baseball anymore is rock bottom.

I can’t find Chipper Jones’ agent’s number anywhere. Do you have it?
– Brian C., Darien, Conn.

If you thought things were bad or miserable to embarrassing when there were rumors that Cashman wanted Lee, how did you feel when you found out that the general manager of the New York Yankees didn’t have the phone number of one of the game’s best players over the last 20 years?

I didn’t think for one second that Jones would come to the Yankees (and I didn’t want him to either just like I didn’t want Lee to take Cashman up on his offer) since he had played all 2,499 games in the majors with the Braves and had already taken less money during his career to stay a Brave forever. So why would he throw that all away and join the Makeshift Yankees? He wouldn’t and he was never going to.

Everyone can make fun of me and say that I’m the new Jason Giambi and that I’m getting paid $22.5 million a year to only play defense and that my career is in decline and that I’m overpaid and that I got a free pass to criticism because A-Rod won us the World Series in 2009, but everyone is going to miss me for the first two months of the season. You’ll see. They’re going to miss me. I know it. Theyre’ going to miss me, right? Right?!?!
– Mark T., Greenwich, Conn.

I felt like a Vegas sportsbook pulling the Steelers game off the board with Ben Roethlisberger’s playing status uncertain when it was announced Mark Teixeira would be out for up to 10 weeks because the news completely altered the “2013 Ladies and gentlemen…” race and I had to quickly change the odds. With Teixeira out for two months I had to adjust the odds for this season’s overall winner and here are the current odds:

Joe Girardi: -600

Eduardo Nunez: -450

Francisco Cervelli: -320

Mark Teixeira: -250

Boone Logan -180

Field: EVEN

Teixeira is out with a strained wrist. A strained wrist. Not a broken wrist. Not something that requires surgery or a cast or a pin or a screw or reconstruction or a titanium rod. A strained wrist.

On Feb. 7, I broke down Mark Teixeira’s interview with the Wall Street Journal. And in that interview he hinted at the idea that he might break down.

“To think that I’m going to get remarkably better, as I get older and breaking down a little bit more, it’s not going to happen.”

It only took 27 days for that little bit of foreshadowing from the $22.5 million-per-year first baseman to come to fruition.

But to answer your question, Mark T. from Greenwich, Conn., I won’t miss Mark Teixeira’s April at the plate, but I will miss his defensive skills and the amount of errors and runs he saves at first base. If Teixeira would suck up his pride and try to hit to the left side of the field from the left side of the plate or just drop two or three bunts down the third-base line to end the Michael Kay “Martini Glass” Shift then I would really miss Mark Teixeira because he might be the .292/.383/.565 guy he was in 2009 and not the .251/.332/.475 he has become and was in 2012.

Read More

Blogs • Rangers

Feb 25, 2013

The Same Old Rangers

It was another game and another loss for the Rangers, so that means another John Tortorella postgame press conference analysis.

When I started the tradition and made the promise to analyze every John Tortorella postgame press conference following a loss, I didn’t think the Rangers would lose every game, but that’s basically what’s happened. Since the first of these after losing to the Devils, the Rangers have lost to the Canadiens and lost to the Senators and lost to the Canadiens again. (They also lost to the Islanders, but that was on Valentine’s Day and I have already given my excuse for missing that game and the postgame press conference.) Starting with that loss to the Devils, the Rangers are 4-3-2, which isn’t even that bad since I was starting to think that maybe the start of these was the problem with the team. And then I remembered that when Rick Nash doesn’t play and Marian Gaborik gets benched, it’s hard for a team without secondary scoring to score and when you don’t score it’s hard to win.

The Rangers aren’t scoring or winning right now and John Tortorella is getting testier with each loss. With three straight losses in five days, Tortorella started his postgame press conference in Montreal by asking the media a question rather than the traditional way a press conference is held.

“How high did Pacioretty jump on his hit? Anybody give me an answer? I’m asking you guys. Over/under? No one can give me an answer? Figures, Zip, you’re wrong. No, I’m just asking.”

Tortorella has a point here that Max Pacioretty did leave his feet on the hit on Ryan McDonagh. The refs thought he left his feet on the hit and gave him two minutes for boarding, which was the correct call. Neither the MSG broadcast nor the Canadian broadcast of the game really took exception to the hit (OK, obviously the Canadian broadcast wasn’t going to) and the NHL Department of Player Safety determined that the hit wasn’t worthy of a suspension. So maybe it wasn’t that bad?

The Rangers got their two-minute power play for the hit, which was viewed by both broadcasts as payback for McDonagh hitting Pacioretty earlier in the game, but the Rangers failed to score a power-play goal (surprise, surprise) and wasted the opportunity and also lost McDonagh for the rest of the game.

On what happened in the second period when the game got away.

“We don’t generate enough consistently and they score a goal. Again we’re just not consistently having the puck … offensively. They score a power-play goal, ours doesn’t work. I think our game just fell off. I thought we had a really good first period, but it fell off from there.”

Tortorella almost made the right point here except he said “enough consistently.” What he should have said was, “We don’t generate anything.” “Consistently” would indicate that the Rangers score goals at times and at other times they don’t score any goals. But in reality, they don’t ever score goals.

Marian Gaborik has the most goals on the team. Marian Gaborik was benched for the entire third period on Saturday with the Rangers needing to score goals because of a penalty he took in the second period. Brian Boyle doesn’t score goals. Brian Boyle took a penalty that cost the Rangers a win and a second point in Ottawa on Thursday late in the third period. Nothing happened to Brian Boyle. You should always bench your leading goal scorer when trailing in a game in a shortened season. It’s just common sense.

Last week the Rangers played four games. They scored four goals in those four games and came away with just three of a possible eight points. And in the “really good” first period, the Rangers had six shots and no goals. (The Canadiens only had three shots in that period, but they would at least go on to score three goals in the second and third period.) The Rangers finished with 17 shots.

To say the power play doesn’t work is an understatement. The Rangers went 0-for-2 in the game and are 8-for-71 on the year. That’s 11.3 percent. That’s good enough for the 29th-best power play in the league. (Thankfully they aren’t 30th like the Sabres at 11.3 percent. Losers!) The personnel on the power play has to change. It has to. Brad Richards might have a Conn Smythe and a worthy reputation as a “playmaker,” but he has done nothing on the first unit this season. Whether it’s his constant overthinking, making one too many passes or shooting pucks into shin pads, Richards has been detrimental to the power play when he’s supposed to be the leader of it. I think making wholesale changes to a power play that is second worst in the entire league and sitting some of the expensive cap hits for less experienced players is necessary at this point. If the younger and supposedly less offensive guys don’t get the job done, what will have changed? The worst that can happen is the Rangers will regain their spot at the bottom from the Sabres, which they are one more unsuccessful power play from taking back anyway. The best that could happen is that they actually score with a man advantage.

On so many players getting injured.

“Yeah, it’s part of the game though. You have injuries. You gotta keep on playing. I mean what can you do, Sam? Some kids got a chance to play tonight, but again we’re not playing enough minutes, so we gotta figure it out and just try to find ourselves, keep our wits about ourselves and keep on playing here.”

Wait a minute. Just wait a minute. Who was that guy standing in front of the Rangers/Chase backdrop in a suit with a goatee talking about not having the full lineup and complaining about injuries after blowing a late lead in Ottawa on Thursday night? Whoever that guy was, he looks strikingly similar to the guy who stood in front of the Rangers/Chase backdrop after the Montreal loss on Saturday night and gave us that quote about injuries not being an excuse. Very, very strange.

If the team isn’t playing “enough minutes,” who’s fault is that? No, John Tortorella doesn’t play in the games, but it’s his job to decide who does and when and it’s his job to get the most out of his players. If his players aren’t “playing” for the entire 60 minutes of the game that falls directly under his job description as head coach.

On Michael Del Zotto not being able to play in the game.

“Well, it hurts. He’s a very good player for us. It hurts. He takes some big minutes.”

Michael Del Zotto missing time does hurt because Del Zotto is basically a somewhat fifth starting pitcher. He’s going to eat minutes and have his good games with his bad games and you just hope he doesn’t screw up too badly and cost your team a game, which he tends to do. The problem is that while Del Zotto hasn’t had a good season, the options below him on the depth chart aren’t as good, which is very scary. So when you’re worried about Del Zotto not being able to play despite him thinking he is Bobby Orr and Ray Bourque and thinking the power play runs through him, it’s never a good thing. Hurry back, Michael Del Zotto? (Yes, a question mark is the correct punctuation there.)

On severity of injuries to Girardi and McDonagh.

“No, I don’t know, and I’m not going to talk about it anyway.”

John Tortorella has the right to not talk about injuries, but choosing not to seems to be making his job harder. I’m not sure what talking about injuries will really do since if Player X has a concussion and Team Y finds out about it, I don’t think Team Y is going to purposely target Player X’s head in the 2012-13 NHL where contact to the head is finally being taken seriously. And I don’t think players are going to willingly put their own jobs and other players’ careers in jeopardy or forfeit their source of income to hit someone in the head.

Tortorella has started to get agitated and angry when asked about injuries and it really upsets him that media members want to find out why players are missing time and games so they can report it. As a fan, it would be nice to know why Rick Nash hasn’t played in the last three games since the team has scored three goals combined in the games he has missed. It would help to know if there’s a chance he might play on Tuesday against Winnipeg or on Thursday against Tampa Bay or if he will play again in March or April or at all again this season. (Sure, it’s extreme to wonder if he will be out for months, but how am I supposed to know if I don’t even know why he is out in the first place?) Fans deserve to know why their team’s most important offensive player isn’t playing and when he might play again. You know fans, the people who happen to be the reason that someone like John Tortorella is able to coach professional hockey for a job and afford to be fined $30,000 like he was after the Winter Classic or $20,000 like he was after ripping the Penguins last April.

On how to get more from his team.

“We’ve gotta try to gain some confidence. We’ve gotta try to just stabilize ourselves when we lose a couple. Coming into these last three games here we were playing pretty well. We find a way to get a point in Ottawa. We can’t get into a panic mode. We just need to get more minutes consistently out of our players and I mean it’s a hard question to answer, Sam. It’s just a matter of trying to find yourself and hope some good things happen and you gain some confidence.”

Before the season, Tortorella told Mike Francesa that in a shortened season you can’t afford to get into a jam because you might not be able to get out of it. The Rangers are in a jam sitting in 10th place in the East with the season 35 percent over and injuries mounting. They haven’t looked like a playoff team since their win in Boston seven games and 13 days ago and no one is talking about what the Rangers can do this spring, they’re talking about whether or not they will be playing after Game 48 and if Brad Richards will be amnestied by the team.

The 2012-13 Rangers were a team that was looking to build off a season in which they finished first in the conference and reached the Eastern Conference Finals. Instead they look like the pre-2011-12, post-lockout Rangers, who played by the strategy of “score the first goal and hope Henrik Lundqvist makes it stand.” Those Rangers team either didn’t make the playoffs or lost in the first round and never once made it out of the second round. This team is becoming those teams.

Read More

Blogs • Rangers

Feb 22, 2013

New York Rangers Hockey: ‘Grab Points When We Can’

John Tortorella was the most pissed off he’s been all season after Thursday’s 3-2 shootout loss in Ottawa.

You would think you could tell how pissed off John Tortorella is by how short and snippy his answers are, but that’s only part of the equation. To really tell how pissed off Tortorella is just listen to how many names of reporters he drops in his answers following a loss. On Thursday night in Ottawa, he used “Sam” for Sam Rosen of MSG, “Pat” for Pat Leonard of the Daily News and “Zip” for Steve Zipay of Newsday. It was the most pissed off Tortorella has been all season.

Keeping with tradition, here is the analysis of John Tortorella’s postgame press conference from Thursday night’s 3-2 shootout loss to the Senators.

On what areas he sees improvement.

“Oh, Sam I’m not going to go over areas and all that. I’m glad we got a point. I still don’t think our full lineup is playing, so we just got to keep grinding away until we get people playing and try to grab points when we can.”

Aww, poor John Tortorella and the Rangers. They don’t have their full team! They don’t have all of their best players! They don’t have their complete roster! Paul MacLean’s Senators just lost their Norris Trophy-winning defenseman for the season with a torn Achilles and overcame a late third-period deficit with their backup goalie after their starter sprained his ankle and still beat the Rangers. And Jason Spezza has only played five games (and has five points) due to injury. I didn’t hear Paul MacLean crying about his team’s injuries after Thursday’s game.

No one is going to feel bad for the Rangers and no one should feel bad for them. Yes, it sucks that Rick Nash has missed two straight games and will miss his third on Saturday, but part of being a good team is having depth and the Rangers don’t have much of it even when they are at full strength. Some people want to blame the lack of depth on the Nash deal that saw Brandon Dubinsky and Artem Anismov get shipped to Columbus, but if you want two dimes for a quarter then I can’t help you.

If the Yankees used “Heroes remembered, legends born” last season and are going with “A Timeless Legacy” in 2013, well John Tortorella gave us the 2012-13 Rangers’ slogan: “Grab points when we can.” Because when the lockout ended, coming off an Eastern Conference Finals appearance and with the addition of Rick Nash, “Grab points when we can” was exactly how I thought this season would play out. I was terribly mistaken to think that the number 1 seed a year ago could possibly keep up their level of play. Stupid me. So eff it! “Grab points when we can!” Let’s go Rangers!

On whether or not he sees the power play getting more consistent.

“I thought the past couple of games it’s been OK. We scored a big goal tonight. We still … we don’t have enough guys playing. We don’t. But we get a point, so we just gotta keep trying to grind way and get points until we have our full team playing here.”

Here are the facts aside from the most telling stat the the Rangers are 4-for-31 on the power play in February and last in the league on the power play on the year.

1. Rick Nash didn’t play on Thursday night.

2. Of Rick Nash’s 292 career goals, 83 (28 percent) of them have come on the power play. Of Rick Nash’s 267 career assists, 100 of them have come on the power play (37 percent).

3. Of Rick Nash’s 183 power-play points, one of them has come with the Rangers.

What does all of this tell us? Two things.

1. With Rick Nash in the lineup, the power play still sucks and Tortorella shouldn’t be blaming his absence on the special teams’ struggles.

2. The players Rick Nash plays with on the power play shouldn’t be on the power play.

How do we know this?

Rick Nash was a productive special teams player on the worst team in the league. He’s now supposedly playing with better players on the man advantage, but for some reason the power play isn’t scoring and it certainly isn’t because of him.

The power play needs new personnel. Michael Del Zotto doesn’t belong on the first unit and that needs to be the first change. Pierre McGuire told Mike Francesa that when Tortorella was an assistant coach he was a special teams expert, which only further complicates the situation since this should have been fixed by now.

(Everything else from Tortorella’s answer is the same as the first answer. Poor, Torts! He doesn’t have his best player! But his team has had the lead in their last three losses, but let’s not talk about that.)

On what was working on the line when Halpern jumped up with Callahan and Pyatt in the third.

“They forechecked. They had the puck.”

Can’t argue there.

On why he thought it was necessary to make that line change.

“Because we weren’t developing any offense, Pat.”

Fair enough.

On if he sympathizes a team that lost their number 1 goalie.

“Do I sympathize for what’s happened there? No, I … No.”

Then no one is going to sympathize with your injuries, so why keep bringing them up?

On if the play that injured Anderson was an accident.

“He was tripped. It was a goal too.”

OK.

On what happened with the quick whistle on Halpern’s waved-off goal.

“They said they must have lost site of the puck. I didn’t get an explanation. I don’t bother with that anymore.”

You don’t bother with should-have-been goals, but just said that Chris Kreider getting tripped into Craig Anderson should have been a goal. OK then…

On if Gaborik played better for the whole 60 minutes.

“Are you asking me a question or telling me, Zip? Ask me the question.”

“That line played well.”

If Gaborik’s line is the only line that plays well on Saturday night in Montreal, I’ll have a postgame press conference to analyze on Sunday.

Read More

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Rangers

Feb 22, 2013

The Canadiens Own the Recent Rangers

The Rangers’ second meeting this week with the first-place Canadiens called for an email exchange with Andrew Berkshire of Eyes on the Prize.

The Rangers lost another game in which they led on Thursday night in Ottawa. Now their two-game road trip north of the border stops in Montreal on Saturday night for their second meeting with the first-place Canadiens this week.

Andrew Berkshire of Eyes on the Prize joined me for an email exchange to talk about why no one is giving the Canadiens the credit they deserve, why they are a bad matchup for the Rangers and what it’s like to have Brandon Prust on the Habs.

Keefe: John Tortorella called the Canadiens a “bad team” (which I ripped him for) after their win over the Rangers on Tuesday night. Henrik Lundqvist called the Canadiens “boring” despite their 3-1 win and now first-place spot in the Eastern Conference. No one seems to want to give the Habs credit for their strong start and five-game winning streak before their shootout loss on Thursday, but we are now one-third of the way through this shortened NHL season and while 17 games might not be a strong enough sample size in other years, it certainly is this year.

Why isn’t anyone giving credit to the Canadiens for their 11-4-2 start? They just won five games in seven days and beat the Hurricanes in Montreal and the Rangers in New York in less than 24 hours. They have outscored their opponents 18-9 over the last six games and outside of their loss to the Senators on Jan. 30 and their loss to the Maple Leads on Feb. 9, they have either won every other game or lost by one goal. The Canadiens might not have the type of stars other teams around the league do or an exciting and flashy style of play and maybe they are “boring,” but the Devils proved that “boring” can lead to championships in the NHL.

I’m buying into the Canadiens, but why isn’t everyone else?

Berkshire: As far as Torts goes, he’s always bitter after a loss it seems. His grumpy demeanor is funny from the outside at times, but it also wears thin. The Canadiens team he saw was playing its third game in four nights, all against teams that are fighting to get into the playoff picture. I don’t think the Canadiens were particularly great that night, but calling them a bad team is just Torts blowing hot air.

As for Henrik, I believe he also called them a smart team, which gives it a little context. The Canadiens played a boring brand of hockey against the Rangers on Tuesday, there is no denying that, but they were dog-tired and it ended up working.

I think the main reason no one wants to believe that the Canadiens are a good team is that, especially among the mainstream press, narratives are hard to shake. Under Jacques Martin the Canadiens were labeled a bad team, even though they were actually a good team. When they fell apart last year, many people felt like they’d been given justification for their former misgivings. And these are Habs fans! There are a lot of people who would rather be right than see their team win, and I think that was largely the case there.

As far as national media goes, the Canadiens were so bad last year for two thirds of the year that it was hard to believe they could possibly recover so quickly. At Eyes on the Prize, we go over a lot of data every day and we figured that a quick turnaround was more than possible, in fact it was highly likely. You can only be so bad when you have Carey Price, P.K. Subban and Andrei Markov heading up your back end. But it’s hard for a lot of people to move away from their opinions. The Habs were bad last year, so surely they would be bad again.

All this said, the Canadiens have still been one of the luckiest teams in the league, with high shooting percentages for several players that aren’t really sustainable. They’re going to lose more often in the next few weeks than they have so far this year, but they’re a playoff team in my opinion, maybe a Top 4 team in the East.

Keefe: I’m a Yankee fan, so I understand people wanting to be right and have their opinions be validated rather than having their team win.

It seems like there’s something different about the Rangers when they play the Canadiens. Actually I know there is. No matter how well the Rangers have played leading into the game or for how long they have been playing well, they always seem to either give an awful effort against or look like a completely different team when they face the Habs.

The Canadiens have won 11 of the last 17 meetings with the Rangers dating back to the beginning of the 2008-09 season. (I started counting with the 2008-09 season because the 2007-08 season featured the Rangers’ epic embarrassment on Feb. 19, 2008 when they blew a 5-0 lead in Montreal with 34:57 left in the game. I’m sure you remember that game well.) After Saturday’s game, the Rangers and Canadiens will only meet one other time this season (unless they meet in the playoffs) on March 30.

Why do you think the Rangers seem to never have their best game or anything that closely resembles their normal game when they play the Canadiens even though the names on the rosters change?

Berkshire: It’s an interesting question. I believe heading into that 5-0 comeback game the Rangers had dominated the Habs for a couple straight years, but I could be wrong.

I think part of it could be psychological. That game between the Rangers and Habs in 2008 was a turning point in that season for Montreal, and they blitzed through the rest of the season to finish first in the conference. One guy who always seems to be ordinary against the Habs is Lundqvist and we all know that he’s anything but ordinary. It’s possible that he’s still annoyed with that game a few years later. Something I’ve noticed with Lundqvist is that if you put a few past him, he stops fighting to make saves, and gets visibly frustrated.

Other than perhaps some latent mental frustration lasting from that game, I don’t really think there’s a logical explanation. The Rangers are a strong team, especially defensively that they shouldn’t be too far below .500 against the Habs.

It reminds me a little of the Habs and Leafs. The Leafs have been a terrible team by pretty much any measure for the last five or so years, while the Canadiens have been OK to strong over that time, yet they split the games down the middle. Something about the way the two teams match up that isn’t readily apparent causes results that shouldn’t happen.

Keefe: Brian Gionta has been one of my favorite players in the league since he debuted during the 2001-02 season even though his career has been spent with New Jersey and Montreal. I had the chance to watch him in college at Boston College and admired his scoring ability and his style of play despite being 5-foot-7, which he’s listed at, but appears way, way smaller.

Scott Gomez was also a personal favorite of mine after his Calder Trophy campaign in 1999-2000 despite playing for New Jersey and I was ecstatic when the Rangers signed him before the 2007-08 season. I was even more ecstatic when they were able to trade him to the Canadiens before the 2009-10 season.

The two of them formed the EGG line in New Jersey with Patrik Elias before teaming up in Montreal, but now their careers have gone separate ways with Gionta being the captain of the Canadiens and Gomez being told to go home for the year before ending up with the Sharks.

How much do you enjoy getting to watch Gionta play for your Canadiens and how did you feel about Gomez’s time and unusual departure?

Berkshire: I’m one of the few Canadiens fans who doesn’t harbor any ill will against Scott Gomez. It’s not his fault that Glen Sather signed him to an insane contract and it’s not his fault that Bob Gainey gave up Ryan McDonagh and Chris Higgins for him (two players that are younger and better than he is).

Gomez had the misfortune of being in Montreal when his career plateaued and he began to decline into old age and he was eviscerated for it. That said, he did have one very good year in 2009-10, and probably could have had a second one in 2010-11 if the Pacioretty-Gomez-Gionta line was a thing from the start of the season to the end.

I enjoyed watching Gomez’s transition game and neutral-zone play, which is still a strong skill set of his, but the rest got to be pretty mind-numbing by last year. I was glad to see him go, although it was still surprising. I think in the end, the buyout is good for both the Canadiens and Scott Gomez, who no longer has to worry about being labeled overpaid.

Gionta on the other hand, has been excellent for the Habs. He’s also at the age where his scoring has taken a slight dip every year, from a near 40-goal pace in his first year, to near 30, to an injury plagued year and now he’s likely a 25-goals-per-82-games kind of player.

He’s still solid defensively and plays a strong possession game against top competition though, and he rarely takes a shift off. Watching Gionta go in on the forecheck against Zdeno Chara and winning the puck battle tells you all you need to know about the Habs captain.

Keefe: Brandon Prust became an important part of the Rangers after being traded to New York in the Olli Jokinen deal three years ago. His grinder style of play and his willingness to fight anyone at anytime made him a blue-collar player and fan favorite in the city. My friend Dave went so far as to buy a Prust jersey last season, which I strongly advised him not to do.

So far this season Prust has already has two goals and five points after having just five goals and 17 points in all 82 games last year. He has a plus-7 rating, leads the league in penalty minutes with 76 (on pace to break his career high even in a shortened season) and is second in the league with six fighting majors. At four years and $10 million it seemed like the Habs overpaid for Prust in the summer, but he is giving them everything he gave the Rangers in two-plus seasons and more. Right now the Rangers could use Prust, but instead he’s helping your team try to achieve the 1-seed this season.

Berkshire: I really like Brandon Prust. I think his contract is a little too much money for a little bit too long, but that’s what happens with unrestricted free agents who have a unique skill set.

He’s already a fan favorite here, which has led to fans and media completely overblowing his value to the point where our local sports radio station asserted that he’s been the second most important player on the team this year. That’s pretty crazy and I wrote about what his real value is to the team on Wednesday.

I think he’s an above average fourth liner who can play on the third line if necessary, something the Canadiens have four of now along with Travis Moen, Colby Armstrong and Ryan White. He’s also been lights-out on the penalty kill, which is a welcome surprise since he was only middling by the numbers on the Rangers.

Is he going to be worth his contract by the last year of it? I don’t know, but for now I really like what he brings to the team.

Keefe: When the two teams met on Tuesday night, it was ugly. It was the second-worst game of the year for the Rangers after their 3-0 home loss to the Penguins on Jan. 31.

On Thursday night the Rangers blew a third-period lead to the Senators, and lost in a shootout, to drop their second straight game in which they led and it was their third loss in a row in which they scored the first goal. The Canadiens also lost on Thursday, but it was the first in six games as they blew a two-goal lead to the Islanders and lost in a shootout.

Saturday night will be the second-to-last meeting of the season between the Rangers and Canadiens (the last one is March 30) and hopefully we see a better all-around game than we saw on Tuesday. But in the bigger picture, what do you see for the Rangers and Canadiens over the remaining two-thirds of the season?

Berkshire: I think what we’ll see on Saturday is a much more entertaining game than what we saw on Tuesday. The Canadiens were extremely disappointed with how the game ended against the Islanders with Max Pacioretty being particularly fired up. The Canadiens are also a much stronger home team than they are on the road and won’t be coming off of three games in four nights.

Similarly, I think the Rangers are going to be a lot better as well. It’s possible that Rick Nash will be back in the lineup and that’s a big boost on its own, but I also think they have something to prove after the last game. I think we’ll see a high tempo game.

As for how the season will go, I think the Habs will be taking a step down sooner or later, because they’re not as good as their record. They should challenge the Bruins for the division title, but I’m not sure that they’re there yet. They’re a playoff team though, and a pretty good one.

The Rangers don’t seem to be the team they were last year. They’re still fantastic defensively, but they lost quite a bit of depth when the traded for Rick Nash, and they seem to miss Brandon Prust on the fourth line. They’re still a playoff team in my mind. I don’t think they’re as good as the Penguins over an 82-game season, but over this 48-game one, they could begin a hot streak that propels them up the standings to a division title.

Read More