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Tag: Patrice Bergeron

Podcasts • Team USA

Feb 14, 2014

Podcast: Mike Miccoli

Mike Miccoli of The Hockey Writers and New England Hockey Journal joins me to talk about Team USA’s dominant win over Slovakia and rooting for players in the Olympics you don’t usually root for.

It was a little nerve-racking to see Team USA tied 0-0 with Slovakia through the first 14:27 of the game on Thursday and it was even more nerve-racking when Slovakia scored to start the second period and tie the game at 1. But after thinking we might be in for a repeat of the 2006 Turin Olympics, Team USA scored six goals in the second period and started off the 2014 Olympics in the best possible way.

Mike Miccoli of The Hockey Writers and New England Hockey Journal joined me to talk about Team USA’s dominant win over Slovakia, rooting for players in the Olympics you don’t usually root for and if Team USA is good enough to win the gold.

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Rangers

Feb 7, 2014

Final Pit Stop for Rangers-Penguins

The Rangers and Penguins meet for the last time this season in what is their last game before the Olympic break and that calls for an email exchange with Jim Rixner of PensBurgh.

After Friday, there will be three weeks without Rangers hockey. I know, it’s devastating. But in place of Rangers hockey is Olympic hockey and Team USA hockey, which will do more than fill the void left by the NHL. In the final game for the Rangers before the Olympic break, they meet the Penguins for the final time this season and the last thing you want to do before having a long layoff is play the best the team in the Eastern Conference on the road, but that’s how the Rangers are set up.

With the Rangers and Penguins meeting on Friday night in Pittsburgh, I did an email exchange with Jim Rixner of PensBurgh to talk about if Chris Kunitz is the luckiest player in the league, whether or not Penguins fans trust Marc-Andre Fleury and if Dan Bylsma should have received his contract extension.

Keefe: Chris Kunitz is the luckiest man in the world. Or at least the luckiest hockey player in the world. A solid player and reliable scorer through the majority of his career, Kunitz did have 161 points in 163 games with the Ducks between 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons. But prior to the 2012-13 season, Kunitz’s career single-season high for goals was 26, which he scored in 82 games in 2011-12 with the Penguins. And then last season as a linemate of Sidney Crosby’s, Kunitz’s production took off and he scored 22 goals … in 48 games! This season, also as a linemate of Crosby’s, Kunitz has 27 goals in 56 games and is on pace for at least a 40-goal season.

Not only is Kunitz riding Crosby to career point totals and contract extensions, but the wing is also on Team Canada this year over some very worthy candidates and you would have to think he will also be a linemate of Crosby’s there.

I feel like you could stick pretty much anyone and I don’t mean just any NHL player, but rather any actual person on a line with Crosby and they would be good for 15-20 goals. Am I wrong for constantly bringing up this argument with others (you’re not the first) about Kunitz being lucky to be on a line with Crosby? Is it wrong for me to cite Crosby as the sole reason for Kunitz having career years in his mid-30s?

Rixner: I don’t think it’s wrong to cite Sidney Crosby as being a great help in the production of Chris Kunitz. Kunitz is sitting in the top 10 in the league in scoring, and if he’s on a team that’s not the Pittsburgh Penguins, we all know that’s not going to happen. Crosby’s the best player in the game, so of course he’s going to boost his linemates statistics and that’s definitely been the case for Chris Kunitz.

But I don’t really think it’s luck that’s made the Kunitz-Crosby combination a success, or the sole reason that Chris Kunitz is a productive player. First of all, his skill-set meshes perfectly with Crosby in that they both like to play low in the offensive zone and use a grinding, cycle-based game to use their lower-body strength to outwork opponents and drive chances from right in front of the net. Kunitz also has underrated in-zone playmaking ability, he has good vision and is capable of playing the puck very well in the offensive end with touch passes. He’s tough enough to hang in front of the net on power plays and that can pay off with chances. His hands are quick enough to convert them.

Then there’s also familiarity. Crosby and Kunitz have played 2,200-plus minutes together at even strength in their careers and even more on power plays and in practices for the past five years. They know what each other’s tendencies are and how each will react in every situation. Crosby knows what Kunitz will do, say on the forecheck should the defenseman break to the left. He knows where Kunitz is going to go if he gets the puck, and he knows precisely when he’ll arrive there. That’s something, that in a short tournament like the Olympics, will be very useful. Players like Crosby and Gretzky and Lemieux are said to be “two steps ahead” of everyone and if you give Crosby a linemate he knows, likes and is productive with, that removes one more element of unknown variables on the ice and helps push him even further ahead of the competition.

To that end, Crosby scored seven points in seven games last Olympics, but consider that three of those were assists against a weak Norway team. Another was a shootout goal (which counts to stats). Aside from the flashy golden goal in overtime, Sidney Crosby wasn’t really that consistently productive in the 2010 Olympics with Patrice Bergeron, Eric Staal and Jarome Iginla (the three linemates they tried him with).

Keefe: Marc-Andre Fleury was the goalie for a championship team and was also the goalie for a team that lost in a Game 7 for the Cup. He can win in the playoffs because he has proven he can even if those two seasons were five and six years ago.

But after his 2011-12 playoff debacle against the Flyers when the Penguins were bounced in six games by a 7-seed and the disaster last postseason against the Islanders that saw him lose his job to Tomas Vokoun, it seemed like maybe Fleury was ruined. However, so far this season, he has played better than he has any other year and he might set career bests in wins, goals against average, save percentage and shutouts. What’s different about Fleury this year compared to last spring and do you trust him?

Rixner: I trust Marc-Andre Fleury, but shakily so. The most unsettling thing about his meltdowns in 2012 and 2013 in the playoffs was that he had pretty good regular seasons before the bottom dropped out and now again this year, we’re seeing another strong regular season. The hope is that there are some changes from year’s past. The Penguins have a new goaltending coach. Fleury’s seen a sports psychologist that’s hopefully helped get his mind to a better place. The Pens now have Rob Scuderi back, a defensive defenseman who’s thrived in the playoffs in L.A. and Pittsburgh. And they also have Jacques Martin as an assistant coach to lend a defensive conscious to the team.

Will it work? I’d be lying if I said I was 100 percent confident, but there certainly are enough changes to at least believe they’re not just trying the same thing every year. Also, I think it’s important to remember that the Pens failures have been more than just on Fleury. In 2012 when the Pens met the Flyers, Philly got under their skin and had the speedy and skilled forwards to trade chances with them. Ditto the Islanders last year in terms of having impressive team speed and ability to counter-punch a wide open Pittsburgh team. All we as Pens fans can do right now is hope that they play more responsible hockey in front of Fleury and that he can continue his strong regular season into the playoffs.

Keefe: After the Penguins’ Cup win over the Red Wings in 2008-09, I thought we were about to see an Oilers-esque run from the Penguins built around Crosby and Malkin. And if they had Henrik Lundqvist the last few years, they might have put one together. But since winning the Cup, the Penguins have lost in the second round, the first round twice and the conference finals despite usually being the best or one of the best regular-season teams.

Dan Bylsma took over the team during their Cup-winning season and has led them to the playoffs in each of his four seasons. But after the Penguins were swept by the Bruins last year following to straight years of first-round exits, it seemed like there was a lot of backlash and criticism toward Bylsma and that he might be on his way out. Then the Penguins went and gave him a two-year extension through the 2015-16 season. Are you a fan of Bylsma and were you a fan of the extension?

And on another note, what can I expect from Bylsma over the next few weeks as the Team USA head coach in the Olympics?

Rixner: Well, the Oilers didn’t have a formal salary cap and were able to keep their Gretzky, Kurri, Messier, Coffey, Anderson and Fuhr for much of the ’80s in their run. The Pens have had to drop Jordan Staal, Sergei Gonchar and even role players like Scuderi, Matt Cooke and Tyler Kennedy due mainly to the salary cap within a few years of winning it all. Their team depth has definitely diminished since winning it all in ’09.

I’m fine with Bylsma, because like you mentioned he is a solid regular-season coach. The Penguins have, by far, lost the most man-games to injury in the league this season, but they’re still the best team in the East. It helps having a good team anchored by Crosby and Malkin, but the coaching staff has plugged lesser guys into big roles and it’s worked. They also have the No. 1 power play and the No. 1 penalty kill in the league so far right now. Again, a lot of that credit goes to the execution and skill of the players, but that’s also a credit to the coaches for their preparation and instruction. And, at least they keep the team invested and do more than “just go through the motions” on most nights.

Team USA ought be great for Bylsma, because it has so many players who fit perfectly for the philosophy of his north-south style. Zach Parise, Dustin Brown, David Backes, T.J. Oshie, Ryan Kesler and, yes, Rangers captain Ryan Callahan. It’s a match made in heaven for Bylsma who likes his wingers big, physical and active on the forecheck. He also stresses the defensemen making the long, vertical stretch pass, and I think the skill and ability of the USA personnel defensively really fits what he looks for as well. It’ll be interesting because Bylsma usually has the stud centers in Crosby-Malkin, and center is probably the biggest weak point on Team USA (compared to the talent that Canada, Russia and Sweden has) so we’ll see how he handles that.

Keefe: The Shawn Thornton-Brooks Orpik incident and that whole Penguins-Bruins game as a whole (including James Neal and Brad Marchand) got a lot of attention for the gongshow that it was. As someone who went to college in Boston and who has friends from there and who live there and even some who covers the Bruins, I’m certainly aware of the Boston perspective of everything that occurred in that game and their take on the suspensions and injuries that resulted from it. Do you think your Penguins are a dirty team?

Rixner: I don’t think the Penguins are necessarily dirtier than any other team (especially since they no long employ Mr. Cooke). They certainly have some hot-heads, but NHL players are basically all alpha-male young men with a lot of testosterone who are playing a physical and emotional game that moves really fast. There’s no excuse for James Neal’s actions that night, but consider that he kneed the same guy in the head who pretty viciously boarded him five months earlier. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, but it’s not just the Penguins players who are starting incidents or behaving badly, as the cowardly action from Thornton showed as well.

Keefe: I attended both of the Rangers-Penguins games at Madison Square Garden this season and in the first game (Nov. 6), the Rangers won 5-1 and in the second game, (Dec. 18) the Penguins won 4-3 in a shootout. In their only game in Pittsburgh this season (Jan. 3), the Penguins won 5-2.

I go into every Rangers-Penguins game with a pessimistic view because to me, the Penguins are a terrible matchup for the Rangers. They rely on their offense and power play to win games, while the Rangers rely on Henrik Lundqvist and pretty much only Henrik Lundqvist. That’s why the Rangers’ 5-1 win back on Nov. 6 was so surprising and also why their late comeback on Dec. 18 was as well. You would think the Jan. 3 game is how a Rangers-Penguins game should play out, but so far this season the Rangers have gotten three of a possible six points against the Penguins and I’m content with that.

But since the last time these two teams met, the Rangers have gone off on an 11-3-1 record and are playing their best hockey of the year as Alain Vigneault’s system is finally coming together. What do Penguins fans think of the Rangers and what kind of game do you expect on Friday night?

Rixner: Most Pens fans, to be honest, aren’t all that concerned about any threat within the division. With every team 17-20-plus points back in the rear-view mirror and being non-threats all season, the focus has been more on injuries and seeing the team play well more-so than worrying about anyone chasing Pittsburgh. Personally, I’ve always thought Washington, Philadelphia and the Rangers would be the biggest division challenges for the Pens, and I even picked the Rangers to win the division in my pre-season predictions. Maybe I slept on the transition time Vigneault would need, but I’m not surprised that now the Rangers are playing good hockey lately.As far as the game goes, we’ll have to see. Right on the eve of the Olympics, a lot of players might have their minds on vacation, or heading over to Russia. I know Evgeni Malkin has been just sensational recently and really seems motivated and focused on getting his game in gear in time for his big homecoming. The Pens are an amazing 23-4-0 so far this year at home. They’ve been beyond impressive on special teams and have had pretty good goaltending too. They’ll look to use their strengths to get out to a good start and an early lead and then just coast on to victory. Hopefully the Martin/Orpik combo can get ready for the Olympics by keeping Rick Nash off the scoreboard and limiting his chances as much as possible and the Pens will go into the break on a high note.But, if they check out a game too soon, as we saw in November, the Rangers definitely have the firepower and ability to beat Pittsburgh in a relatively easy fashion. It’s cliché, but the first period will be key. If Lundqvist can come up big on the Pens and keep it 0-0, I like the Rangers chances. If the Pens can punch through and get a 1-0 or 2-0 lead, obviously the chances that they’ll end up getting the win go way, way up.

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Blogs • Rangers • Rangers Playoff Thoughts • Rangers Playoffs

May 18, 2013

Rangers-Bruins Game 1 Thoughts: Thank You, Henrik Lundqvist

The Rangers lost Game 1 to the Bruins in overtime though without Henrik Lundqvist the game would have never made it to overtime.

Game 1 could have gone on for two more minutes or two more overtimes or it could still be going on and the Bruins were still going to win. If Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand didn’t beat Anton Stralman and Ryan McDonagh and then Henrik Lundqvist, someone else on the Bruins would have eventually ended the game.

The Bruins were clearly the better team in Game 1 and it was obvious everywhere except for the scoreboard with the game tied at 2 at the end of the third. But don’t let the game going to overtime make you think the two teams were actually even after regulation like John Tortorella thinks they were. (He said, “I thought it was pretty even going into overtime.”) The Rangers were completely dominated throughout the first game of what I still believe will be a series that needs seven games to be decided. And the only reason the game wasn’t over as early as the Rangers-Capitals Game 7 was is because of the man, the myth, the legend: Henrik Lundqvist. So once again let’s get the Thoughts started with the reason the Rangers weren’t run out of the TD Garden, run off Causeway Street, run down Canal Street and run into The Grand Canal, the worst bar in Boston.

– One day when Henrik Lundqvist pulls his number 30 to the Madison Square Garden rafters, there’s nothing the Rangers can give him on “Henrik Lundqvist Night” that will be enough to reward and repay him for being solely responsible for ending the Rangers’ playoff-less streak in 2005-06, which would still be going on without him.

In Game 1, Lundqvist faced 48 shots, the second-most he’s faced this season (he stopped 48-of-49 shots in Carolina on April 6), and stopped 45 of them. It was the most shots he had seen in the playoffs since the Rangers’ 4-3 double-overtime loss to the Capitals in the 2010-11 quarterfinals (also known as the “Boudreau Chants” game or the “Rangers Blew a 3-0 Third-Period Lead with a Chance to Tie the Series” game). In return, the Rangers recorded only 35 shots on Tuukka Rask, most of which came from low-percentage areas, including both of their goals, which were outside shots.

– They say “the post is the goalie’s best friend.” I’m not sure that’s true since I always thought “good defense should be the goalie’s best friend.” (In that case, Henrik Lundqvist is best friend-less and if he’s taking applications, where should I send mine to?) Unless you like your best friend to constantly scare the crap out of you before saying, “It was just a goof, man” like a worried Harry Dunne apologizing to a dying Joe Mentalino in Dumb and Dumber, then I’m not sure how the post is anyone’s best friend. I had several heart palpitations thanks to Johnny Boychuk and Jaromir Jagr and Tyler Seguin hitting the posts and crossbar Thursday night, so it’s going to be a while until the post and I are back on good terms.

– Ryan McDonagh’s untimely and ill-advised decision to jump up on the play in overtime cost the Rangers an odd-man rush against and cost them the game. Not even Henrik Lundqvist or a diving Mats Zuccarello, who fit neatly into the corner of the net like an empty puck bag, could stop Patrice Bergeron’s pass or Brad Marchand’s perfect puck placement. But to me, it was Ryan Callahan who had the worst game of all the Rangers. Callahan missed several chances to clear the zone on the penalty kill, twice unsuccessfully tried to chip the puck around the D, resulting in a turnover, and missed the net with shots on several attempts. I know Ryan Callahan didn’t cost the Rangers the game and I know no one in the Tri-state area likes hearing anyone badmouth the captain, but I have to be fair (unless being fair means saying something negative about Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Eli Manning or Henrik Lundqvist).

– Rick Nash: Come out, come out, wherever you are.

– The Rangers put together another Andruw Jones night, going 0-for-3 on the power play. The power play is now 2-for-31 in the playoffs, which actually might be harder to do than being 22-for-31 on the power play, kind of like going 0-for-12 in picking winners in a 12-team parlay.

Pierre McGuire complained about the Rangers’ “lack of slot presence” on the power play, but I’m not sure how you can have “slot presence” when you can’t successfully break out or get through the neutral zone without turning it over or set it up inside the Bruins’ zone without trying to get cute just inside the blue with it on the man advantage. Maybe Pierre will inform us of how this is possible in Game 2 unless he’s too busy rattling off Torey Krug’s entire hockey career and stats starting with his first year of youth hockey as a kid growing up in Livonia, Mich.

I would like to think something is going to change or click with the power play, but I would also like to think that the fistfight Adam Oates is calling for with John Tortorella will take place and unfortunately I know neither of these things will happen. The Rangers power play is what it is now after 56 games this season: a disaster. Luckily, the Bruins power play has been as bad this season (and also in the past like the Rangers’), but even the lowly Bruins power play found a way to convert once in Game 1. If the Bruins power play is going to produce in this series and the Rangers’ isn’t then we might as well pack up the sticks and pucks now and call it a season because I was banking on this series being won during even strength. We can’t have the Bruins suddenly figuring out how to score with a man advantage.

– Aside from Pierre McGuire telling us Torey Krug’s life story, he was also kind enough to remind us that Jaromir Jagr is “a 15-20 second shift guy” in the third period and overtime whenever number 68 was on the ice. We learned again that Rangers trainer Jim Ramsey is the Team Canada trainer and I’m pretty sure those were orgasmic noises Pierre was making anytime he said the name “Dougie Hamilton,” who he has had a clear man crush on since the beginning of the season. There’s no chance NBC Sports will have Pierre attend only the other three series in the semifinals and set us free of the Human HockeyDB.com, but maybe it’s for the better because these Thoughts wouldn’t be so long without him. In honor of Pierre, I’m going to “Pierre” the rest of the Thoughts.

– What was the former first-round pick of the Columbus Blue Jackets John Moore thinking when he decided to take that interference penalty on the power play? I’m serious. What was going through his head when he decided to just shove Rich Peverley down from behind away from the play? The Winnetka, Ill. native has to be much smarter than that if he’s going to move down low on the power play. (There’s a 150-percent chance Marian Gaborik would have been benched by Tortorella for the same penalty. He was benched for a lot less.)

And while we’re talking about penalties, Derek Dorsett made the right decision when he took his interference penalty on Peverley (effing Peverley again) in overtime the way he would have during his days in the WHL playing for the Medicine Hat Tigers. If Dorsett doesn’t take that penalty, it’s at least a 2-on-1 going the other way and the game is over. Granted the game would eventually end on a 2-on-1 anyway, but hey, at least we got like 12 more minutes of hockey after the Kindersley, Sask. product took a smart and necessary penalty.

The Rangers can still get the job done in Boston with a Game 2 win otherwise they will be in the same spot they were two weeks ago against the Capitals. And these Bruins aren’t the Capitals.

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Rangers

May 16, 2013

Preparation for Rangers-Bruins Postseason Battle

The Rangers and Bruins are meeting in the playoffs for the first time since 1973, so obviously an email exchange with Mike Hurley was needed to talk about the latest chapter in New York vs. Boston.

For the first time since 1973 the Rangers and Bruins will meet in the playoffs. It’s the latest chapter in the illustrious history of New York vs. Boston postseason meetings and the only logical to way to handle this situation was with an email exchange with Mike Hurley from CBS Boston.

Keefe: It’s been a while. It’s actually been 92 days since our last one of these. But after what happened on Monday night and what’s going to happen between now and Memorial Day, I figured why not bother Mike Hurley. Or Michael Francis Hurley as those in Boston know you by.

The Rangers’ Game 7 win was boring and that’s the way I liked it. After the excitement of the Game 6 win at Madison Square Garden on Sunday afternoon and the 29 beers that followed, I wanted a blowout. I didn’t want to have to worry about the Capitals getting a 1-0 lead and then watching the Rangers struggle to generate offense until the clock ran out on the season. I got my wish thanks to Henrik Lundqvist and the Rangers have at least four more games left in the season.

But during the third period of the Rangers’ Game 7 blowout, I was flipping back and forth to the Bruins-Maple Leafs game and I told my girlfriend when they trailed 4-1 that I had seen this Bruins team come back from similar deficits before. Of course none of those comebacks happened in a Game 7 with their season on the line, but still, the Bruins are never out of a game and they probed that even in their losses in Games 5 and 6 to Toronto.

Sure enough, within the hour you were documenting euphoria at TD Garden on Twitter and the Bruins were alive and well and awaiting the Rangers on Thursday night.

I want to know what went through your mind from the Maple Leafs’ fourth goal until the point when Patrice Bergeron was jumping around center ice. (I only wish he rolled around like Theo Fleury.)

Hurley: Hi Neil. Thanks for emailing me. I always love it so much when you email me. It always brightens my day to see “Keefe, Neil” pop up in the inbox, so thank you.

Being in the building for Game 7 was without a doubt the most unreal sporting event I’ve ever attended in my life. I’ve been to just about every home Bruins game this year, and the volume level even in the opening minutes was far beyond any noise the home crowd had made all season. Of course, when Nazem Kadri buried the Leafs’ fourth goal, it was almost silent. You could actually hear the Leafs fans in the building cheering, and there couldn’t have been more than 500 of them in the whole place.

It’s funny, I was watching a game earlier this series from my living room when the Bruins were in Toronto, and as I tend to do when I watch sports, I was shouting, oohing and ahhing, screaming “WOOF!” and “WOW!” every three seconds. My wife looked at me and said, “How do you watch games in the press box and stay silent?” I had no answer. But whenever I am covering games, I am silent, probably because I’m work and I have something to dedicate my focus on. But man, when Bergeron released that snap shot from the blue line, once it made it past the first white jersey, I knew it was going in, and I just let out an audible, “Holy shit.”

I really don’t have the same emotional investment in the team that I did growing up. It’s only natural to have a different feeling for the team when you’re covering them for your job for several years, so it’s not like I was torn up about them losing. In fact, I didn’t really care — I was starting to make plans with all the free time that opened up on my calendar.

But when that goal hit the net, I’ve never heard a crowd get that loud. Ever. My arms actually got chills and went numb. You know me pretty well, and you know that I may be in my mid-20s and appear to be a somewhat lively person, but on the inside I am a grumpy, 80-year-old man. So for that to happen, it was just incredible. Indescribable really, but I’m just happy I got to be there to experience it first-hand.

No, nobody hacked my email to send this rainbows and sunshine message. This is really me.

Keefe: I really don’t have the same emotional investment in the team that I did growing up. It’s only natural to have a different feeling for the team when you’re covering them for your job for several years, so it’s not like I was torn up about them losing. In fact, I didn’t really care — I was starting to make plans with all the free time that opened up on my calendar.

That was the saddest, most-effed up paragraph I have ever read from you and that means a lot considering you write a lot of effed-up paragraphs, especially during football season. But I think watching your fandom dwindle and be destroyed as a member of the mainstream media and essentially a beat writer is a conversation for another day. If you finish any of your future columns with “Time will tell” or “Maybe it will happen” or “We’ll see” then I think you will finally get your wish and our “friendship” will be over. If the Giants’ second Super Bowl win over the Patriots didn’t end the “friendship” then I don’t think a Rangers’ series win over the Bruins will. So only your mindset fully transforming into that of a beat writer/reporter can end this thing.

Last year we both talked endlessly about the Rangers and Bruins meeting in the Eastern Conference finals, but the Bruins didn’t live up to their end of the bargain. This year we hoped it could happen, but the Rangers would have to make the playoffs to make it possible. We didn’t get the conference finals, but we’re getting the conference semifinals, which is still good enough for me.

It’s actually insane that these two teams haven’t met in the playoffs since 1973 when you consider the NHL postseason format and the fact that the Rangers have seen the Capitals in four of the last five playoff (or the last four playoffs the Rangers have been a part of) and the Bruins have seen the Canadiens in three of the last six postseasons. What’s that thing you say? “Sports!”

So we finally get our wish with the Rangers coming off a dominant Game 7 performance and winning four of the last five games against the Capitals and the Bruins coming off an improbable Game 7 win after nearly blowing away a 3-1 series lead. While I said during Game 7 that I fully believed in a Bruins’ third-period comeback, I also started to think about what a Game 7 loss at home and blown 3-1 lead would mean for Claude Julien. Here’s what Julien has done as head coach in the four seasons prior to this one.

2011-12: Lost Game 7 of quarterfinals to Washington at home in overtime

2010-11: Won three Game 7s in one postseason, overcame 2-0 series deficit twice and won the Cup in Vancouver

2009-10: Blew 3-0 series lead to Philadelphia in semifinals and blew 3-0 lead in Game 7 at home

2008-09: Lost Game 7 of quarterfinals to Carolina at home in overtime

Since I talk to you and other Boston sports fans frequently, there seems to be a large anti-Julien movement and it’s pretty ridiculous. The pro-John Tortorella base in New York is far greater than the anti-John Tortorella base and this is what Tortorella has done in New York.

2011-12: Lost to New Jersey in 6 in conference finals

2010-11: Made playoffs on last day of season thanks to help and lost to Washington in 5 in quarterfinals

2009-10: Missed playoffs

2008-09: Blew 3-1 series lead to Washington in quarterfinals

Based on the two resumes (and I didn’t even include Julien leading the overachieving Bruins to the 8-seed in the 2007-08 playoffs and forcing a Game 7 against Montreal), I’m not exactly sure how the perception of the two is what it is. Sure, Julien does some weird things like play Jaromir Jagr alongside two players that aren’t worthy of sitting next to him in the locker room let alone playing on the same line with him, but Julien did something in Boston that 16 head coaches before him since 1972 couldn’t do. John Tortorella acts like he’s done something in New York when he hasn’t done anything since he won in Tampa Bay nine years ago, and according to you that shouldn’t have even happened.

So why is Julien hated in Boston (for the most part) and Tortorella loved in New York (for the most part)? Or do those two perceptions only exist in the world of sports radio?

Hurley: Can a friendship end if it never really existed to begin with? I guess we’ll find out in the coming days.

As for the anti-Julien movement, it is definitely real and I definitely don’t agree with it. I understand that Claude is not the perfect coach. He’s a defensive-minded guy, and he seems averse to letting guys like Tyler Seguin run free and try to score goals. Defense is boring, and fans often get frustrated when the team goes through long scoring droughts. It’s only natural for the coach to get blamed, that’s just how it goes. Sports!

But you laid it out nicely. The guy gets his team to playoffs every single year. They don’t always make it to the conference finals, but who does? The Penguins, I think, are unanimously the best team in the NHL over the past five years, and I think most hockey fans love Dan Bylsma as a head coach. The Penguins in the four years leading up to this season have won the Cup, lost in the second round and twice lost in the first round. Injuries play a role, sure, but that’s not a whole heck of a lot better than the Bruins’ finishes the past four years.

Probably the biggest reason that Claude’s Cup win in 2011 isn’t earning him much slack these days is that things looked pretty bad for him back in the first round that year. In fact, fans were calling for his firing in December of that season, before the Bruins went on a 14-5-3 run. In Game 7, if Jeff Halpern doesn’t deflect Nathan Horton’s slap shot in overtime of Game 7 against Montreal, the Canadiens could have won that game. Julien would have been fired. Peter Chiarelli too, probably. Extensions for David Krejci, Milan Lucic … who knows? One bounce of a puck that goes the other way, and Julien would have been gone.

So the Cup win obviously secured his job for the time being, and it helped excuse the first-round exit last year. I think if they had lost to Toronto, he would have kept his job for next year, but it would have been very tenuous. He’d be a candidate for a midseason axing, and fans would largely be happy. Most of those anti-Claude fans don’t have a viable replacement in mind, they just want him gone. Maybe the Bruins could bring back Dave Lewis. Fans would be crying for Claude back after five games.

As for Tortorella, I’ll just say that had he lost his job after losing to Washington this year, I wouldn’t have been too broken up. If the Calgary Flames had been credited with the game-winning goal they scored, then maybe TORTS! wouldn’t spend his days with that poo-eating grin and I-know-everything-and-you-suck attitude. Alas, we are here, and sure enough, I don’t think either coach is in danger of losing his job, no matter what happens in this series.

Keefe: Along the lines with the “I don’t understand why fans are the way they are” perception is the idea that Tuukka Rask isn’t Tim Thomas for Bruins fans. But who is? I don’t see any other NHL goalies writing on their Facebook page about gay marriage or how Barack Obama is ruining the country. And I don’t see Tuukka Rask taking a year off of hockey in hopes of returning the following year and starting for his Olympic team.

In New York, there is a very small percent of fans who think Henrik Lundqvist is overrated (this very small group of people are unintelligent) and are quick to cite his under-.500 postseason record as a reason for being overrated. (And if being the reigning Vezina winner makes you overrated then does that mean there aren’t any good goalies in the NHL the way that BABIP suggests that there aren’t any good hitters in MLB, just lucky ones?) But if Henrik wasn’t as good as he is, he wouldn’t even have a postseason record because the Rangers offense since 2005-06 certainly wasn’t going to get him there. So Lundqvist is the beneficiary of an offensively-challenged team once again and starts games knowing that one goal could mean a loss. Put him on Pittsburgh and no one would be talking about how exciting the Islanders were for six games because the Islanders would have been run out of the first round in four games.

Henrik Lundqvist is the best goalie in the world. That’s a fact. But Tuukka Rask isn’t far behind and is certainly in the top tier of goalies in the league and I was surprised to him get snubbed from being a Vezina finalist. And for years now it seems like it’s been Lundqvist vs. Rask in any afternoon Rangers-Bruins game and now we’ll finally get to see them square off in a seven-game series.

Tuukka Rask isn’t Tim Thomas, but I’m still scared of his ability to shut down the Rangers, who have a hard enough time scoring against mediocre goaltending. I think with Lundqvist and Rask we’re headed for seven games and maybe seven total goals in the series. Would you agree?

Hurley: Definitely. I think you said it best when you said Lundqvist is the best, but Rask isn’t far behind. It’s been pretty ridiculous this season, in the few instances Rask let up a soft goal or lost a game or two, hearing people call the radio or comment online that Rask is no Thomas, as if Thomas was this perfect goaltender who never failed. Make no mistake, Thomas in the 2011 postseason was unreal, but the guy was hardly a model of consistency. Nobody let in more bad, back-breaking goals than Thomas, but because he rode off into the Facebook sunset, he’s only remembered for that glorious run to the Cup.

So it was good that the Bruins didn’t lose that first-round series, because Rask would have wrongly been blamed, and people would keep calling about how bad he is, how he can’t win in the postseason, blah, blah, blah.

But yeah, I think back to one of these talks we had, where I made an off-the-cuff comment about every single Bruins-Rangers game ending 1-0 one way or the other. Then, for the first time in your life, you did actual research, and you discovered that 11 out of the previous 15 meetings had been decided by just one goal. This year, one game was won 3-1, another one in OT and the other won in a shootout. I don’t see any reason why things will suddenly change in the postseason, when Tortorella’s and Julien’s teams bear down even more defensively.

Some people say it’s “boring” because it won’t be wide open, high-scoring hockey. But I haven’t watched a Rangers-Bruins game in years that wasn’t thrilling, so I’m looking forward to it.

Keefe: I love when people put out “Keys for the Rangers in Game 3” or “What the Bruins Must Do to Win Game 6” because really it’s all meaningless and just a waste of time for talking heads to fill space on pregame shows or for lazy writers and bloggers to meet story quotas or word counts. Because I don’t remember anyone saying, “The Rangers will beat the Capitals if Rick Nash doesn’t score a goal” or “The Bruins will eliminate the Maple Leafs if Tyler Seguin scores zero goals.” But the two best pure scorers in the upcoming series combined for 14 games played, no goals and three assists (two for Nash and one for Seguin) in the quarterfinals combined. How is it possible that the former London Knight and the former Plymouth Whaler (just went Pierre McGuire on you to see how it feels) scored zero goals combined in 14 games? The only answer I can think of is: it’s not.

This is why I’m nervous about our mutually agreed prediction of seven 1-0 games in this series. Both of these players are going to go off in this series because the law of odds and science and “being due” and everything in life says they are. They have to. And if they do, maybe this series will turn into the 2011-12 quarterfinals between the Penguins and Flyers and there will be 15 goals a game and brawls and sloppy goaltending and then NBC Sports and CBC and NHL Network and every media outlet can scrap the word “expert.”

But in real life, it’s scary to know the depth of the Rangers and Bruins if they were both able to win seven-game series with their two actual superstars contributing noting and it’s scary to think how good both of these teams can be if Nash and Seguin are Nash and Seguin starting on Thursday. I guess there’s a reason why the East was supposed to be decided between the Rangers, Bruins and Penguins and all three are part of the final four now.

Hurley: You obviously didn’t read my Bruins-Leafs Game 7 preview, in which I wrote the Bruins’ key will be to lose Dennis Seidenberg on his first shift, get Matt Bartkowski going offensively, fall behind 4-1 and then turn it on in the final 10 minutes to pull off the comeback. Stories like that show why I’m an expert and why I get paid so much money.

The difference between Nash and Seguin is that Nash is a perennial all-star who’s topped 30 goals seven times in his career. Seguin is a 21-year-old, and while he looked like Wayne Gretzky over in Switzerland during the lockout while wearing his flame jersey for being the team’s leading scorer, I don’t think we really know what he is yet. At least, we don’t know what he is beyond his potential.

His goal drought hasn’t been for lack of chances. He’s just somehow, somewhere lost his finishing ability. He’s become known around here as “high glass,” as he and Rich Peverley in particular tend to miss the net by about 10 feet on most of their shots. I suppose it can be chalked up to growing pains, which are to be expected, and also the realization that though Seguin is a very good player, he’s not Steven Stamkos, who turned 22 in the middle of last season … when he scored 60 goals. This year, Seguin turned 21 and scored 16 goals in 48 games. In a full season, that’s a 27-goal pace. That’s pretty good, but not great, and I don’t think he’s the pure scorer you fear he might be. I think the Bruins are going to be a lot more worried about Nash than the Rangers are about Seguin.

But boy oh boy, the young kid from Brampton, Ontario who grew up idolizing Stevie Y sure can skate, Edzo.

Keefe: I have always been high on Seguin and I think Claude Julien’s decision to not play him at the beginning of the 2010-11 playoffs only made me higher on him. It took injuries for Seguin to get into the lineup before he single-handedly saved the Bruins’ season against Tampa Bay and saved Julien’s job. Is it too late for me to get a ticket for the “Fire Claude Julien” bandwagon? I will pay more than face value on StubHub if I need to.

I haven’t been this excited about a playoff hockey series since … well … I guess last year’s Eastern Conference finals against the Devils. (It just seems like it’s been longer.) But this series is different because it’s the first time it’s happened in our lifetime and the first time we have been able to go head-to-head with New York vs. Boston since Super Bowl XLVI.

I know at one point this series you will write a column with screen shots breaking down a head shot from a Ranger on a Bruin or you will tweet about the Rangers diving or whining about calls since that’s what you Boston writers do. And I know you will also make an excuse for a dangerous Milan Lucic play that goes uncalled because that’s also what you guys do. But I’m glad to be a part of it because it’s more fun to have those I read and follow in Boston talking about the Rangers rather than the Canadiens or Maple Leafs or Canucks and their fans.

After three regular-season meetings this year (even though they were all within the first couple weeks of the season) I believe the Rangers match up well against the Bruins (and the Rangers have Henrik Lundqvist, which is a good enough reason to pick them against anyone). I don’t know if the Rangers can win in five and I don’t want to be the guy who picks the series to end in six because that’s the easy way out, so I’m going to go with Rangers in seven. I’ll see you in New York for Game 3 and you’ll see me in Boston for Game 7.

Hurley: First thing’s first: I don’t whine or complain. I lay down the law. I can state with 300 percent confidence that based on my judgment, I should be in Brendan Shanahan’s position. It’s kind of nuts, really, that the NHL hasn’t reached out to me to take that unenviable job for them. I mean, I didn’t ask to have this power and perspective, but we’re all dealt hands in life, and mine is to determine punishment on illegal hockey hits.

And this comes from you, the same person who cried for a suspension on Eric Fehr when he elbowed Derick Brassard in the chest and then followed through by scraping the guy’s chin. Just really shameful work by you, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Typical Neil Keefe stuff there, and I can’t wait for more of it over the next two weeks. And by “can’t wait” I mean I’ll probably block you and report you for spam on Twitter by the middle of Game 2.

I’m not much into predictions because they are stupid. People get them wrong 99 percent of the time, and they luck into getting them right once in a blue moon, and then they brag about it, even though the circumstances of what actually happened would have been completely impossible to predict before the games took place.

But because you picked the Rangers in 7, and because you’re always wrong about everything ever, and because it drives you crazy when people make predictions for series to end in six games, I’ll go with the Bruins in six. You can still come up to Boston for the day that Game 7 is scheduled, and I can give you some more Wiffle Ball lessons.

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Rangers

Feb 13, 2013

Dreaming of a Rangers-Bruins Postseason Series

The Rangers and Bruins met for the last time during the regular season, so an email exchange with Mike Hurley was needed to look back at the three meetings between the teams.

Thanks to some awesome scheduling from the NHL, the Rangers and Bruins won’t meet again this season unless it’s in the postseason. After 12 games, the Rangers and Bruins have played their entire three-game schedule against each other for 2012-13 and it’s going to take a seven-game series this spring if the growing rivalry is going to get a new chapter this season.

With the season series coming to an end, I decided to fill the email inbox of Mike Hurley from CBS Boston with garbage until he finally responded and agreed to an email exchange. OK, so I really didn’t have to beg him since he had nothing else going on (and usually doesn’t), but he wanted me to make it sound like it was really hard to get him to do this exchange since he’s “really busy.”

Keefe: I wanted to be in Boston last night for Rangers-Bruins and I wanted to be at Halftime Pizza before the game eating the best slices in Boston (there are only one or two others place in the entire city worth eating pizza sober at) and pounding their massive draft beers that for some reason taste better than draft beers from anywhere else. But the NHL went and scheduled the second and last meeting between the two teams on a Tuesday night, so I did watch the Rangers-Bruins game and I did eat pizza and drink draft beers, but I did it over 200 miles from TD Garden.

After blowing a two-goal lead to the Bruins in the third game of the season at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers blew a three-goal lead in the last 11:16 on Tuesday night. And while you have to credit the Bruins’ heart (or their “hearts of lions” as Jack Edwards referred to it) for their miraculous late-game comeback, I’m going to also discredit the Rangers’ shot-blocking strategy, which is actually more of a negative than a positive for the team’s defense and the reason for the Bruins’ third-period effort.

Henrik Lundqvist is the best goalie in the world. The best goalie in the world needs to see the puck and he needs to see the shot. He doesn’t need to be playing from behind screens and trying to anticipate whose stick the puck will end up on when Ryan Callahan and Dan Girardi simultaneously sacrifice their bodies and seasons like Secret Service members trying to protect the President. Yes, the Bruins erased a three-goal deficit in the third period and scored twice with an empty net, but none of it would have been possible without some perfect rebounds courteous of too much traffic created in front of the Rangers’ net by the Rangers themselves.

The Rangers did come away with two points and managed to get four of a possible six points against the Bruins this season, but they let the Bruins pick up points in the final minutes of each of the last two games. And while it was good to see the Rangers win their third straight and win on the road in Boston, I get the feeling that no one in Boston views last night’s loss as a loss and that’s not good for the Rangers or me or anyone. These two teams will hopefully meet again this spring and the last thing the Rangers need is the Bruins believing they can always come back against them and that they are never out of a game, and despite losing twice to the Rangers, the Bruins must feel like they have the Rangers’ number. If the Bruins are practicing today, I’m sure the mood in their locker room is of a team that won on last night and not of one that lost.

I guess whenever anything goes wrong like it did in the third period there is someone to blame and someone to praise, but am I am discrediting the Bruins’ comeback too much and placing too much of the blame on the Rangers? And did you get a goody bag with your TD Garden dinner on Tuesday night that looked like everything you would find at a five-year-old’s birthday party?

Hurley: For the record, because of awful traffic due to the blizzard, I got to the Garden late and had no time for dinner, so I ate an oreo brownie, a fudge roll, a big pretzel with mustard, a cup of popcorn and a plate of M&M’s and gummy worms for dinner in the press box. I am 7 years old and everyone knows it, so it’s OK.

I do think you’re right to discredit the Rangers a bit. On 99 out of 100 nights, Anton Stralman’s weak wrister doesn’t beat Tuukka Rask, and on probably 90 out of 100 nights, Derek Stepan’s shot gets stopped easily with the glove. So on a night when they don’t have a somewhat gift-wrapped 3-goal lead, they might not be so fortunate to leave the building with two points.

That said, the Bruins do deserve some credit. They realized against that mess of bodies and No. 30 in net, the only way they were scoring was going to be on a rebound. Andrew Ference’s point shot was intentionally low, and Nathan Horton banged home the rebound. Dennis Seidenberg intentionally shot at Milan Lucic in the slot, and the redirect on Lundqvist led to an open net for David Krejci. And though Brad Marchand just got a lucky break for his goal, that was a pretty good snipe. So it’s not as if the Rangers blew the lead to the Flames or anything.

But it was a blocked shot that led to that opportunity for Marchand to score the game-tying goal, which allowed the B’s to walk away from the season series with four out of six points in the season series as well. So you’re not crazy for thinking the shot-blocking strategy can work against them. You are crazy for a lot of reasons, but not that one, I suppose.

Keefe: For the record, you told me about four hours before the game that you were going to eat healthy and detox after your brother’s wedding weekend. But really, I don’t think you had any plans other than to eat those things for dinner whether there was traffic or not.

When I see Rick Nash do the things he did to the Bruins defense and then to Tuukka Rask, I can’t help but think how they would have gotten past the Devils last May if they had traded for Nash last February. (Yes, I would still trade Chris Kreider for Nash if it was still an option.) And when I see the things that Marian Gaborik does like Nash, I can’t help, but think about how the Bruins have no one like Nash or Gaborik though Tyler Seguin will one day be Boston’s version of those two. And when I realize that the Bruins don’t have a true superstar (even though Pierre McGuire thinks Patrice Bergeron’s is one of the best players in the league), I wonder how they are so good even without Tim Thomas. But then you watch them play and you realize why they are so good.

The Bruins, for some unknown reason, find a way to score despite true scoring ability and a power play that makes even the Rangers not feel so bad about their man advantage and more importantly they find a way to win and win all types of games. I can’t explain it and I’m not sure if it’s even explainable because a team with that roster shouldn’t be this good without their best player (the Conn Smythe winner turned social media guru).

I know you’re probably going to say depth and defense and you might even talk about Claude Julien (I said “might”), but help me out here: Why are the Bruins so good? And why are they so good even without a single player whose jersey you would want to buy and wear?

Hurley: Well for one, Rask is a great goalie in his own right. He led the league in goals-against and save percentage in 2009-10, so it’s not like he’s some stiff off the street. Then you have Julien’s system, which above all else requires responsibility in your own end. That’s why Seguin barely played as a rookie — he wasn’t going to be put onto the ice until he could learn to play in the defensive system. Something tells me that as a kid, back-checking and getting sticks in passing lanes wasn’t drilled into the head of a kid as talented as Seguin.

So with that system, they’re rarely out of games. The 3-0 deficit against the Rangers was odd in that regard. And while they may not have a Steve Stamkos, they’re not short on talent up front. Nathan Horton is a big-time player. All the guy does is score big goals. The Bruins wouldn’t have made it out of the first round in 2011 if not for Horton, and his absence last spring was the reason the Bruins were wiped away in the first round.

Patrice Bergeron lacks flash, but if you were to assign grades to parts of his game, he’d get A-minuses across the board. He’s also won 63.6 percent of his faceoffs, which quietly goes a long way toward earning victories. Brad Marchand has a bad reputation for just being an agitator, but he’s a talented player who has a knack for scoring and has never been afraid of any moment or situation. David Krejci can be a wizard with the puck on his stick (still not a Marc Savard, but a decent knockoff) and Seguin is always a scoring threat every time he’s on the ice.

Add in third-liner Rich Peverley, who’d likely be a top-six forward in a lot of cities, and a fourth line that contributes while rarely making mistakes, and you just have a solid hockey team.

(I said hockey in case you were confused if I was talking about a football team or something.)

Oh, I should’ve mentioned, they’re also big on saying things like “compete level.” Julien hasn’t done an interview in the past five years without assessing his team’s compete level, and it’s spread to Peter Chiarelli and Cam Neely and now everyone who talks about the team.

It means “trying hard.” Yes, the millionaire hockey players need to be rated on whether they’re trying hard or not.

Regardless of its apparent stupidity, it really seems to work. It’s very rare you see the Bruins just lay a complete stinker, and teams know when they’re playing the Bruins that they’re in for a long battle. A lot of teams can’t handle it.

Keefe: Is Andy Brickley saying “compete level” yet or is he too busy talking about “points being at a premium” the way Edzo drops “active sticks” on everyone?

Everyone is talking about the Rangers and Bruins meeting again in the postseason for the first time since the 70s, you are one of these people, but a lot of these people are saying it’s going to happen. A lot of people said this last year too, but they forgot that eight teams make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference and just because people want a series to take place doesn’t it mean it will. And if it doesn’t take place in the quarterfinals then a lot has to go right for it to happen at all.

It’s been so long since these two teams have met in the playoffs and the New York-Boston rivalry has taken so many twists in the last 10 years that I don’t know what to expect if this series ever takes place and I don’t know if I even want it to. When the Yankees play the Red Sox, the Yankees are supposed to win. When the Knicks play the Celtics, the Celtics are supposed to win. When the Giants play the Patriots, the Giants always win. But what happens if these two teams meet again this year in the postseason? Who would have the upper hand? I can’t imagine this series would be good for my blood pressure especially coming in the beginning of baseball season. Maybe I will just pull for Rangers-Devils again.

Hurley: I’d like to see it happen because unofficially, without looking it up, I can state with complete confidence that every single Bruins-Rangers game in the past four years has been on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and has been a one-goal game, almost always 1-0 one way or the other. That’s all factual. Don’t look it up though.

What happens if they meet? That’s why we want them to meet — it’s impossible to predict. The Rangers have the edge in offensive firepower, but so did the Canucks in 2011. It would be captivating hockey, and honestly whichever team emerged from that series would probably be too beaten, bruised and exhausted to go on a Cup run. But I wouldn’t mind watching it. Maybe even while enjoying some Halftime.

Keefe: OK, I looked it up. Here are the last 15 Rangers-Bruins games going back to 2009-10, which are the four years you told me to not look up.

NYR 4, BOS 3 (SO)
NYR 4, BOS 3 (OT)
BOS 3, NYR 1
BOS 2, NYR 1
NYR 4, BOS 3
NYR 3, BOS 0
NYR 3, BOS 2 (OT)
NYR 5, BOS 3
NYR 1, BOS 0
BOS 3, NYR 2
NYR 3, BOS 2
BOS 2. NYR 1
NYR 3, BOS 1
NYR 3, BOS 2
NYR 1, BOS 0

That’s 11 of 15 games that were decided by one goal. You were close.

It does feel like all of their games have been on Saturday or Sunday afternoons and they were all started by Tuukka Rask, which is weird considering over that time period Tim Thomas was the best goalie in the NHL. (Well, he was according to voters, but anyone who watched Henrik Lundqvist play behind awful teams know that it was King Henrik who has been the best goalie in the league for several years now.)

Only three of those games weren’t decided after three periods and one of them was on Tuesday night. While shootouts are fun when your teams wins, they are usually a letdown unless Rick Nash gives you a YouTube-worthy goal or unless Pavel Datsyuk is participating in the shootout. You have been a strong advocate of getting rid of the shootout and I’m on board with the idea. But what’s the solution? Is it 10 minutes of 4-on-4? Is it five minutes of 4-on-4 and then five minutes of 3-on-3? How can we make it so that the action that we saw in the five minutes of overtime on Tuesday night doesn’t end abruptly to have a breakaways decide a great game?

Hurley: 1. Rask started most of those games because Timmy T couldn’t handle the lighting at MSG! Remember? The lights were different for Tim!

2. You’re such an awful person for throwing my 10-minute, 4-on-4 period in there like you thought of it. Let the record show that’s my solution.

Actually, for years I (mostly jokingly) argued that the NHL should have five minutes of 4-on-4, and if it’s still tied, then five minutes of 3-on-3, and if it’s still tied then 2-on-2, and if it’s still tied then GOALIE DEATHMATCH AT CENTER ICE.

Because that’s a little extreme, and because we’d run out of goalies pretty quickly, I propose a simple 10-minute period of 4-on-4 hockey. I freaking love 4-on-4 hockey. I’ve been to three games at the TD Garden this season that have featured full five-minute periods of overtime, and they’ve all been thrilling. It’s like taking the best players on the planet and throwing them into an arcade game for five minutes. D-men get forced out of their comfort zones to be a part of odd-man rushes, then they get stuck out of position and lead to another odd-man advantage going the other way. Goalies are forced into hyper-mode, and the game is an all-out frenzy for 300 seconds.

Then they stop it abruptly and start a breakaway contest.

It makes no sense.

If you were showing an alien around earth and wanted to introduce it to the sport of hockey, you could show it five minutes of 4-on-4 overtime and the little freak would be in love with hockey forever. Five more minutes of that, and how many ties would we really end up with? You’d have to think that with 10 minutes of all that open ice, one team is going to be able to bury one goal.

And why do we hate ties so much to begin with? Is it really because fans don’t like the feeling of going home after a tie? For one, since when does the NHL give a crap about how fans feel? But even more so, when has that ever been a consideration in a league deciding the rules which govern its standings?? That’s insane. And thirdly (I could go until 12thly but I’ll stop), don’t fans feel worse when they leave a game which their team lost in a shootout than they would if their team had just tied? This isn’t rocket science here. Why are we having shootouts?

Oh, and if you take away the automatic point of making it to overtime, with a tie resulting in one point apiece and an OT win giving two points to the victor and bupkis to the loser. That would only make that 10 minutes of 4-on-4 overtime even better.

And I’m not even someone who out and out hates the shootout. I just prefer watching hockey.

Keefe: You told me today you were going to give short, concise answers because no one wants to really hear what you have to say. So much for that like your diet.

I don’t really miss ties because I had seen my fair share of ties in real life as a child, but you’re right the NHL doesn’t care about the fan at all, so why start by eliminating ties and changing the record books and point system and goalie’s records? It doesn’t make sense. If Gary Bettman is going to be the worst commissioner to ever run a major sports league in North America, he might as well go all the way with it.

Bring back ties! Bring back the red line! Add “obstruction” to penalties again since penalties aren’t already the result of “obstructing” something! Have North America vs. the World for the All-Star Game and bring back the Goalie Goals competition to the Skills Competition! Sign a deal with FOX! Let them make the puck glow again!

The NHL.com video player is currently the worst piece of technology available and it works like something from 1999, so why not just change everything in the league back to a time when Jaromir Jagr led the league in scoring with the Penguins, Ron Tugnutt posted a 1.79 GAA and Byron Dafoe was playing goal for the Bruins? There’s a good question: What happened to Byron Dafoe? That might be an entire email exchange itself. “Bruins Goalies Between Andy Moog and Tim Thomas.” I think I know what our next email exchange will be about. And if it isn’t about that I’m sure we’ll talk again between now and Opening Day in the Bronx.

Hurley: I’m not sure what happened, but I’m nearly positive your brain just completely stopped working for a few paragraphs there. I’m not sure how it all came out in English. I don’t even know what to say. I don’t know when we’ll talk again, but how about this — don’t email me. I’ll email you.

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