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Tag: New York Rangers

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Rangers

Jan 23, 2013

Rangers Better Be Ready for Rematch with Bruins

The Rangers haven’t won a game and the Bruins haven’t lost a game, so obviously it was time for an email exchange with Mike Miccoli.

The bad news is the Rangers are winless. The good news it’s only been two games. However, the troublesome news is that the season is only 48 games long and there really isn’t any time for a losing streak.

Mike Miccoli, who covers the Bruins for The Hockey Writers, contributes to this site and also happened to be my roommate for freshman year of college, joined me to talk about what happened between the Rangers and Bruins on Opening Night in Boston and what to expect this season, including their rematch on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden.

Keefe: The first thing I thought of when I heard the lockout was over was that I wouldn’t be able to read your sarcastic tweets about not being able to watch hockey anymore. Actually I take that back. The first thing I thought was “Woooooooooooooooo!” and then I thought about your tweets. After two games I’m not so sure I want hockey back.

The Rangers are 0-2 and for someone who takes regular season losses like season-ending losses (see: my take on the Yankees), this start sucks. The Rangers lost in Boston on Saturday and then were embarrassed at home on Sunday. Henrik Lundqvist was pulled in Game 2 of the year after not being pulled once in 2011-12. He has given up seven goals in two games. I think he gave up seven goals all of last year.

But I’m sure you don’t want to hear me complain. The Patriots were just destroyed at home by the Ravens with a Super Bowl trip on the line and Tom Brady’s legacy took another hit. But hey, at least your hockey team is 2-0 and will be when I walk in the MSG doors for the first time this year on Wednesday night.

Miccoli: Tom Brady is a legend even though he can’t throw the ball and catch it at the same time. You should have learned that last year. But seriously, how are things in New York? Is Torts on the hot seat? Lundqvist demand a trade yet? Think about this for a second: by Thursday morning, the New York Rangers could be 0-3. That’s six percent of the 2013 season completely wasted for a team that so, so many predicted to come out of the East.

Now I know what you’re thinking: it’s early. Of course it is, but when will the Rangers gain traction? For me, the biggest issue is all of the passengers. Guys like Marian Gaborik, Chris Kreider and Carl Hagelin have been invisible so far. When three of your supposed, All-Star top-six forwards are just watching, that’s a major problem.

The Bruins, on the other hand, have been firing on all cylinders. Did you watch the Winnipeg game? Ondrej Pavelec owes his two posts a steak dinner and a six-pack each for bailing him out so many times. Realistically speaking, the Bruins should have won that game 8-1, maybe even 9-1 if it wasn’t for so many dings. In net, Tuukka Rask is making Bruins’ fans forget about Tim Thomas quicker than they forgot about the lockout once they charged hundreds of dollars to their credit cards for crappy balcony seats.

I just hope the renovations at MSG are complete enough so that Rask doesn’t have to use that excuse on Wednesday.

Keefe: It’s too bad about the Patriots. I was really hoping they would win the AFC Championship and head to their sixth Super Bowl in 12 years. It’s really too bad.

Please don’t bring up the MSG renovations. It was one of the last remaining buildings that had that old-school feel to it and now it looks like every other modern arena on the inside. Sure, the amenities are awesome and the new seats are better than the cheap Metro North-like plastic seats (or the T commuter rail seats for you and I know you’re used to those), but I will miss the look and feel of the old interior. It might as well be the cement block with no character on Causeway Street in Boston. Actually, I take that back. Nothing can be that bad.

You’re right about Gaborik and Kreider and Hagelin. Too many times have they been out there for Sunday Skate watching the play rather than being in the play or trying to make something happen. But you know who hasn’t stood around and watched the play happen? Rick Nash.

When it comes to Nash, I haven’t been this excited for a player’s arrival in New York since Alex Rodriguez in 2004. And that’s either a good thing when you think about the two AL MVPs and arguably the best postseason for anyone ever in 2009. Or it’s a bad thing when you think about the 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2011 and 2012 postseasons, the admission to using performance-enhancing drugs or any of the 9,817 headlines he made for non-baseball related events.

We’ll get to your Bruins, but after two games of seeing Rick Nash as a Ranger, he has been the player I thought he would be and the player I was willing to trade the whole system for last February. He scored his first goal as a Ranger on Sunday against the Penguins and had several other high-quality scoring chances in the game as well as on Saturday against the Bruins. If his play continues at this level and the rest of the team realizes that the season has started and Derek Stepan and Michael Del Zotto are taking off the first unit on the power play, Nash will have quite the season.

Miccoli: I’m actually elated that Rick Nash ended up in New York since I was getting sick and tired of hearing about how he’d look good in a Bruins uniform for the past year. Little did I know that Glen Sather would be able to frisk Scott Howson in the deal, making it one of the more lopsided trades in recent memory.

Here’s the thing with Nash: I think he’s one of the most overrated players in the NHL. I get that he never had any help in Columbus and the best center he played with was a past-his-prime Sergei Federov but for his $7.8 million cap hit, he’s going to end up as more of a burden than a savior for a Rangers team that’s already pretty well stacked. Sure, he’s a physical player who will help get the momentum going eventually and score a decent number of goals but I think he could crack under the pressure in New York. I mean, he was playing in Columbus and only scored 40-plus goals twice in nine seasons, eclipsing 70-plus points once. ONCE! Want to know who has a similar trend in point totals in fewer seasons? David Krejci. And he’s not even the Bruins’ No. 1 center.

If Nash couldn’t pad his stats in Columbus where he was the entire show, I don’t know how he could in New York when there are plenty of other scorers who could pose a threat to opposing teams. I should probably mention his postseason experience of a whopping four games since 2002-03, but I’d rather you not go Andy Bernard on me and punch a wall this early in the season.

But I guess when you can acquire an All-Star player who is consistent for spare parts that you were looking to get rid of anyway, it’s not a terrible thing.

Keefe: “Newsflash. It’s not funny. In fact, it’s pretty freakin’ unfunny!”

Woah, woah, woah. I didn’t think the conversation was going to go this way. Overrated? Overrated? Overrated? I feel like Derek Zoolander screaming, “One look?! One look?! One look?!” “Rick Nash” and “overrated” should never be used in the same sentence. This falls in line with my unnecessary Dennis Seidenberg bashing last week

As a 19-year old, Nash led the NHL in goals with 41 goals for Columbus. That team finished the year with 62 points, which was good enough for 27th place in the league and 29 points out of the eighth seed in the West. Their top assist man was David Vyborny. Da-vid Vy-born-y. He had 31 assists! 31!

As a 24-year old, Nash scored 40 goals again for a Columbus team that finished seventh in the West and was swept in the first round in their only playoff series ever, though Nash had three points in that series.

The man has scored at least 30 goals in seven of his nine NHL seasons and one of the two years he didn’t was when he was an 18-year-old rookie (he scored 17). Sure, you could make the case that he always has more goals than assists (290-259 career), but who was he supposed to pass to all those years in Columbus? Kristian Huselius? R.J. Umberger? A washed-up Sergei Fedorov? The answer is no one. So he didn’t pass. He just dangled through entire teams by himself and produced goals like this.

I think he did a fine job trying to pad his stats in Columbus, but he couldn’t because there was literally no help on the team … at all … for nine years! Nine years! It was a one-man show and he did the best he could, which was an average of 32 goals a year on the worst team in the league for the last decade. I think he will do a much better job putting up even better and more even and balanced numbers with other stars surrounding him and guys who can actually feed him the puck and do some of the work for him. He will make what is usually an embarrassing power play dangerous and will be the difference maker for this team in the postseason (if they can win a game first).

There’s a reason I was willing to give up everything for him a year ago and why I believe he would have been the difference between playing the Kings for the Cup and losing to the Devils in six games. There’s a reason he was part of the first line for Team Canada in the 2010 Olympics and on their first power play unit. There’s a reason why his cap hit is $7.8 million. And there’s a reason why I’m not worried about it. Rick Nash is the real deal.

Miccoli: I look forward to your demeanor six months from now if the New York Rangers aren’t crowned Stanley Cup Champions. Don’t get me wrong, the Rangers are a good team, a really good team, but that’s exactly it: they’re a team. Rick Nash can produce as much as possible but if they’re not getting contributions from other stars like Gaborik and Richards, production from their depth players and secondary scorers and a strong effort on the blue line, the season could take a turn.

And what about Lundqvist? Seven goals in two games seems like a billion for a guy known for being stingy in net. (Hey, that’s almost four times as many goals that Rask has allowed!) For a goalie that has carried a team on his back for years, wouldn’t it be ironic for him to suddenly falter?

Now don’t get me wrong, I still think King Henrik is still one of the best netminders in the world, even if he makes glove saves after the puck has crossed the goal line. He made some tremendous saves in Boston, allowing only three goals on 34 shots, which seems like a lot for a team synonymous with throwing their bodies in front of pucks as if they were crash test dummies. Can’t say I’d do the same if I was out there, so there’s that, but the Rangers shot blocking was one of the main reasons why they were so successful last year.

Now the power play…yeah, I feel your pain. At least you don’t have to endure the “Bruins are 0-for-(insert number of past Bruin here) on the power play” tweets like I have to. Easily the worst trend to come out of the Bruins’ Cup run … and there were some doozies.

Keefe: Henrik Lundqvist entered the Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Eli Manning level of respect from me in that I won’t say something bad about him … ever. (However, there are some “Ladies and gentlemen, Eli Manning” tweets floating around there from the final weeks of this season.) The only difference is that Lundqvist hasn’t won a championship. Actually, there’s another difference: Lundqvist has never really had much help in seven years. That’s why this year is supposed to be different.

Last year I pleaded with anyone who would listen about why the Rangers had to trade Rick Nash. My reasoning was simple: You can’t keep wasting years of Henrik Lundqvist’s prime. The Rangers didn’t add a scorer in Nash and they couldn’t score consistently in the playoffs and they lost in the Eastern Conference Finals. I don’t know for sure that Nash would have had produced a Rangers-Kings series, but I like to believe that I know for sure that he would. Instead the Rangers relied on lucky bounces and garbage goals, which they relied on for a lot of their regular season wins that got them the No. 1 seed, but when those bounces stopped finding them, they lost. They needed seven games to knock off the No. 8 Senators and the No. 7 Capitals and then they couldn’t solve a 40-year-old Martin Brodeur, who looked 80 at times, and an offense that had very similar problems. But it probably didn’t matter because I don’t think any team was beating the Kings last spring and summer. Though I’d like to think a team with Henrik Lundqvist in net would have had a better chance.

Up until last year, the Rangers’ game plan was score the first goal and then hope for a shutout. It’s why their postseasons only lasted one round for a few years. Last year things looked like they would start to be different and there was some secondary scoring added around Marian Gaborik. Now the team has Gaborik and Nash and Brad Richards and Ryan Callahan and Carl Hagelin and Chris Kreider and Derek Stepan. There’s no reason the 2010-11 game plan of playing for one goal and if you’re really, really lucky, two goals should still be the plan.

Like I said, I won’t fault Lundqvist for any of the team’s problems through two games (I have to remind myself it’s only been two games) and even though seven goals in two games is a problem, the Rangers have allowed 73 shots in 60 minutes. I’m not sure that’s a recipe for success and I’m not sure going 1-for-9 on the power play is one either.

As for the shot blocking, that’s what everyone always wants to talk about with the Rangers. And while it shows a blue-collar mentality and a lunch pail and hard hat image for New York City, it can do just as much bad for the team as it can good. It seems like most goals Lundqvist allowed last year were a product of blocked shots off Rangers that screened him or deflected. That hasn’t necessarily been the case this year, but letting the Penguins play “Rebound” in front of him isn’t exactly a good idea.

On Saturday, the Rangers lost to a better “team.” I’m not sure the Bruins will be the better team after Game 48 (I just wanted to write that to see how weird it sounded and read coming off the fingers onto the screen), but right now the Bruins are the better “team” with less new faces and more chemistry than the Rangers. The same goes for the Penguins. I’m not sure 96 hours is enough time for the Rangers to get it together since seeing the Bruins, but I would like to think they took the time on Monday and Tuesday to try some line combinations that will last more than one shift.

But I said it: The Bruins are a better team … right now. And that’s without crazy man Tim Thomas in net.

Miccoli: The Bruins are one of a few teams that could actually benefit from a 48-game season. Aside from the obvious Tim Thomas departure (which still bugs me, but I’ll get to that), only Benoit Pouliot, Joe Corvo, Greg Zanon and Brian Rolston have left the team. Five years from now, this will be more forgettable than that time the Bruins had Yan Stastny, Petr Tenkrat and Stanislav Chistov on the roster. The additions to the lineup Chris Bourque, Dougie Hamilton and even a healthy Nathan Horton, give the Bruins an instant upgrade from when we saw them last, leaving the ice after Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals. I can preach about the importance of chemistry (which the Bruins have), the benefits of a positive locker room (this, too) and even the crucial depth needed to win the Stanley Cup (hey, the Bruins have this too!), but I think that’s best saved for their play on the ice.

The Bruins have the opportunity to be a Stanley Cup contender for a long time. They have incredible depth playing in Boston right now and a boatload of prospects who should be NHL-ready as soon as next season. Factor in the development of players like Tyler Seguin, Brad Marchand and Tuukka Rask and you have a wide-open championship window for Boston. That’s exciting, since no other Boston sports team is in a situation quite like the Bruins. Everyone hates the Red Sox, the Celtics are old and too many people are whining about the Patriots. Never in a million years did I think that the Bruins would be the toast of the town. But now they are and they know it, too.

Bruins coach Claude Julien said on Monday that he was aware of the team’s obligation to the city. Andrew Ference is tweeting about how much he loves the city and how the team loves playing in front of the fans every night. Patrice Bergeron even talked about how much of an honor it was to wear the Bruins jersey and play at the TD Garden every night. Call it clichéd, but this team genuinely gets how important hockey is to the city. David Krejci said that the whole team is having a lot of fun out there and it sure looks it, since they’re firing on all cylinders. All of the vibes surrounding this team right now are overwhelmingly positive.

Which brings me to Tim Thomas. I don’t know why Thomas decided to pack up his bags and move to Colorado. I don’t know why Thomas thinks he’s an automatic lock for the U.S. Olympic team in 2014 after, you know, just not playing for a year. I don’t know why Thomas’ sudden affinity for social media fascinates everyone, either (I’m curious if everyone was like this when their parents joined Facebook? I know I was.). What I do know is that without Tim Thomas, the Boston Bruins do not win the Stanley Cup and are not in the same position that they’re in today. Sure, Thomas was a distraction last season with all of the off-the-ice crap and his statistics dipped too. To me, the two share zero correlation. Thomas’ was never going to replicate his 2010-11 season again and while under every single spotlight in Boston, every move he made was criticized. It got sickening fast and I think Thomas started to play it up a little because really, there was nothing else for him to do.

I remember Tim Thomas as being the guy who won a Stanley Cup for the Boston. That’s how I choose to think about it. With that, I’m more than ready for the Tuukka Rask era to begin.

Keefe: Ah, Petr Tenkrat. There’s a name I forgot about for a reason and never expected to hear again. There’s a blast from the past and a name I forgot and didn’t expect to hear ever again. As for Tim Thomas, I hope my friend in Boston, who got a tattoo on his arm of Thomas holding the Cup is thinking about Thomas the same way as you. Otherwise he has a guy with a well-known Facebook page in a Bruins jersey holding the Cup tattooed on his body for life.

I’m happy to see your dream come true of the Bruins being the focal point of Boston once again like it’s the 70s or late 80s or early 90s there. I only wish this had been the case when I was still living in Boston, so there would have been excitement in the city for hockey. Or maybe it would have been nice if Gary Bettman didn’t cancel the season in the year that we lived together just blocks from the then-FleetCenter. Gary Bettman! What a guy!

All of this positive talk about the Bruins makes me wish I could talk the same way about the Rangers. I can feel the excitement and jubilation from you through the computer screen. Instead the Rangers are winless with the Bruins coming to the Garden and looking at Philadelphia twice, Toronto and Pittsburgh for the rest of January. Things need to turn around and they need to turn around starting against your team.

Miccoli: All is not lost … at least not yet. It’s still early and luckily for you, they only hand out the Stanley Cup after the first few games of the season in Toronto. As far as the Bruins and Rangers go, it’s sad to see their season series concluding in just two weeks when the Blueshirts visit the Garden on Feb. 12. But the end for these two teams? Not a chance. I think this is finally the year that the Rangers and Bruins meet in the Eastern Conference playoffs. And if that happens, I can’t possibly think of a better way to expedite years off of my life.

Here’s my quick confession: the New York Rangers are the team to beat in the East, even if they look like a PeeWee youth hockey team playing in their first game after tryouts right now. They just have all of the pieces and once they click, they’ll be a well-oiled machine capable of crushing teams that stand in their way. I don’t think it will be the Pittsburgh Penguins in the hunt alongside the Rangers, but rather the Boston Bruins. Both teams just stand out for me. While I’m sure this would make for an incredible playoff series, I won’t look forward to the Boston vs. New York narrative that both markets will eat up at every possible opportunity, but at least that will mask the four-hour Red Sox-Yankees series that everyone will forget about. But the hockey games, oh, the games will be fun. Late spring, playoff hockey between two of the best teams in the East. Doesn’t get much better, does it? Ahh, hockey!

I guess the Rangers have to win a game first, though, which is good news considering they have the Flyers Thursday night. Ilya Bryzgalov is always good for a pick-me-up.

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Blogs • Rangers

Jan 18, 2013

Ready for Rick Nash and the Rangers

The NHL is finally back this weekend after feeling like it may never come back.

The last time Gary Bettman took hockey away from me I was a freshman in college. I would sit at the Capitol Coffee House at the top of Bowdoin Street, crushing the best bacon, egg and cheese in Boston and stare at the top of the ShawmutFleetCenterTDBanknorthGardenTDGarden and wonder how Bettman could do this to me now that I was living just a half of a mile from where NHL hockey normally took place.

For the first three-plus months of this season, Bettman tried to take hockey away from me again, and nearly succeeded by getting to the doorstep of canceling another full season. And because Bettman enjoys a good lockout the way I enjoy actually watching hockey, I knew entering the holidays that I would need the New York Football Giants to carry me through January to leave only the 28 days of February as the gap between sports I’m passionate about because there was a good chance the 2012-13 NHL season was gone. But the Giants didn’t cooperate and embarrassed themselves in the process, reverting back to their 2009 and 2010 ways and setting the franchise back following a Super Bowl season in a way only the Giants could. The Giants left me searching for a way to get through the cold winter months before spring training (or the period I refer to as the 59 Days Before Baseball) and March Madness and it was either finally start watching Mad Men or Parks and Recreation religiously or hope that something would come from one of the NHL/NHLPA marathon meetings. I chose the latter and put my faith in Bettman, Bill Daly (his sidekick who cares equally as little about the fans) and Donald Fehr (who at times thought he was only in the meetings to later tell the media how much Bettman sucks).

I began doubting the NHL would ever come back and even if it did, would I ever care about it the same way again? After the way it destroyed me in 2004-05, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to go through that pain again knowing that in just a few more years I would likely be in the same spot again as long as Bettman remains commissioner.

I woke up on Jan. 6 to find out the lockout had ended while I was busy sleeping and dreaming of goals like this and moments like this. Looking back I wish I had gone into a celebration combination of Theo Fleury and Teemu Selanne. I thought I would act like either of those two if the lockout ever ended, but I didn’t have much room to roll around or a stick handy to shoot down a glove that I also didn’t have. Instead I just accepted the news like I had known it was going to happen the way John Carpenter did when Regis Philbin told him he won $1 million.

We’re one day away from hockey being back and the Rangers being back for the first time since Memorial Day Weekend. We’re one day away from John Tortorella treating the media like spitters and from Stan Fischler’s postgame questioning deserving of being treated like a spitter. We’re one day away from Brian Boyle getting too much playing time and Marian Gaborik getting unnecessarily benched with the Rangers trailing. We’re one day away from Michael Del Zotto trying to be Bobby Orr on the power play and from Dan Girardi missing the net from the point. We’re one day away from Sam Rosen giving Henrik Lundqvist credit for a save on a shot he didn’t touch and from Joe Micheletti talking about the “quick release” of every player on the ice. We’re one day away from having Hank back in our lives and Rick Nash officially in our lives. We’re one day away from hockey and two weeks ago I didn’t think we would be here.

To set the scene for Saturday’s NHL Opening Day, I thought I would dissect John Tortorella’s interview on Wednesday with Mike Francesa on WFAN. Tortorella and Francesa talked over 20 minutes and usually it takes 20 seconds of talking for Tortorella to say something worthy of analyzing, so there was plenty to go around after 20 minutes.

On the shape the players are in.

“There are some guys you can see that are in really good shape and other guys are trying to find their way and other guys there’s quite a bit of work to do.”

I think by the end of the first period on Saturday we will know which players fit into Tortorella’s three categories. But if not by the end of the first period then certainly during the third period when the fatigue of 60 minutes of hockey will begin to set in and Gaborik’s legs will start to fall to a gear not seen since Mark Recchi left the league two years ago. It won’t take long to find out which players that weren’t playing overseas or in the AHL were still getting their work in and which ones were treating the lockout like Figawi.

On the usage of Henrik Lundqvist in the shortened season.

“I think once of the biggest things we’ve found with Hank is when he starts getting sloppy and we can see when he starts getting sloppy and he’s not practicing the proper way because he’s playing so many games and he’s so tired during the practice days, his game tends to slip.”

Two years ago the Rangers didn’t have a backup goalie for nearly the entire second half of the season so Henrik Lundqvist had to play every game or they wouldn’t have made the playoffs. They made the playoffs on the final day of the season and then were out of the playoffs after five games against the Capitals. It wasn’t because of Lundqvist, it was because they couldn’t score. Lundqvist was still sharp in the series against Washington despite playing in 68 games that year.

Since his rookie season, Lundqvist has played in 53, 70, 72, 70, 73, 68 and 62 games. He has been outstanding for all seven seasons, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he posted his best numbers in 2011-12 (39-18-5, 1.97, .929) in the season he played the least amount of games. I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that he won the Vezina in the same season he played the least amount of games or that the Rangers went to the conference finals in the season he played the least amount of games.

The problem is with only 48 games, it’s going to be hard to get Lundqvist rest. Andy Brickley likes to talk about how “points are a premium” at the end of the year (though someone should tell Brick that all the games are worth the same amount of points) and that’s in a normal year. This year is anything, but normal and that’s why Lundqvist has to play just about every single game. Thanks, Hank. I owe you one.

On getting off to a fast start.

“I think we need to win all 48 games … I want to win every game right away.”

Joe Girardi might think John Tortorella is nuts for trying to win every game, but I think it’s a good plan. The Rangers will play their 48 games in 99 days and in their seven January games they will see face Boston twice, Pittsburgh twice, Philadelphia twice and Toronto once. Those seven games will happen in 12 days, including two sets of back-to-backs. Again, that’s seven games in the first 12 days of the year! This is going to be fun, but it’s also going to be a mess, which leads us to…

On how the game will be impacted by the layoff.

“In the two end zones I think there’s going to be more penalties. I think that’s where the level of conditioning is not there right now.”

Tortorella used the word “sloppy” a few times during the interview to go along with this quote, which to me screams, “Turnovers!” And when you think of sloppy play and turnovers and penalties you think of goals. And when you think of goals you think of overs! I have never bet an over in an NHL game in my life, but that might change as early as Saturday. (Unless Vegas wants to start throwing some 6.5 over/unders out there.)

If Tortorella is right about the excessive penalties then that means power plays. The Rangers’ power play has been their downfall for as long as I can remember. At times it’s comical that any company would want to sponsor a Rangers power play and have their brand and name associated with such a disaster, but I think it’s going to be different this season. Why? Because of this guy…

On the Rangers’ outlook after getting Rick Nash.

“I think a big step for our team this year is to handle the expectations. We make the Nash deal and a lot of people think we take the next step as an organization and rightfully so.”

I’m still excited for Rangers fans not as familiar with Rick Nash to see him play the way I envy anyone about to watch Friday Night Lights or Game of Thrones for the first time. There’s a reason Nash played on the first line for Team Canada at the 2010 Olympics and why I was willing to give up the farm and then some for him last February and why I pleaded with WFAN’s Steve Somers to come around and see things from my perspective. Rick Nash is that good and starting Saturday he will finally have something to play for in a city worth playing for.

On the Rangers’ expectations this season.

“We’re going to play our style. Our team will be ready to play, but a lot of things have to happen right and a number of things happened right last year and it always doesn’t during a year.”

Tortorella just keeps setting me up. My biggest thing with wanting Rick Nash so, so, so, so, so, so badly was that the Rangers are built to win right now. Sure, they are also set up nicely for the future with a young core and defense, but they are really built to win right now. And I mean right now as in last year and now this year and next year. Prior to last season the Rangers hadn’t been out of the first round of the playoffs since 2007-08 and they hadn’t been to the conference finals since 1996-97. Chances like last year don’t come around all the time (unless you’re the Red Wings) and Henrik Lundqvist isn’t going to be in his prime forever. How many years are the Rangers willing to sacrifice of Lundqvist’s prime before going all in? Thankfully, the answer is now zero because of the deal for Nash.

Tortorella’s most telling line in the whole interview was that “it always doesn’t during a year” when it comes to things happening right. The Rangers won a lot of one-goal games and had a lot of bounces go their way in the regular season (I mean a lot of bounces) and things only got even better for them in the postseason, winning two Game 7s and overcoming multiple-goal deficits and completing last-second comebacks. Those breaks aren’t always going to go your way, so let’s just hope the Nash move didn’t come one season to late.

On the media picking the Rangers as a contender.

“I don’t care what people are picking. I’m not one of those guys to get involved in that. We’re going to go about it one day at a time and we’ll see where we land as we go through this.”

Ah, there’s the John Tortorella we know. Now if only Larry Brooks had asked him this question maybe I would have had the opportunity to write “(expletive)” when transcribing.

On if the Rangers can win the Stanley Cup.

“Before you can win, you need to believe that you are going to win.”

Two years ago when the Rangers were hoping to beat the Capitals in the quarterfinals without scoring a goal you could just sense that the team knew that if Lundqvist didn’t post a shutout then they were most likely not going to win. And if Lundqvist gave up one goal then they definitely weren’t going to win. But last postseason you saw a team that took the ice believing it could win and believing it could win even without scoring the first goal of the game.

A lot has changed for the Rangers since the Capitals silenced the Bruce Boudreau chants at MSG and embarrassed a fan base. After that series it felt like Henrik Lundqvist would one day raise his number 30 to the Garden rafters without a Cup to his name like Don Mattingly putting his number 23 in Monument Park without a World Series. It doesn’t feel like that anymore.

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Blogs • Yankees

Aug 2, 2012

Rick Nash Really a Ranger and Other Thoughts

Thoughts on the reality of Rick Nash becoming a Ranger, something Ivan Nova and Carl Pavano have in common and the false hype and hope of the MLB Trade Deadline.

Last February I wanted Rick Nash on the Rangers in the worst way. I thought the Rangers had to give up whatever it took to get Nash, even if that meant Chris Kreider, and I campaigned hard for Glen Sather to get it done.

Sather tried to get it done by supposedly offering Brandon Dubinsky, Tim Erixon, J.T. Miller, Christian Thomas and a first-round pick for Nash. It was a deal the hockey world collectively agreed was a great return for the Blue Jackets, but Scott Howson turned it down and then denied it was ever offered. Howson missed the trade deadline and it looked like he would have leverage in the offseason with more teams in the mix, and could possibly get even more from the Rangers for Nash if they didn’t win or reach the Cup. But then Howson outed Nash by saying he asked to be traded, compromising his leverage and forcing him to have to move his franchise player in the offseason no matter what. So Howson accepted the Rangers’ offseason offer on July 23 of Brandon Dubinsky, Artem Anisimov, Tim Erixon and a first-round pick, which was significantly lower than the original reported offer. The Blue Jackets never intended on keeping Rick Nash because they couldn’t keep Rick Nash. They had “tried” to build their team around him, but never gave him adequate pieces to play with. (Question: How does Scott Howson still have a job?)

I thought the Rangers had to have Rick Nash at the trade deadline because they lacked premium and consistent scoring for the postseason and with a young defense, it was going to come down to Henrik Lundqvist every game again … and it did. Once the crazy bounces stopped going the Rangers’ way, and the shots from the corner stopped deflecting off defenseman’s skates and going in, and they stopped scoring in the final seconds … the Devils beat them.

A lot of people opposed trading for Nash at the deadline because of his contract, the years on his contract, his salary and the cap hit. Others cited the Rangers being “two games away from the Cup” with the team they have as a reason to not trade for Nash. But when you think about them being down 3-2 to the eighth-seeded Senators and needing to win back-to-back elimination games, being forced to a Game 7 against the seventh-seeded Capitals (and they needed to win in triple overtime in Game 3 and a goal with 6.6 seconds left in Game 5 before another overtime win) and then losing to the rival Devils, a 6 seed, in six games, it didn’t feel like they were just two games from the Cup. The only time the Rangers won back-to-back games in the postseason was in Games 6 and 7 of the first round. Technically they were two games away from the Cup, but really they weren’t that close.

I hadn’t written about the Nash trade yet, partly because of the Yankees and partly because it still hadn’t really set in that Rick Nash is a Ranger. When was the last time I had really, really wanted a New York team to get Player X and it worked out? It certainly didn’t work out with Cliff Lee and still hasn’t. But last week the Nash trade became a reality when I walked by the NHL store on 6th Avenue and saw his No. 61 jersey displayed in the front window. Then this week at Yankee Stadium I saw several people wearing Nash shirts for Yankees-Orioles and it really started to set in.

With Nash officially a Ranger I wanted to look at the three main reasons I kept hearing as cons to trading for him aside from his contract.

1. Don’t Give Up Chris Kreider
I was ready to give up Kreider in February when no one else was (except for WFAN’s Brian Monzo). Kreider played well for three years at Boston College, but he also didn’t put up better numbers than a lot of other BC and Hockey East players that ended up becoming average NHL players. The jump Kreider made from the NCAA ranks to the NHL playoffs was impressive, scoring five goals and two assists in 18 games in three tight series, and he showed a glimpse of what Rangers fans can expect in the future. But Kreider was also picked 19th overall in the 2009 first round and was the 28th of 30 players from that first round to appear in an NHL game, so it made me skeptical as to why the rest of his class had already been in the league and he kept returning to BC.

Would I have traded Kreider this offseason for Nash after having seen him in the playoffs? Probably not. But it’s not because I think he’s a guarantee to become the type of player or offensive presence that Rick Nash is, but it’s because I didn’t think the Rangers would have to give him up to get Nash. When Howson didn’t trade for Nash at the deadline and then said Nash wanted out, you knew Howson wasn’t going to get what he wanted anymore. I thought the Blue Jackets would get more than they ended up getting (I thought it would take Derek Stepan or Carl Hagelin), but I didn’t think they would get Kreider and they didn’t, so all Rangers fans got what they wanted.

2. Nash Can’t Win Because He Hasn’t Won
A lot of uninformed or unintelligent fans cited Nash’s four playoff games in nine seasons as a reason to not trade for him. Because it’s his fault the Blue Jackets reached the postseason once, and not the poor supporting cast or defense and goaltending situations. And let’s forget that he’s a first-liner on Team Canada with Sidney Crosby. Yeah…

3. His Offensive Numbers Aren’t That Good
Nash’s worst goal-scoring season came in his rookie season in 2002-03 when he scored 17 as an 18-year old. The sad thing is that was his worst offensive season and those 17 goals would have tied him for fourth on the Ranges last season with Stepan for goals on the team. Stepan was 21 to start last season. Since his rookie year, Nash has put up 41, 31, 27, 38, 40, 33, 32 and 30 goals. In that time, the wing’s best centers have been R.J. Umberger, Antoine Vermette and a 36-year-old Sergei Fedorov. That’s real life.

I haven’t been this excited about a New York trade in a long time. I’m excited for the Rick Nash era in New York because he’s Rick Nash and because he’s been one of my favorite players in the league since his rookie season. I’m more excited for the people that only know his name and not his level of play to find out just how good he is.

***

The worst Yankees start I have seen in person at Yankee Stadium came on May 28, 2005 when Carl Pavano and the Yankees lost to the Red Sox 17-1. Here’s Pavano’s line from that day: 3.2 IP, 11 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 2 K. (Tony Womack hit second, John Flaherty hit eighth and Robinson Cano hit ninth so it was a weird day.) It was actually the last time I would see Pavano pitch in person until Opening Day 2007 (since he would soon be out for the rest of 2005 and then all of 2006) when he got the start by default and injuries (ironic). That was a bad day in the Bronx, but Tuesday night against the Orioles might have been worse.

When the Yankees went up 5-0 in the first, I was laughing with my friend and his brother about how we might be able to go to the Yankee Tavern in the third inning if the Yankees kept it up. We didn’t know the Orioles were going to answer with seven two-out runs in the top of the second, including a Chris Davis grand slam.

When the Orioles made it 5-3 with the bases loaded and Davis coming up, we joked that he was going to his a grand slam. I jokingly predicted it was going to go where the Yankees’ bullpen meets the auxiliary scoreboard. Then when he crushed an 0-1 pitch that just kept carrying and carrying and eventually hit the top of the wall in left-center and bounced over, we weren’t joking anymore.

I’m not sure if Nova is going to get a postseason start with CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte at the front of the rotation, Hiroki Kuroda having a great year and Phil Hughes pitching well. If Nova wants to be in the conversation and avoid being the Javier Vazquez of 2010 and the A.J. Burnett of 2011 when it comes to the rotation, he needs to start pitching the way he did in June (5 GS, 3-0, 1.26 ERA).

***

I spent an unnecessary amount of time over the last month going to MLB Trade Rumors, reading what Buster Olney and Jon Heyman wrote and clicking any headline or link that teased some sort of rumor. I even forced myself into following Ken Rosenthal for the last few hours of the deadline (don’t worry I unfollowed him at 4:01 p.m.). That’s how enticing and addicting the MLB Trade Deadline can be.

I don’t remember every deadline or every move at every deadline, but this had to be in the Top 3 worst trade deadlines ever. The hype of Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee, Justin Upton, Matt Garza, James Shields, Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and Jacoby Ellsbury led to nothing happening. I blame Bud Selig because he’s the one to blame. With the one-game playoff, there are currently eight teams with a chance at a wild card in the AL and there are five with a chance in the NL. Teams in the AL didn’t know if they should be buyers or sellers or if it was worth giving up pieces of the future for a chance to play one game and then face the Yankees or Rangers in the ALDS.

During the final hour of the deadline the Yankees made a push for Ryan Dempster because the Cubs were running out of time and it was going to cost the Yankees nothing. I didn’t want Ryan Dempster unless it cost them nothing and even then I didn’t want Ryan Dempster because I didn’t think his success would translate in the AL East or in the AL playoffs. However, by the end of the 3:00 hour I wanted the Yankees to get him just because it had dragged on and it felt like they had to do something at that point even if they didn’t need to and even if it didn’t make sense to.

I thought the Yankees needed to add a starting pitcher and I still do, but it shouldn’t have been Ryan Dempster and I’m glad it wasn’t. The guy I wanted the Yankees to get is the guy I wanted them to get in December 2010 and now he might be available again and Texas better not get him.

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Blogs

Jun 21, 2012

Henrik Lundqvist Has Been Validated and Other Thoughts

Thoughts on Henrik Lundqvist finally getting the recognition and credit he deserves and the glorious disaster that is the 2012 Red Sox.

There were 204 names called before Henrik Lundqvist’s in the 2000 NHL Draft. The Rangers took an 18-year-old Lundqvist in the seventh round with the 205th of the 293 total picks in the draft.

Here are the goalies selected before Lundqvist with the round they were selected in, their overall pick number and the amount of NHL games they played in parentheses.

1/1. New York Islanders – Rick DiPietro (315)

1/9. Calgary – Brent Krahn (1)

2/44. Anaheim – Ilya Bryzgalov (385)

2/45. Ottawa – Matthieu Chouinard (1)

2/60. Dallas – Dan Ellis (165)

3/70. Toronto – Mikael Tellqvist (114)

3/84. Pittsburgh -Peter Hamerlik (0)

3/90. Toronto – Jean-Francois Racine (0)

4/102. Detroit – Stefan Liv (0)

4/111. Buffalo – Ghyslain Rousseau (0)

4/116. Calgary – Levente Szuper (0)

4/120. Florida – Davis Parley (0)

5/143. New York Rangers – Brandon Snee (0)

5/164. New Jersey – Matus Kostur (0)

5/165.  Los Angeles – Nathan Marsters (0)

5/166. San Jose – Nolan Schaefer (7)

6/168. Atlanta – Zdenek Smid (0)

6/169. Columbus – Shane Bendera (0)

6/177. Chicago – Mike Ayers (0)

7/203. Nashville – Jure Penko (0)

The amazing thing about this list isn’t that Lundqvist was the 21st goalie selected in his class or that 15 of the goalies picked before him played either one or no games in the NHL. The amazing thing is that the Rangers picked a goalie before Lundqvist in the draft with Brandon Snee at the 143rd pick. Snee had just finished his sophomore season at Union College where he was 8-22-1 with a 3.82 GAA and .892 save percentage after a freshman season in which he went 1-12-3 with a 3.50 GAA and .892 save percentage (and he’s 22 months older than Lundqvist.) Snee ended up playing 12 games in the UHL, 13 games in the ECHL and 12 in the WHA2.

There really isn’t a silver lining to a season that ends two wins short of a trip to the Stanley Cup Final at the hands of your rival in overtime, but I really do think watching Lundqvist win the Vezina on Wednesday night is one for Rangers fans.

I have been telling non-Rangers fans who don’t get to see Lundqvist on a regular basis how talented he is since the 2005-06 season, and it wasn’t really until this season and this postseason that he started to get the recognition and credit he has deserved for seven years. Even though Lundqvist had a better GAA this season (1.97) than last season (2.28) and a better save percentage this season (.929) than last season (.923), I think his performance over 68 games last year was better than his performance in 62 games this year. Yes, the Rangers were the best team in the Eastern Conference in 2011-12 because of him, but he kept the Rangers alive until Game 82 in 2010-11 playing every game from Feb. 7 through the playoffs, and posting three more shutouts (11) than he did this year (8).

Unintelligent people would use Lundqvist’s postseason record entering this spring and his postseason overtime record as a flaw in his abilities. They would cite the Rangers’ three first-round exits and two second-round exits with him as a reason for him to be just “hype.” No one cared to mention his surrounding cast, the Rangers’ lack of scoring during his career or the team’s young and inexperienced defense. On Wednesday night it felt like all of these misconceptions were finally erased.

Lundqvist thanked his teammates and said he wouldn’t be standing up there accepting the award without them. He thanked the entire Rangers organization and even Mr. Dolan for the last seven years. But really it would have made more sense to the have the rest of the Rangers, the front office and Mr. Dolan on the stage thanking Lundqvist because without him they wouldn’t be relevant again.

***

After what happened to the Red Sox in September I didn’t think things could get better as a Yankees fan. And by “better” I mean watching my arch-nemesis continue to be an embarrassment.

First it was Buster Olney reporting that the clubhouse was toxic on ESPN.com and now it’s Sean McAdam of CSNNE.com saying the same thing. Olney’s report was refuted by Josh Beckett, and I’m sure that McAdam’s will be too.

Beckett said Olney’s report is “completely fabricated” and said he doesn’t know where people get their information, and that the 2012 Red Sox are “one of the tightest-knit groups” he’s ever seen. But Beckett can tell me about the team’s family outings together like he told reporters on Tuesday, and he can even show me pictures of his family and the Valentines and the Lesters and the Pedroias on a joint vacation to Disney World if he wants, and I still won’t believe him. There’s a reason everyone is talking about the Red Sox’ internal problems and that’s because they exist. And I love every second of it.

When the Red Sox blew Game 162 and missed the playoffs for the second straight year, and Terry Francona and Theo Epstein left, and Larry Lucchino tightened his marionette strings on John Henry and Ben Cherington to bring in Bobby Valentine, I hoped the recipe for disaster that the Red Sox front office was creating would turn out to be just that. But I never thought it would be this much of a disaster.

We’re 42 percent of the way through the season and the Red Sox are two games over .500 and six games back of the Yankees. Most Red Sox fans have chalked this season up as lost and are counting down the days until the Patriots’ season opener. Those who haven’t given up are holding out hope for the Red Sox to appear in the one-game playoff and are citing the return of the Carl Crawford as a positive sign. The same Carl Crawford who posted a .255/.289/.405 line last year and apologized to fans midseason in his personal blog on ESPNBoston.com.

Aside from the clubhouse issues, Daniel Nava has the second-best OPS on the team, and Scott Podsednik is getting starts, while Jason Repko, Che-Hsuan Lin, Nate Spears and Mauro Gomez have all made appearances. Beckett is injured again, Jon Lester hasn’t been close to the pitcher that Dennis Eckersley has picked to win the Cy Young every year since 2008, Clay Buchholz has five quality starts in 14 games and Daisuke Matsuzaka doesn’t look like the best No. 5 starter in the history of baseball like NESN proclaimed he was last year. The best Red Sox starting pitcher has been Felix Doubront (8-3, 4.31) and one of their original rotation members, Daniel Bard, is blowing two-run save opportunities in Triple-A as he tries to transition back to the bullpen.

I never thought things could get this good for me and this bad for the Red Sox even when anonymous sources were snitching on the Red Sox’ chicken and beer problems and John Henry was making a public fool of himself on afternoon drive radio in Boston. I realize that all good things must come to an end at some point, but I hope this good thing can last the rest of the season.

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • NHL

Jun 13, 2012

The NHL Season That Was

With the NHL season in the books it only seemed right to look back at what was learned over the last eight-plus months in an email exchange with Mike Hurley.

The 2011-12 NHL season lasted 249 days starting with the Bruins-Flyers game on Oct. 6 and ending with the Kings’ Game 6 win over the Devils on June 11. With the season in the books it only seemed right to look back at what was learned over the last eight-plus months in an email exchange with good friend and also enemy Mike Hurley.

Keefe: The NHL Season started on Oct. 6. How do I know that? Well it was the night before the Yankees lost to the Tigers in Game 5 of the ALDS at the Stadium. Do you know long ago that was?!?! Forever ago. The NHL goes on and on and on and then when it ends, it starts up again just a couple months later, and I guess that’s why I love it so much. From the time the Bruins won the Cup a year ago until now, it’s felt like one long season. And when you consider that your Bruins were eliminated from the playoffs 59 days ago and the playoffs just ended on Monday it’s pretty insane.

We thought (along with just about everyone else) that the Rangers and Bruins would meet in the Eastern Conference Finals, but that idea didn’t exactly go according to plan. In the end it was the eighth-seeded Kings beating the sixth-seeded Devils in the Stanley Cup Final, which makes me asks whether or not the current NHL playoff format is the best possible format? I’m not saying this because the Rangers didn’t get by the Devils, but because it seems like there should be more incentive to win the conference. In 2012 with cookie-cutter rinks and luxurious travel for teams, home-ice advantage has become nonexistent.

Two years ago I proposed the idea that 10 teams in each conference make the playoffs with the bottom four teams (seeds 7, 8, 9 and 10) playing a three-game series (7 vs. 10 and 8 vs. 9) on consecutive days during the off days between the regular season and the start of the playoffs. All three games would be at the higher seed’s arena, and the two winners would become the seventh and eighth seeds in the playoffs.

I know it might be a little much and closer to the baseball postseason format, which we both hate, but I don’t think you can have byes in the NHL, and this is the closest thing to giving the top two seeds an advantage, while making the rest of the teams play to stay out of the three-game series.

Hurley: As someone who gets nauseous any time someone mentions the new baseball postseason format, I’m not sure I can fully endorse your plan. I do agree though that the NHL season and postseason shake out isn’t entirely fair and doesn’t make too much sense.

Basically, this year you had the Kings go 40-27-15, though they entered March at 29-23-12, which gave them a .453 winning percentage. I don’t know how you judge teams, but to me, that’s not very good.

Then you had the Devils, who went 48-28-6. That’s not all that bad, but their season ended with six straight wins.

I don’t bring these records up to take anything away from the Kings or Devils, but I do think it illustrates how meaningless the 82-game regular season is in the NHL.

The problem with your solution is that you’re adding two teams to an already-diluted playoff field. Yes, the eighth-seeded Kings won this year, but would you really have wanted to add Calgary, Dallas, Buffalo and Tampa to this year’s playoff field? And do you want 66 percent of teams making the postseason? That only goes to make the regular season even more useless.

I disagree with you when you say that you can’t have byes in hockey. After that marathon regular season, teams that are beaten and bruised need nothing more than a little rest to get just a little bit stronger for that postseason push, which can last the better part of three months. Just look at the Kings this postseason: They had five days off after winning their first-round series, six days off after sweeping the second round and seven days off after eliminating the Coyotes in five games. Clearly, there was no rust factor at play there, as the team was able to stay healthy and open up 3-0 leads in every single series it played, which is an absurdly ridiculous accomplishment.

Now, would the Kings have been able to do the same if they had to toil through a first-round series before facing a well-rested, top-seeded Canucks team? Maybe, but at least the Canucks would have earned some advantage for winning 51 games from October through April.

One thing that DEFINITELY needs to be changed is the whole “winning your division automatically gets you in the top three spots in the conference” fiasco. That’s absurd. The Bruins were the No. 2 seed in the East this year but should have been fourth. The Panthers were the No. 3 seed but should have been sixth. The divisions in hockey aren’t distinct enough to warrant such a major impact on playoff seeding (though the NHL has its hands full with that atrocious realignment plan, so perhaps this issue can be cleared up when the league makes another attempt this summer).

Keefe: OK, you have talked me out of the more teams and three-game series and into the byes. Maybe you should have been a salesman. I also agree on the ridiculous seeding with division winners, which is just as ridiculous as what baseball is doing with letting division winners with worse records than wild-card teams get into the ALDS without any problem. I forgot that I’m not supposed to mention the new MLB postseason format around you.

We have had our fair share of talks about the Patriots and how what they did between 2001 and 2004 will most likely never be seen again. To win week after week in the postseason and essentially one-game playoff after one-game playoff along with three Super Bowls in four years is something that is close to impossible in sports. Look at the Giants. They won two times in four years, which seems unfathomable, and I can think of hundreds of plays and decisions that had even one of them gone the other way they would have never won the Super Bowl, let alone made the Super Bowl, let alone made the playoffs! But I’m sure that’s a topic that makes you more nauseous than the MLB postseason format.

You brought up some good points about the chances of repeating in the NHL in past discussions and how the combination of a lengthy season mixed with a summer of partying as champions and having less of an offseason, plus the fatigue factor and every team wanting to beat the defending champions for 82 straight games takes a toll on a team. The Bruins and Canucks finished last season on June 15, even later than the end of this season, and then both went out in the first round to a 7-seed and an 8-seed respectively. Sure, the Capitals and the Kings might have just been better teams or better during that one series, but then you look at the 2010-11 Blackhawks and they barely made the playoffs before going out in the first round. The 2009-10 Penguins, who many thought would go back to the Cup for a third straight year, were bounced in the second round by the inferior and eighth-seeded Canadiens. I guess the back-to-back years of the Penguins and Red Wings in the Stanley Cup Final in 2007-08 and 2008-09 are the exception to the rule, but still there hasn’t been a repeat for the title since the Red Wings in 96-97 and 97-98, and those teams were stupid. I mean they went 32-10 in the playoffs in those two years, including 8-0 against the Flyers and Capitals for the Cup.

So should we pencil in any team other than the Kings for the Cup in 2012-13? Does this mean the MSG Network won’t have to keep making series and commercials and documentaries about the Summer of ’94?

Hurley: Some day, perhaps we’ll have a discussion where you don’t mention the Giants winning Super Bowls. Alas, that day is not today.

I did like that you told me I’ve brought up some good points. That is probably the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, so I feel it’s best that I repay you with something nice. So, um, I guess I can say that when I see your face, I don’t want to punch it ALL the time, just most of the time. That’s nice, right?

I really believe that in this salary cap era, it will be nearly impossible for a team to repeat. I know the Penguins and Red Wings both made it back in two straight years, but the variables there were having the two best players in the world on one team and having the deepest, smartest roster on the other. That’s just rare. And the long injury problems that have followed Sidney Crosby since then only go to further my belief.

I probably feel that way after watching the Bruins closely in their post-Cup run. There were the obvious parties and $150,000 bar tabs and the endless sightings of Brad Marchand wearing no shirt and Tyler Seguin wearing his pants far too low, but I don’t think those were the problems that prevented the Bruins from getting back to the top. For one, there was the massive dropoff in intensity from their 25 playoff games to the first month of the regular season, when they went 3-7-0. And it’s really hard to quantify, but you really saw a lot of lesser teams around the league “get up” for their home game against the Bruins. I’m fairly positive that a half-dozen people became deaf in Winnipeg on Feb. 17, when the Jets beat the Bruins 4-2, and I’m equally as sure that there were riots on the streets of St. Paul when the Wild shut out the Bruins two days later.

Once the playoffs rolled around, the Bruins didn’t have Nathan Horton to score the crucial goals they needed, and an above-average Tim Thomas wasn’t nearly as good as the absolutely phenomenal Tim Thomas who showed up the previous spring.

And even with Horton and Thomas, the Bruins still needed a lucky bounce off a diving Canadien to win Game 7 of the opening round last year. If that puck doesn’t go in, and Montreal ends up scoring in that overtime, then I’m not sitting here talking about the Boston Bruins because nobody would care about the team that can’t get out of the first round.

The point is, it’s so ridiculously difficult to win one Cup in today’s NHL. It’s doubly impossible to do it two years in a row.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go punch a few walls because you mentioned the new MLB playoff format around me.

Keefe: I wasn’t going to talk about it because I feel like it might be a sensitive topic for you, but since you mentioned Tim Thomas, let’s talk about him. Or let’s try to at least answer the question: What is Tim Thomas doing?

It’s June 13. In two days it will be one year since the Bruins won the Stanley Cup. When the Bruins won the Stanley Cup, Tim Thomas was a hero in Boston. I don’t want to say that he would ever sustain being in the class that Tom Brady and David Ortiz are in, but he was right there, and he was at least in that class for a little while. He became so big that my friend Derek from Boston got a tattoo of Thomas holding the Cup on his arm, and no one thought it was weird.

Let’s look at what happened over the last year…

Thomas morphed into the first face of the Bruins since Joe Thornton left town, and he gave the blue-collar fans a blue-collar hero who didn’t become a starting goalie in the league until he was 36. This is the same guy that was stuck on the depth chart behind Andrew Raycroft, John Grahame and Steve Shields at different points in his NHL career. Even after becoming the starter, the Bruins signed Manny Fernandez to be the starter over Thomas in 2007-08.

But then Thomas decided to not go to The White House with his teammates to celebrate their championship with President Obama. It’s not like Thomas was a fourth-liner or someone who was a healthy scratch on and off during the playoff run … he was the sole reason the team was at The White House and he didn’t show up. Then he decided to not talk to the media when he didn’t feel like it, started being a distraction to the team and his teammates because of his Facebook page, his play slipped, and it all came together when he spoke oddly about the team following their Game 7 playoff loss to the Capitals. And then out of nowhere he decided he wasn’t going to play in 2012-13 despite being under contract in an attempt to play for Team USA in the 2014 Winter Olympics even though he was the backup goalie in 2010 and even though Jonathan Quick (the third goalie in 2010) and Ryan Miller (the starter in 2010) will play over him. Did I leave anything out?

After writing all that, it seems crazy that a year ago Thomas could have had opening containers of alcohol in Faneuil Hall while wearing no clothes and urinating on a sausage and peppers cart, and nothing would have happened to him. Now he’s just this weird guy who won the team their first Stanley Cup since 1972.

What the eff happened?

Hurley: We could probably spill a few thousand words on Thomas alone, so I’ll try to be succinct. Essentially, goalies are always the weirdest guys on the team, but in a position full of weirdos, Thomas stands out as one of the weirdest.

But I’m not even sure this is about Thomas being weird. I think it’s about him having leverage. Peter Chiarelli clearly didn’t read the CBA before signing Thomas to that four-year, $20 million contract, otherwise he’d have known that the team would absorb that $5 million cap hit whether Thomas played, quit, or moved to Italy to become a butcher. Thomas’ agent, knowing that the no-trade clause expires on July 1, pulled the only bit of leverage he and his client had — they made Thomas untradeable. Or at least, they made themselves a necessary part of any potential trade talks. Thomas knows the Bruins would be happy to trade him (and his cap hit) and let Tuukka Rask start 60-65 games next season, and by declaring he won’t play next year, it requires that any interested team would have to talk to him before acquiring him. If it’s, say, Columbus and he doesn’t want to play there, he’ll likely just tell the Columbus brass that he doesn’t plan on playing next season. If it’s, say, Colorado, and that idea excites him, then he’ll go for it.

I think that’s the business side of it. Maybe I’m a bad person for not taking Thomas’ “Friends, Family and Faith” thing at face value, but given his aspirations to play for Team USA, and his inclusion of sponsor links in his “heartfelt message” that he posted on Facebook, I think you’re a fool to not be skeptical.

Now, the part about his fall from grace is truly fascinating. The guy never had the personality to be someone like Ortiz, and he lacked the youthful greatness of Brady during the Super Bowl days, but he had unquestionably the most remarkable story of any athlete we’ve ever seen. He was the 217th pick in 1994, picked behind goalies named Henrik Smangs, Vitali Yeremeyev, Luciano Caravaggio and Evgeni Ryabchikov. When he finally made it as a full timer in the NHL more than a decade later, most of us laughed at the thought of him as a starter. He was too erratic, too wild and too out-of-control to last in the best league in the world. And he kept proving us all wrong, kept improving his numbers every single year and ultimately turned in one of the best postseason performances of any goalie ever.

Now? He’s burned more bridges that anyone thought possible, and to just about everybody around the team, he’s as good as gone. And it all happened in less than one calendar year. Truly unbelievable.

Keefe: Tim Thomas wasn’t the only guy associated with the 2011-12 season that became a focal point in every media session. We had one of those in New York in John Tortorella.

Tortorella has had this cocky attitude and swagger about himself since showing up to New York for Tom Renney in the middle of the 2008-09 season, and while the Rangers could have used a coaching change back then, it wasn’t really necessary. After Renney had returned the team to respectability (after Glen Sather spent a decade erasing any and all of that respectability) by returning to the playoffs in 2005-06 and reaching the second round in 2006-07 and 2007-08. Then with some inconsistent play in ’08-09, he was gone. Maybe the team needed a new voice and a shakeup like we saw with the ‘08-09 Penguins and Dan Bylsma or this year’s King with Darryl Sutter, but it seemed like a quick hook. If this season’s Rangers team wasn’t good enough to win the Cup (or even reach it), thinking that the 2008-09 was good enough to do so and needed a coaching change to do so is just crazy.

But Tortorella’s attitude since coming here has been “I won in 2003-04 and no one in New York has won since 1993-94.” He has carried himself this way with the media every chance he could get, and I decided that he had to take this team to the conference finals for him to finally win me over, and for him to stop banking on his success with the Lightning as a way to carry himself. He did just that and now I’m a card-carrying member of the John Tortorella Fan Club whether or not I really want to be.

As an outsider, and a fellow native of Massachusetts like Tortorella, how is he viewed from your perspective? For me, I have no choice, but to like him after he held up his end of the bargain that I created and he never knew about, and because not liking John Tortorella around here is like not liking Nick Swisher.

Hurley: I think he’s an A-hole. Should I go on?

I don’t care if a guy doesn’t say much when he talks to the media. Really, I don’t at all. Athletes/coaches/whoever not talking to the media becomes such an overblown story line these days, and honestly I could care less because they all spit the same clichés and talk for five minutes without saying anything.

What does bother me is his tough guy attitude with the media and his intimidation. You’re not a tough guy. You’re a hockey coach. You wear a suit to work. Stop trying to act like you’re a professional wrestler.

And what’s bothered me is that he’s imposed his style on that team so much in a “my way or the highway” kind of way, and I’ve never been convinced he has enough cachet for that to be justified. Yeah, he won the Stanley Cup, but that was with Marty St. Louis and Vincent Lecavalier in their primes, Brad Richards emerging as a star and the NHL screwing the Flames out of winning the whole damn thing in Game 6 when Marty Gelinas and the Flames were robbed of the Cup-winning goal.

I’m not completely anti-Massachusetts coaches, though. Give me Peter Laviolette any day of the week.

Keefe: We rarely agree on anything, but the one thing we can agree on is the inconsistent job done by Brendan Shanahan throughout the season.

Shanahan started out so strong and promising by throwing the book at everyone who even attempted a borderline illegal hit, elbow or headshot. But as the season went on and owners and general managers had their way, the suspensions and punishments lessened and became more sporadic. Then it all came to a boiling point in the playoffs when Shanahan decided to dust off Colin Campbell’s dartboard and remake his cootie catcher out of some construction paper. Starting in the quarterfinals and going through the conference finals, Shanahan made a series of questionable decisions based on whether or not a player was injured from the incident.

It’s hard to find anyone over the last few seasons that has written more words about illegal and borderline illegal hits in the league than you. For someone who didn’t want Colin Campbell to be the judge for the NHL any longer and was initially excited about the job Shanahan was doing, what is your evaluation of Shanahan after one year?

Hurley: I’ve always felt my calling in life was to work at the league office in Toronto, sit in front of 12 TV screens with a dozen glazed donuts and an extra-large coffee and watch hockey games. When refs had trouble determining whether a puck crossed a line or not, or whether it was kicked in, they’d call me. I’d answer the phone and say, “Hey, Billy. Yah, dat’s a goal.” (I’d talk like a Canadian out of respect for the game.) Other times I’d say, “Ay Jahnny. How’re da wife and kids? Good. Well ahh yah! No goal. See ya, Jahnny.”

(Excuse me while I weep for a moment while realizing I’ll never get that job. … … … OK. I’ve regrouped.)

But now I think maybe my real calling in life is to determine suspensions in the NHL. I was all aboard the Shanahan Express in the preseason, when he was just banishing guys with reckless abandon and created the nickname “Shanahammer” for himself. Some of the punishments were overboard, but I always contested during the Colin Campbell era that it made ZERO sense to err on the side of NOT suspending someone. I’d much rather see an overly harsh punishment than no punishment at all. I look at Matt Cooke ending Marc Savard’s career and getting nothing for it, and I look at Zdeno Chara going out of his way to deliver a late shot on Max Pacioretty, and I don’t understand how neither player received so much as a slap on the wrist. If we were living in the Roman Empire and we enjoyed going to the Coliseum to watch beasts and men alike be slayed before our eyes, then fine, but in modern society, violent actions that break rules need to be punished. So Shanahan was doing a good job.

But as you mentioned, the owners didn’t like their players missing for long periods of time, and the Shanahammer became more like Shanapansy. He was too afraid to suspend players. He did what he was told. He was just more of the same.

In the playoffs, I don’t think any of his suspensions were too awful (I know you hated the Carl Hagelin suspension, but while it was a little lengthy, a suspension was warranted), but he was still too scared to suspend star players (with the exception of Nicklas Backstrom and Claude Giroux).

I was actually thinking of Shanahan the other night when Gary Bettman was on the ice to present the Conn Smythe and the Cup and there weren’t enough L.A. fans who follow hockey closely enough to know that they were supposed to be booing Bettman. He had that patented Bettman smugness painted on his face, and I was thinking about how much he enjoyed Shanahan serving as the punching bag of NHL fans all year long. I feel Shanahan was duped into the job, was told he could truly be the sheriff of the NHL, only to be neutered once the real season began.

Bottom line: Shanahan is a tremendous improvement over Campbell, but until the league actually gets serious about player safety rather than mostly just paying lip service to it, then we’ll always have problems with the decisions made after hits that can easily be wiped out of the game.

(My favorite anecdote about the lack of seriousness regarding player safety is that the Bruins’ team doctor has stated publicly multiple times that it can’t be medically proven that Marc Savard’s concussion suffered on the Cooke hit had anything to do with his concussion the following year that came in a routine collision with Matt Hunwick, who weighs 135 pounds soaking wet. A real life, team-employed doctor told reporters this information as fact, with a straight face. Just a coincidence then, eh, doc?)

Keefe: I thought about ending this conversation with some points about your 2012 Boston Red Sox, but I figured everything has been going pretty well, so why make you cry again? I don’t think there’s anything I can say that will make any Red Sox feel worse about watching their team in 2012 than they already do. We’ll have plenty of time to talk Yankees-Red Sox when the two teams meet at Fenway the first weekend in July. Maybe I will even think about going to a game with you since the tickets should be down to about $2.50 then. (Don’t tell Red Sox Executive Vice President and COO Sam Kennedy I said that.)

Hurley: The Red Sox do not make me cry. They make me laugh. They have a bazillion dollar payroll but they’re making decisions like keeping Scott Podsednik and Daniel Nava over Marlon Byrd. Tickets at $2.50 are actually considered a little pricey now. We could probably get some for $1.25 by July. I’ll go to the game with you, just as long as we sit at least 20 rows apart so I don’t have to look at your stupid face or hear the stupid things that come out of your stupid mouth. Deal.

 

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