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Tag: Wayne Gretzky

Podcasts

Jul 30, 2015

Podcast: Dan Overlock

“Two-a-Days” from The Dan Patrick Show joined me to talk about working for Dan Patrick, the behind-the-scenes stuff from the show, the incredible man cave and the best guests and interviews on the show.

I have always been a fan of Dan Patrick going back to his time with ESPN and then with his radio program The Dan Patrick Show. It’s a show that has a little bit of everything and always seems to have the biggest guests in the sports world and those guests tend to open up a little more on the show than on other shows and in other settings.

Dan Overlock, who is part of The Dan Patrick Show and who is known as “Two-a-Days” on the show, joined me to talk about working for Dan Patrick, the behind-the-scenes stuff from the show, the incredible man cave in Milford, Conn. and the best guests and interviews on the show.

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Blogs • NHL

Jan 27, 2015

The 2014-15 NHL All-Animosity Team

This year’s team is a little different, but there are some familiar faces in the lineup, including a goalie on his way out of the league.

Martin Brodeur

NHL All-Star Weekend has always held a special place in my heart. My feelings about a skills competition and an exhibition game in which there’s no physicality, defense or anything that resembles NHL hockey other than nasty dangles are probably unshared. But when you’re a kid growing up with stars like Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Ray Bourque and Brian Leetch and watching them wear those black and orange gems each winter on a weekend afternoon, it’s something that stays with you.

Even though Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin weren’t in Columbus this weekend and Henrik Lundqvist was home in favor of goalies of much lesser abilities (Hi, Jaroslav Halak), I still watched and still paid attention to the 60th NHL All-Star Game, the first in three years. Well, I paid more attention to the skills competition than the game, but I still paid attention. And since I don’t always agree with the selections for the All-Star Game, a couple of years ago I decided to build my own version of an All-Star team. The one difference is that this team is built up of players I don’t like.

(Of course the first time since I started creating these teams that Brian Boyle is eligible to be on it, he isn’t.)

FORWARDS

Milan Lucic
Welcome back, once again! After leading the 2012-13 team and 2013-14 team, Lucic is back on the 2014-15 team.

It wasn’t long ago that Lucic was considered to be Cam Neely 2.0 in Boston following his 30-goal regular season in the Bruins’ Cup winning 2010-11 season. But after watching his goal totals decline over the last three years, Lucic has just nine goals in 47 games for the Bruins this year. Instead of hearing from Boston about Lucic’s all-around game, it’s more likely you’ll hear about Lucic connected to trade rumors. During the Bruins’ struggles around the holidays, the Boston sports media was hoping they could create some package involving Lucic to send him to Edmonton in exchange for Taylor Hall because every team is willing to give away their former No. 1 overall pick for a power forward in the middle of a three-plus year slide. (Actually, Edmonton would be the team willing to do that.)

The Bruins have cap issues and because of this, Lucic could be playing for another team in 2015-16, and judging by every team’s eagerness to give out bad contracts and throw money at any and every free agent, teams will be lining up to offer Lucic a big payday. If he plays himself out of Boston and off the Bruins, there might not be a place for him on the All-Animosity Team going next year, but his three-year run on the team will always be a memorable one.

Alexander Ovechkin
My animosity toward Ovechkin has declined since Sidney Crosby officially won the Crosby-Ovechkin Debate (which was never really much of a debate anyway) and I no longer have to spend time and energy defending and supporting the best player in the world against a pure goal scorer, who couldn’t care less about what happens in his own zone.

In the Road to the NHL Winter Classic on EPIX, Capitals owner Ted Leonsis referred to Ovechkin as the most pouplar athlete of the four majors sports in Washington D.C. and I questioned it at first, but when put against Bryce Harper, Robert Griffin III and John Wall, I agreed with Leonsis. After watching Ovechkin attend the Wizards game in the EPIX series and seeing him act like a normal person and not a four-time 50-plus goal scorer and one-time 65-goal scorer, I actually kind of liked him. And then watching him hope to be the last pick in the All-Star Game to win a free car, despite being possibly the best pure scorer in the world, I actually liked him a little more. I’m a Crosby guy and always will be, but maybe there’s room to be a fan of both? Maybe Ovechkin’s personality is playing him off this team?

I’m sure I will be back to being anti-Ovechkin in March when the Rangers and Capitals play again and he spends the entire night taking shots at every Ranger on the ice. Even though I will annoyed, it will put a smile on my face that my animosity toward Ovechkin is back.

Brad Marchand
I had to figure out a way to make room for Brad Marchand on the team and that meant either cutting Alexander Ovechkin or Chris Kunitz. I didn’t cut Ovechkin, even though I actually don’t have as much out-of-game animosity toward him as I do for Kunitz. By “out-of-game” animosity, I mean that I don’t mind Ovechkin when he’s not playing a game against the Rangers, or a playoff game, and putting fear into me every time he’s on the ice or every time the Capitals get a power play. Kunitz, on the other hand, makes me angry to just think about since his career has taken off with the Penguins thanks to playing with Sidney Crosby, yet people continue to consider among the league’s elite players, which was never more true when he was given a spot on Team Canada in the 2014 Olympics. I thought about putting Kunitz on D for this team and sort of making a power-play unit out of the team, but then I decided … actually, wait, that’s a great idea! Put Kunitz on defense and cut Dion Phaneuf, who couldn’t be any more irrelevant as the captain of the downfall of the Maple Leafs.

Marchand is the ultimate player who you hate to watch your team play against, but would love if he were on your team. He’s dirty and annoying, he’s a pest and nuisance, but he’s good. Or at least he can be good. There are stretches where you wonder why it looks like he doesn’t care and other stretches where he’s involved in every play and leading an unstoppable forecheck. His lapses in judgment and total disregard for player safety are what makes him hated and in the Rangers-Bruins game on Jan. 15, there he was earning a two-game suspension for slew-footing Derick Brassard (a technique that Marchand turns to frequently). The only thing worse than Marchand’s antics in that game were Jack Edwards and Andy Brickley calling the game for NESN and saying they didn’t see a slew-foot.

DEFENSEMEN

Zdeno Chara
I don’t know how Chara would feel knowing that on this team Milan Lucic wears the “C” instead of him, but if he were upset about it, I would have no problem throwing an “A” on his jersey for him.

It’s weird to think that the Bruins will retire Chara’s number one day considering the team they were when they signed him and the team they have become now seven years later. But Chara is as big of a reason as anyone in the Bruins’ turnaround from finishing the 2006-07 season with 76 points to eventually winning the Cup and being in another Cup Final. It felt like it would be at least another three decades until the Bruins won again when Chara arrived in Boston and he should be recognized for … wait a second … this is supposed to be about why I don’t like Chara. In that case, let me repurpose what I said about him last year:

Jack Edwards will likely tell you that Chara is the best defenseman in the league, but he’s the same guy who thinks fights are decided by whichever plays ends up on top of the other player on the ice. Is there anything worse than when broadcasters talk about Chara’s 108-mph slap shot in the Skills Competition in a real game? No, there’s not. Because there are a lot of times in real games when you get to sprint untouched from the blue into a still puck in the slot and rip a bomb into an open net. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg that is the lovefest for the 6-foot-9, one-time Norris Trophy winner.

Chris Kunitz
The Rangers’ 3-1 series comeback against the Penguins in the Eastern Conference semifinals last year was an amazing five days, in which any shot, bad bounce or deflection could have ended the Rangers’ season a month earlier than it lasted. And aside from the jubilation from watching the Rangers come back against a team that had its way with the Rangers in the postseason forever, came the jubilation of watching Chris Kunitz score once in the series.

I moved Kunitz back on D on this team just to keep him on and it was a move I had to make after originally thinking of leaving him off this year’s roster. But the more I thought about him and the more I thought about him putting up stats and getting paid as the product of playing on a line with the best player of this generation, I had to find a way to keep him on the team.

When I was in college in Boston, there was a place called New York Pizza next to the Boston Common on Boylston St. that I would always eat at 2 a.m. at the earliest when I wasn’t exactly sober. I swore to everyone that visited me that New York Pizza was the best pizza in Boston and every person I told this to agreed with me because I would take them there after a night of drinking. It wasn’t until one time when I went to New York Pizza in the middle of the day and had a slice and could barely get two bites down that I realized that the alcohol had masked the true taste of the pizza. Chris Kunitz’s career pre-Sidney Crosby was me eating New York Pizza sober in the middle of the day and Chris Kunitz’s career with Sidney Crosby has been me eating New York Pizza drunk.

Last year, I said, “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,” and I believe that to be 100 percent true. And because that’s true, let’s stop pretending that Chris Kunitz is the type of player that he isn’t.

GOALIE

Martin Brodeur
Like last year … was there any other choice? And unless you’re a Devils fan or have changed your stance on the Ten Commandments, then you will agree with Brodeur as the starting goalie once again.

Yes, I stole that line from myself from last year. And maybe there were other choices (cough, cough, Carey Price, cough, cough), but with Brodeur set to retire on Thursday after trying to play at the age of 42 for the St. Louis Blues, it made sense to bring him back one more time.

Rather than ride off into the sunset as a lifetime Devil, who could have enjoyed a final game in New Jersey last season, Brodeur had to come back this season. After 1,259 games with the Devils, his stats will always have those glaring seven games at the bottom of the list. Sure, he added three more wins to his all-time record of 691 wins, but it’s unlikely that number will ever get touched, so instead of leaving it at 688, it’s now at 691 with a little bit of stink on it.

There are some players that are just supposed to play for one franchise forever and Brodeur is one of those players, considering he has been on the Devils since I was in kindergarten. Yes, I said KINDERGARTEN! Very rarely does a Ray Bourque-like move work out and instead it just gets weird when someone like Brian Leetch, who was a Ranger for 17 years, ends up playing 15 games for the Maple Leafs and 61 games for the Bruins at the end of his career.

I also said that about Brodeur last year and now that he’s no longer a one-team career guy, it’s a shame that he put on another jersey in an attempt to try to hang on to the only thing he has known to do in the winter for his whole life. I thought Martin Brodeur would retire at the end of last year and he should have. But now that he will make it official on Thursday (barring another Roger Clemens-like midseason comeback) it’s time for me to say it again:

I will miss Martin Brodeur when he retires, but my animosity for him will stay the same.

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Blogs • Team USA

Feb 19, 2014

Team USA-Czech Republic Thoughts: We Want Canada

I was worried that Team USA drew the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals, but it turned out there was nothing to worry about with this Team USA against that Czech Republic team.

I wanted Team USA to draw any team other than Czech Republic in the quarterfinals of the Olympics. But after winning all three first-round games and having a better goal differential than Canada and Finland, Team USA’s reward for earning the 2-seed was the winner of Czech Republic-Slovakia. And Czech Republic-Slovakia meant Czech Republic.

Canada ended up drawing Latvia and Finland ended up drawing Russia. Team USA got stuck with the Czech Republic, the 1998 gold winner, and a team still boasting household names, even if those names don’t hold as much meaning because of age.

But being so worried about the Czechs upsetting Team USA for the last few days was all for nothing. Here are the Thoughts from the game.

– When James van Riemsdyk scored just 1:39 into the game, I thought we could be in for another laugher, and for a quarterfinal game, we kind of were … eventually. After the Czechs tied the game up less than three minutes after van Riemsdyk’s goal and dominated play for the first period, I thought we might be in for a USA-Russia-type game. Instead Team USA won by three goals and their wins now in the tournament have been 7-1, 3-2, 5-1 and 5-2 for a combined 20-6.

– Czech Republic had plenty of quality first-period scoring chances that they didn’t capitalize on, but the play they did score on was when Ryan McDonagh shot the puck off Ryan Suter and over Jonathan Quick in an attempt to clear the puck. McDonagh must have learned how to score on his own net from Dan Girardi since he has had enough examples to watch from his teammate.

– Jaromir Jagr was part of the Czech’s 1998 gold-medal team. To put into perspective how long ago that was, here are some members of the 1998 Team USA roster: Pat LaFontaine, John LeClair, Tony Amonte, Bryan Berard, Joel Otto and Gary Suter. And here some of the 1998 Team Canada members: Wayne Gretzky, Ray Bourque, Joe Sakic, Steve Yzerman, Eric Lindros and Trevor Linden. (Eric Lindros was the captain for Canada over Gretzky, Bourque, Sakic, Yzerman, anyone. That is real life.)

Even Petr Nedved played for the Czech Republic. He is 42, last played in the NHL in 2006-07 and I think he still has mid-90s TUUKs on his skates. At 37, Patrik Elias actually seemed like one of the Czechs younger players.

– Phil Kessel (6), Paul Stastny (2), David Backes (3), Dustin Brown (2), Cam Fowler, Joe Pavelski, Ryan McDonagh, John Carlson, Ryan Kesler, James van Riemsdyk and Zach Parise have all scored. Prior to the Olympics, I thought leaving Bobby Ryan off the team was the biggest mistake because of Team USA’s lack of goal-scoring ability, but it hasn’t been an issue. All four lines are capable of putting the puck in the net and the combinations created by Dan Bylsma and his coaching staff have worked out perfectly.

– Casual hockey fans knew Patrick Kane, Phil Kessel and Zach Parise before the start of the Olympics and now everyone knows T.J. Oshie. But David Backes, despite being the captain of the Blues, is a name that should be growing in popularity for those who weren’t familiar with his game.

Backes doesn’t garner the attention of some of the flashier names on Team USA since he doesn’t put up superstar offensive numbers, but his game is certainly one to be admired. He played his best game of the Olympics against the Czech Republic and that’s saying a lot since he has looked great throughout all of the games in the tournament. It’s enjoyable to watch Kane dangle, Kessel fly and Parise create, but it’s also fun to watch Backes overpower defensemen in the corners and take over the play in the offensive zone.

– With Team USA holding a 5-1 lead for most of the third, I couldn’t help by check in on the Canada-Latvia game, which was tied 1-1 until 13:06 of the third. Latvia had one NHL player on its roster (Zemgus Girgensons of the Sabres) and started a goalie (Kristers Gudlevskis) who has played in the AHL and ECHL this season, but they hung with the Canadians for the entire game and kept all of Canada on edge for 53:06 of the game. I only say 53:06 and not 60:00 because Canada dominated the play, outshooting Latvia 57-16, and you knew that once they scored the seemingly inevitable second goal it would be over.

If Latvia had won, it would have made for a great story for the 48 hours leading up to a USA-Latvia game (and it would have made for a great story in Latvia forever), but USA-Latvia isn’t what we want even if it’s the easier way. It’s been 34 years since Team USA won the gold and it wouldn’t feel right if Canada wasn’t part of ending the drought.

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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

Jun 21, 2013

Retro Recap of Alain Vigneault’s Introductory Press Conference

The Rangers introduced Alain Vigneault as the 35th head coach in team history leading to a Retro Recap of the press conference.

Sam Rosen had more enthusiasm than usual while opening the press conference to introduce Alain Vigneault as head coach of the Rangers. It’s been a while since Rosen could talk and act positively around a Rangers head coach with John Tortorella making Rosen the team’s media scapegoat during the 2012-13 season, but on Friday at Radio City, Rosen could be himself with Tortorella long gone.

The press conference didn’t last long and nothing of any real importance was said during it. James Dolan talked and no one listened. Glen Sather talked and told us about the latest personnel decision he had made after firing another failed coach that he had hired. Alain Vigneault talked and gave us a little perspective into who he is and the type of person he will be. The media asked questions. Vigneault answered them. Sather answered a few. Vigneault answered a few more. And then the press conference was over. It went exactly the way a press conference for a new head coach who has coached zero games for his new employer and knows little to no one on the roster personally could go. But that didn’t stop me from taking notes during it for a Retro Recap.

***

James Dolan starts the press conference by saying, “I want to say thanks to John Tortorella, he served us well,” (served us well?) to immediately bring back the bad taste in everyone’s mouth that Tortorella left with the Rangers’ second-round embarrassment. Thanks Jim!

Dolan bumbles around his words and the podium like an entitled rich, spoiled brat who should be doing anything in life other than owning the Rangers (and Knicks). He reads his opening remarks off either notecards or a piece of paper like a fourth grader running for student council without ever promising to extend recess or put candy and soda vending machines in the cafeteria. But Dolan says, “Winning a championship is the Rangers’ first and only goal” (though he could have left the words “first and” if it truly is their “only” goal), so he at least tried to endear himself to Ranger fans like a Steinbrenner.

Dolan continues to ramble on while Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister” plays at a soft, but irritating level like a light drizzle in the background. I have now minimized the press conference seven times searching for the autoplay ad playing the song on my computer only to realize someone effed up streaming the video online and the song here is to stay until they notice.

Hey, soul sister
Ain’t that mister mister
On the radio, stereo

Dolan continues on and mentions Vigneault’s “success” (we’ll get to the usage of that word later) during his time in Vancouver, referring to the Canucks as the “Canooks.” What’s the chance Dolan can name one player on the Canucks whose last name isn’t Sedin? The answer is 0 percent chance. Dolan says Vigneault “knows how to get the best performance out of the entire roster.” The same roster he couldn’t name a non-Sedin on. I feel like he googled “nice cliches to say about a sports coach” and added it to his student council speech this morning.

Hey, soul sister
I don’t wanna miss
A single thing you do
Tonight

Dolan’s time ends without him giving us anything that will become a YouTube sensation and without giving the Daily News or Post anything like his lollipop-eating antics from MSG. So far, a successful morning for Jim.

Next up, Glen Sather.

If you thought this day would be about Vigneault, think again! Sather brings back the bad taste just when you thought the throwup that you swallowed after it came up in your mouth had settled, there it is again.

“I also would like thank John Tortorella for the work he did here,” Sather says. Eff it! Let’s all thank John Tortorella today! Let’s just bring him out on the stage and sit him right next to Vigneault!

Sather rambles on (without notes!) about how impressed he is by Vigneault and what he will do for the Rangers for the next five years (so, I guess it was a five-year deal).

“Alain likes to be called ‘AV,’ so I’m going to call him ‘AV.'” Umm, OK? Sather also makes it clear that everyone can call him “AV.” So I now have permission to call him AV. However, he doesn’t have permission to call me NK.

I’m not going put quotations around AV anymore since that’s his name now. He asked for it.

When speaking about why AV was chosen as the 35th head coach in Rangers history, Sather talks about how he wanted an offensive-minded coach and says, “The game has changed a little bit in the last three to four years.” Wait, what? Sather knew three to four years ago that the game changed? He hired John Tortorella four years ago. Tortorella’s system/approach/style has nothing to do with offense and everything to do with blocking shots, dumping and chasing and forcing skilled scorers to muck it up in the corners. Only Sather could admit to hiring and extending a coach, who is wrong for the team and the time, without actually admitting it. Ladies and gentlemen, Glen Sather!

Here’s the 35th head coach of the New York Rangers for at least the next five years, or possibly longer if he wins, or possibly shorter if he loses.

Vigneault starts by making a promise he might regret later. “I don’t intend to let them (Dolan and Sather) down.” You want might want to slow down there Vigneault. If Dolan said the Rangers’ only goal is to win a championship and he just hired you to win that championship and you just said you won’t let him down, well you basically just guaranteed to win the Stanley Cup in your first sentence as Rangers head coach.

“I’m coming here to win,” Vigneault says, “And there’s no doubt in my mind that this is organization is committed to winning the Stanley Cup.” (For reference: he pronounced it or-gan-eye-za-tion like a good Canadian.)

Vigneault talks about walking around the Rangers practice facility and looking at the pictures from the last time the Rangers won the Cup and I can’t help but think if those pictures are in black and white. Did pictures have color in 1994?

“It’s real clear to me there’s no better place to win the Stanley Cup than here in New York.”

Now that we have the guarantees and reckless predictions out of the way that come with every new hire press conference, it’s time for questions from the media.

The first question goes to Stan Fischler because who else would get to ask the new Rangers head coach a question other than Fischler, who predicted the Rangers over the Bruins in 5 and tweeted “If Boston wins series, I will eat beans for a week.” (How were those beans, Stan?)

Fischler doesn’t ask his usual nonsensical questioning, but instead tries to be a real reporter (or whatever he is) and asks, “Can you define your philosophy of the game? How is it going to be different from John Tortorella? What is AV’s coaching like?”

It took Fischler four seconds to use AV for the first time since being given permission from Sather to do so. But instead of having Vigneault talk down to Fischler in a tone that makes everyone other than Fischler aware at how unnecessary his question is like Tortorella would do, Vigneault actually gives him a reasonable and respectful answer.

“I like my teams to play the right way,” Vigneault says before going on to talk about how he wants his offensive players to be creative. “If you have space and time to carry the puck, carry the puck.”

Let me get this right. There are coaches who actually encourage their talented offensive players to create things on the ice? There are coaches who don’t want players like Rick Nash and Marian Gaborik to bang bodies in the corners? Is this real life?

“Offensive players have to be given the latitude to make something out of nothing.”

I’m starting to feel the way I did on that July morning in 2010 when I woke up to Cliff Lee being traded to the Yankees. Is David Adams going to ruin this for me too?

AV is saying all the right things and making me believe in him to the point that I don’t care that Sather passed over Messier and probably ruined the relationship between Messier and the Rangers. If AV says he can fix the power play, I will be buying a Brian Boyle jersey at the conclusion of this press conference.

Sather is asked if the job came down to AV (I think I’m only going to refer to him as that from now … I think I have to) and Mark Messier?

“We had a list of 13 candidates and I narrowed it down to nine,” Sather says. “I interviewed two in person and four over the phone. But no, it wasn’t just between AV and Mark.”

OK, we know that AV and Messier were candidates. I’m pretty sure Lindy Ruff was in there too. So that’s three. So who were the 10 other candidates? Let’s figure it out.

1. Wayne Gretzky – “The Great One” had to be one of the 13 after being rumored to be interested in the job and being such close friends with Sather even if Sather didn’t stop Peter Pocklington from trading Gretzky to Los Angeles. There’s no doubt in my mind that Sather could have prevented that trade if he wanted to and his supposed threatening to resign was likely fake.

2. Guy Boucher – He did a good job in Tampa Bay when you consider his goalies were Anders Lindback and Mathieu Garon. He deserves another chance somewhere when you think about some of the coaches in the league who have been given numerous opportunities with less ability.

3. Mike Sullivan – Vigneault mentioned how he talked with Sullivan at the practice facility. Was Sullivan driving the Zamboni or working at the snackbar? Wait, he’s still with the organization? I actually like Sullivan and think he would make a good head coach at some point again, but can you really keep on Tortorella’s right-hand man from the past few seasons? I don’t think you can.

4. John Tortorella – Would anyone be surprised if Sather fired Tortorella only to rehire him and sign him to an even longer-term deal? This is the GM who has one conference finals appearance as his “success” in New York over 12 seasons we’re talking about here. Since I started writing this, John Tortorella was hired by the Vancouver Canucks. If they rioted for losing the Stanley Cup, what are they going to do for this? Just burn the city to the ground?

5. Tom Renney – Renney is an assistant with the Red Wings now, but maybe Sather realized he messed up when he got rid of Renney in the first place for Tortorella because of Tortorella’s misleading 2003-04 Cup in Tampa Bay?

6. Mike Keenan – Keenan was a lot like Tortorella and there’s a good chance the 1993-94 Rangers would have won the Cup without him and probably would have won it in easier fashion. But Keenan has been able to hang around the organization and MSG Network for quite some time. Good luck in the KHL.

7. Pierre McGuire – McGuire hasn’t been a head coach since 1993-94 with the Whalers, his only stint as a head coach in the league. But you know that McGuire thinks he is capable of returning to lead a team because he can rattle off any player’s hometown, local youth hockey program, junior team, home phone number and Social Security number at will. What? You wouldn’t want McGuire getting the Rangers fired up by telling them to “Enjoy themselves!” and to “Go have some fun!” minutes before a game?

8. Pat Leonard – John Tortorella told the Daily News beat writer to “stop coaching” when he asked Tortorella a reasonable question last season, which technically meant that Leonard was coaching. So maybe Sather took notice and thought about going a different route with his decision.

9. Bryan Trottier – Brian Cashman didn’t think Javier Vazquez’s miserable second half in 2004 and a certain Game 7 disaster were enough to not bring him back for a second time. So why would Sather not bring back the man he gave his first coaching job to and who went 21-26-6-1 (remember when the NHL decided to have four categories in the standings thinking it would be a good idea?) before being fired and replaced by the next man on this list…

10. Glen Sather – The man himself. Why would Sather make himself head coach of the Rangers … again? (He coached 90 games combined over the 2002-03 season and 2003-04 season.) Better question: Why wouldn’t he? Nothing Sather has done during his time as GM when it comes to selecting a head coach has made a whole lot of sense, so why would this?

But Sather chose Vigneault despite these 12 candidates and chose him while every free-agent coach had the Rangers at the top of their list. Sather could have had any coach in the world and he chose Vigneault. That tells us that either Vigneault was the best possible candidate or that Sather still doesn’t know how to correctly pick a head coach. I’m hoping it’s the former, but history tells us that the latter is the more likely option according to statistics.

Back to the press conference…

I just realized “Hey, Soul Sister” stopped playing.

“It’s an Original 6,” Vigneault says about the Rangers. “It’s got a chance to win. It’s one of the elite teams in my opinion in the NHL.”

“It’s?” Are the Rangers a horse? An elite team? Sure, they made the conference semifinals and were essentially a Top 8 team this season and reached the conference finals a year ago and were essentially a Top 4 team then, but elite? Hmm, I’m not sure after the way the Bruins series went if we can call the Rangers elite right now. Let’s call them a “good” team for now.

Vigneault makes a joke about getting hired by saying, “I did find out it’s a lot easier to negotiate a contract when you got two teams after you instead of just one.” Sather doesn’t like this and tries to joke back. Dolan really doesn’t like this and throws his lollipop in the trash.

Why does AV think he was fired by the Canucks?

“Well that’s a question you should ask them,” Vigneault says. “I do want to say though that I enjoyed my time in Vancouver.”

Here’s the real answer why he was fired, which could save you time if you were planning on asking the Canucks like AV instructed: AV was fired because he didn’t win the Cup. He won five division titles, two Presidents Trophies and lost in the 2010-11 Final, but he never won it all and that’s why he was fired (this is the “success” part I said we would talk about later and there’s a reason “success” has quotations around). Pretty straightforward.

Someone asks Glen Sather whether he expects either Mark Messier or Brad Richards to be part of the organization next season.

“I don’t think this is an appropriate place to talk about player decisions,” Sather says. “It’s a day for AV and I think we’ll stick to the coaching.”

I didn’t expect Sather to actually give a real answer to that question and the person who asked it should have realized they wouldn’t get a real answer either and they should have saved everyone time by not asking it. (Beat writers! Reporters!) I don’t think Richards will be back even though I think he should be back, but that decision has most likely already been made.

As for Messier, it’s a weird spot. How is he supposed to continue to serve as a special assistant to Sather when Sather didn’t hire him and he would have to work with AV and make decisions about AV’s team when AV was picked over him? I would have been happy with Messier as the head coach and wanted him to be the head coach, but it looks like his time with the team might end (for now) the way Don Mattingly’s did.

The press conference went about as well as it could for a coach who won’t coach his first game for a little over three months. Vigneault said all the right things and answered every question the way you would have wanted him to and maybe New York (his third head coaching job) will turn out to be what Chicago has been for Joel Quenneville (his third head coaching job) and what Boston has been for Claude Julien (his third head coaching job).

If it works out, Vigneault will lead the Rangers to their first Cup since 1994. If it doesn’t work out, well at least he’s not John Tortorella.

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