James Dolan Strikes Again

Maybe in hindsight it was too good to be true. For the last twenty years, Rangers fans always had the satisfaction of knowing that no matter how bad things got, at least ownership stayed the hell out of it. James Dolan's fixation with his beloved Knicks gave the Blueshirts the cover they needed to operate under the radar, free from any interference. 

Well not anymore. Dolan, who single-handedly turned one of the premier franchises in the NBA into a laughingstock, apparently found out that he also owns the hockey team currently residing in the same building. So Wednesday afternoon, the man who thinks he knows something about professional sports, decided to fire team President John Davidson and GM Jeff Gorton.

I'll get around to the ramifications of this house cleaning and what it means for the organization going forward in just a bit, but first, I gotta talk about the Wilson situation. 

I've been a fan of hockey since I was a teenager. I've made no secret of the fact that this sport, when it's played well, is one of the most exciting sports to watch. But that's the caveat: "when it's played well." Because all too often, this sport that I love has been dragged into the mud.

47 years ago this Wednesday, Dave Schultz pummeled Dale Rolfe in game seven of the 1974 semifinals at the Spectrum. The Broadstreet Bullies, as the Flyers were known back then, were notorious for beating up their opponents. Just think the movie "Slapshots" only worse, because unlike the fictional team that was a bunch of vagabonds, the real-life team managed to win consecutive Stanley Cups in the mid-'70s. Indeed, they would've won three in a row had it not been for the '76 Canadiens who were too quick for the plodding Flyers. 

The NHL would have you believe that they've made great strides since those dark days. Goons like Dave Schultz have been banished and the league no longer tolerates such behavior. Really? Tell that to Artemi Panarin, the 170 pound Rangers winger who was picked up like a rag doll by 220 pound Capitals winger Tom Wilson and slammed to the ice Monday night. It was a miracle that Panarin did not hit the ice head first or he might very well have cracked his skull open.

The circus that occurred at the Garden two nights later, which saw over a hundred minutes in penalties doled out between the Rangers and the Capitals, is a direct result of the league not dealing with Wilson the way it should have. Wilson, at the very least, should've been suspended for ten games. Instead, all he got was a $5,000 fine. What would Wilson have gotten if Panarin had been hospitalized, two tickets to a Broadway show?

If this is the NHL that Gary Bettman believes has made great strides, no wonder it isn't taken seriously by sports networks like ESPN. As far as I can remember, hockey has been mired in last place; a distant fourth behind football, basketball and baseball. It is garbage like this that is partly responsible. 

Name another professional sports league that allows its stars to be brutalized the way the NHL does. Go ahead, I'll wait. Do you know what would happen if an opposing player grabbed LeBron James by the neck and threw him to the court or picked up Tom Brady and drove him head first into the turf? I can tell you exactly what would happen. That player would be pumping gas at an Exxon station. His career in that league, or any other league for that matter, would be over. In the NHL, not only doesn't that happen, deep down the league actually encourages it. As Sean Gentille sadly and correctly pointed out in The Athletic, "This is a feature, not a bug."

And that "feature" gives league officials like George Parros, Director of Player Safety - an oxymoron if ever there was one - the excuse they need to look the other way. Seriously, putting Parros in charge of player safety is like putting an elephant in charge of peanut distribution. The man scored 18 goals and racked up 1092 penalty minutes in 474 games. To put that in perspective, Nick Fotiu had 60 goals and 1,362 minutes in penalties over 646 games. Think about that. 

A goon in charge of player safety and a commissioner giving a wink and a nod to behavior unbecoming a professional sports league. What's it gonna take for the NHL to wake up, a tragedy? We came dangerously close to that happening Monday night. Artemi Panarin, thankfully, didn't suffer a serious injury. The next player might not be so fortunate.

Now onto Dolan.

This is the most bat-shit crazy thing this organization has done since Phil Esposito fired Michel Bergeron with two games left in the 1988-89 season. In fact, it's even crazier. At least that year, the Rangers were going to the playoffs, and Esposito felt that Bergeron had lost control of the team. This year's team, while still mathematically alive for a playoff spot going into Wednesday, was literally on life support. To put it bluntly, I'd have had a better shot of scoring a hat trick than the Blueshirts had of making the postseason, and I can't even skate. 

Clearly, Dolan did not like what he was seeing and felt he couldn't wait until the end of the season to make a change. And as I pointed out in an earlier piece, there was a lot to be concerned about. This team, for all its talent, does not have the foot soldiers necessary to contend in today's NHL. Leaving aside the Wilson incident, the fact that they get pushed around by bigger teams like the Islanders and Bruins is a red flag that must be addressed. The last three games against the Islanders in which the team got outscored 13-1 was probably the breaking point for Dolan. 

So where do we go from here? First off, the announcement that Chris Drury is taking over in the dual role of President and GM is good news. Drury has been in the organization for the last six years and was hand-picked by Gorton. He knows the personnel and is widely respected around the league. Indeed, the fact that he was interviewed for two GM spots - Pittsburgh and Florida - bodes well for the Rangers. 

The problem here is the owner. Is he going to give Drury the time and space he needs to fix what's wrong? Or is he going to meddle like he did with the Knicks and really fuck things up? Time will tell which it is. If it's the former, then this should work; if it's the latter, expect a repeat of the nightmare we've seen with the Knicks over the last two decades.

Regarding David Quinn, it's 50 / 50 whether he'll be back. Coaches that go three seasons without making the postseason - and apparently last year's play-in round against the Hurricanes didn't count as a playoff appearance - typically don't survive. Don't be surprised if Drury replaces Quinn. The question is with whom? Kris Knoblauch has done an outstanding job with the Hartford Wolf Pack this year and he was behind the bench with Drury for a few games earlier this season when Quinn and his coaching staff were sidelined with Covid. 

If Drury decides to go outside the organization, one possible candidate could be Arizona Coyotes' head coach Rick Tocchet, who is unsigned past this season. While the Coyotes have underperformed, most of that is due to a lack of offensive talent. Defensively, the team has been in the top six two of the last four years, and last season it beat the Predators in the play-in round.

As far as the personnel is concerned, Drury will have to thread a needle between the talent he has and the muscle he needs. It's a delicate balance, but this team cannot take the ice next season without significant changes and they will have to come via trade and/or free agency. Thankfully, Gorton didn't make any senseless trades at the deadline. That means Drury will have a boatload of cap space with which to work with during the offseason. And with several teams at or above the cap, the Rangers should be in a position to sign one or more players.

One of those players is Blake Coleman of the Tampa Bay Lightning. An unrestricted free agent, the 29 year old earned $1.8 million this year and is a solid two-way forward who can play center or either wing. He scored 13 goals in a shortened season, and at 200 pounds, he'd be a perfect fit on either the second or third lines. Drury could offer him a four-year deal at $4.5 million per and the Lightning would be hard-pressed to match it. 

I would also re-sign Brendan Smith to a one-year contract. The 32 year-old defenseman has proven his worth down the stretch, and until Braden Schneider is ready to take his spot on the third defensive pairing, Smith is more than capable. Plus I like the way he took on Wilson Wednesday night. It takes balls to go up against a 220 pound opponent who 48 hours earlier almost put one of your teammates in the hospital. Good for him.

Speaking of defensemen, the St. Louis Blues are up against the cap and Vince Dunn, who's making $1.875 million, is a restricted free agent after this season. Did I forget to mention he also weighs 200 pounds? The Rangers could offer the Blues Zac Jones and next year's number one for him. A four-year deal for $5 million per should get it done.

Center ice is a huge question mark for this team. Mika Zibanejad and Ryan Strome are both entering their walk years. Do the Rangers keep both, one, or neither? Zibanejad is making $5.3 million and will command a huge increase. Strome at $4.75 isn't going to be cheap either. The smart move is to trade one of them. And what about Flip Chytil? Is he ready to take over as the second-line center? If not, what can the Rangers get for him? And what about Morgan Barron? The kid scored his first goal of the season against the Caps Wednesday night, and at 220 pounds, he could be just what the doctor ordered. Or he could be a bust. It will be up to Drury to figure out who stays and who leaves.

And lastly, some final words on Davidson and Gorton. While the rebuild was overall a success, it was not without its share of mistakes. The decision to re-sign Tony DeAngelo during the offseason, as I wrote back in February, was "indefensible." It showed an utter lack of judgement on the part of both men. DeAngelo's tweets and his track record with past teams were problematic even before the defenseman took a swing at his own goaltender. Fortunately, the organization will be able to get rid of most of the cap hit when they buy him out this summer, as DeAngelo is under 26.

Then there's the draft. Leaving aside Alexis Lafreniere and Kaapo Kakko, who were no-brainers, some of Gorton's draft picks left something to be desired, as well. A few, like Lias Andersson, have been outright busts, and some just lack the physical size to compete with other NHLers. Take Vitali Kravtsov, for instance. Yes, the Russian winger is talented, but the same year the Rangers drafted him, the Islanders nabbed Oliver Wahlstrom out of Maine. Kravtsov is 189 pounds; Wahlstrom is 205. Seeing a pattern? Drury has to stop this love affair with European players. As gifted as many of them are, the Rangers simply have too many of them. A steady diet of North American players over the next couple of years should help cleanse the system.

The season is over come Saturday. The rebuild will now be a retool. Rangers' fans will have to wait and see if Chris Drury is the man who can turn this young, promising team into a bonafide contender. 

"Trader Dave" Silences the Haters

I have two questions for the man posing as Giants general manager. Who are you and what have you done with Dave Gettleman?

Seriously, in the past eight NFL drafts, five of which were with the Carolina Panthers, Gettleman hadn't once traded back. And with six picks in this year's draft, including the 11th pick in the first round, it was looking very much like number nine wasn't going to be any different.

And then...

The Philadelphia Eagles, who had the 12th pick in the first round, decided to leap frog ahead of the Giants, and took DeVonta Smith, considered by some as the best receiver in the draft, with the 10th pick. There's no doubt Gettleman had Smith on his board and would've taken him had he been there, so you can just imagine what the scene was like at MetLife Stadium after the Eagle selection.

With Smith gone, Gettleman examined his options. He still wanted a receiver but pondered possibly taking Micah Parsons, the linebacker from Penn State, who everyone and their grandmother had rated the best defensive prospect in the draft. That's when the Chicago Bears entered the picture. The Bears had the 20th pick and they were looking for a quarterback, having struck out trying to pry Russel Wilson away from Seattle.

Since the 49ers threw a monkey wrench into everything and chose Trey Lance instead of Mac Jones with the 3rd overall pick, the conventional wisdom was that Bill Belichick would grab Jones with the 15th pick. That left Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields available. But would Fields still be there at 20? That was the sixty-four thousand dollar question. No one knows who initiated contact, but when all was said and done, the Bears and Giants swapped first round picks and the Giants wound up getting the Bear's fifth round pick this year and the Bear's first and fourth round picks in 2022. 

Given it was Gettleman's first trade down, it was a nice haul. Not only did he get a quality receiver in Kadarius Toney with the 20th pick, he accumulated valuable draft capital for next year's draft, which almost everybody agrees will be deeper and richer than this one.

Gettleman wasn't remotely done trading, though. He swapped second round picks with the Dolphins and netted their 2022 third rounder. And with the 50th pick, landed outside linebacker Azeez Ojularo, one of the best pass rushers in the draft. Then in round three, he traded up and snagged cornerback Aaron Robinson, who many analysts thought was a mid- second rounder.

As a result of Gettleman's wheeling and dealing, the Giants had one of the best and most productive drafts that they've had in years. They filled two needs - receiver and edge rusher - and fortified a strength - the secondary. The Giants now have one of the deepest secondaries in the league and have the pass rusher they've been looking for since the glory days of the Tom Coughlin era.

Two years ago, Dave Gettleman panicked and used the 6th overall pick on Daniel Jones when he could've gotten him with the 17th pick. In so doing he let a valuable defensive player in Josh Allen slip away and he was justly ripped for that blunder.

This time around, Gettleman didn't panic. He used his leverage to not just improve the present roster, but the future one as well. With two number one picks in next year's draft, the Giants are well positioned to either improve on what they already have or combine both picks and trade up to draft a new quarterback if they decide Jones isn't the second coming of Eli Manning after all.

It's a position the organization hasn't been in in a very long time. And it's long overdue. Bravo, sir.

Bi-Polar Rangers Aren't All That Hard To Figure Out

We've seen this movie all too often throughout the season. It's a familiar pattern. The Rangers go on a hot streak and torch a few, shall we say, lower echelon teams, which gives fans hope that this rebuild, which started three years ago, is now on the verge of producing tangible fruit. Then they get shut down by a top-caliber playoff team and just like that, the air is let out of the balloon. As Robin Williams used to say, "Reality, what a concept."

After Sunday's drubbing of the Buffalo Sabres, the Blueshirts have the sixth best goals for and against differential in the NHL at plus 33. Their 164 goals are third best in the league; only the Capitals and Penguins have scored more. They are also the only team to have five players with 40 points or more. Their penalty killing is sixth best and they lead the league in short-handed goals. All very impressive stats.

And yet even with all that, this team is still four points behind the Boston Bruins for the last playoff spot in the East Division, with the Bruins having two games at hand. And their 56 points ranks as only 14th best out of 31 teams in the league. That is most certainly NOT very impressive.

So what can we surmise from these two sets of conflicting data? Simply put, the Rangers are two very different teams depending on the opposition. Against opponents that don't cover their own zone very well or prefer to play a wide open brand of hockey, the Rangers do extremely well. Their east/west style of play, so reminiscent of those free-wheeling '80s teams, allows them to generate scoring opportunities that lesser-skilled teams simply cannot compete with. Witness what they did to the Philadelphia Flyers and New Jersey Devils, two teams that are to defense what Napoleon was to height. Twice, the Rangers routed the Flyers (9-0 and 8-3), and against the Devils, they swept a recent four-game series in which they did not trail for a single second.

But against the Islanders, Capitals, Bruins and Penguins, teams that are considerably more disciplined in their own end and tend to employ a north/south brand of hockey, the Rangers have had a tough time generating offense. Stars like Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin, deprived of their ability to create off the rush, are reduced to virtual non-factors. For example, so far this season, Zibanejad has scored three hat tricks. The first two came against the Flyers in the above-mentioned routs; the third came against the Sabres this past Sunday. Take away those 9 goals and Zibanejad has a grand total of just 10 goals in 46 games. That comes out to about 18 goals over the course of a full season. And keep in mind, eight of those 46 games were against the Devils, a team they've beaten six times.

Conclusion? This is very talented team with serious flaws that must be addressed in the offseason if it is ever going to become a playoff team, much less a contender. Yes, there are a lot of rookie and second-year players on the roster, but that shouldn't be an excuse. Adam Fox and K'Andre Miller are not the problem here. Nor is Kaapo Kakko and Alexis Lafreniere. Fox is having a Norris-trophy type season, Miller is fast becoming a dependable defenseman, and Kakko and Lafreniere are improving with each game.

No, it is the core of this team that is the main problem. In short, the stars just aren't pulling their weight. In addition to the issues Zibanejad and Panarin have against tight-checking teams, Chris Kreider is a 210 pound player who plays more like a 170 pounder, which has rightfully earned him a demotion to the third line. Filip Chytil, now in his third season, has yet to blossom into the top-six forward the Rangers were hoping he'd be. And while Ryan Strome has done a good job centering Panarin, he too has a habit of disappearing in big games. Plus next season is his walk year.

With so many red flags, you'd think Jeff Gorton and John Davidson would've gotten the memo by now. Yet every indication is that they don't think there's anything all that wrong, at least not with the forwards anyway. The defense, well that's another matter. 

Larry Brooks of The New York Post is reporting that during the offseason the Rangers made an offer to 43 year-old Zdeno Chara. According to Brooks, it was serious enough that they were "in the hunt until the last minute" before Chara finally decided to sign with the Capitals. Granted, Gorton had no way of knowing that Miller would develop so quickly, but the move reveals both his and the organization's thinking. And that thinking is deeply concerning.

Because this team, even with all its flaws, is still mathematically alive for a playoff spot, and the fear is that coach David Quinn will keep playing the same horses that have consistently come up short in the crunch. Meanwhile, Morgan Barron, a center who had a good year in Hartford and is 220 pounds, still hasn't been called up. Julien Gauthier, a 230 pound winger, hasn't played in weeks because for some strange reason Quinn is still in love with Brett Howden, despite the fact that Howden has a whopping one goal and six assists this season.

There's no other way to put this. Quinn is making a tactical error that may help him in the short run but will come back to bite him in the long run. What he and Gorton should be doing with the remaining games this season is to find out what they have in the cupboard. Barron and Gauthier should be in the lineup and given significant ice time. Vitali Kravtsov should be paired alongside Panarin to see whether he is the real deal. And it is time to find out if Kakko was worth the second overall pick two years ago.

If I were in charge I'd set my lines up this way: 

Forward Line One: Lafreniere, Zibanejad, Kakko

Forward Line Two: Panarin, Chytil, Kravtsov

Forward Line Three: Kreider, Strome, Buchnevich

Forward Line Four: Rooney, Barron, Gauthier

Defense Pairing One: Miller, Trouba

Defense Pairing Two: Jones, Fox

Defense Pairing Three: Lindgren, Smith

By moving Lafreniere, Kakko, Chytil and Kravtsov up to the top six, the Rangers will be able to evaluate who will be the odd-man out during the offseason. And make no mistake about it: not all of these forwards are going to be here next season. One or more may be dangled in a trade to get the help this team needs. It is essential that Gorton and Davidson make an "informed" decision before pulling the trigger. What the organization can't afford to do after going through this rebuild process is to have the player or players they give up come back and haunt them for the next decade. It's been 45 years since Rick Middleton was given away for Ken Hodge and 34 years since Mike Ridley and Kelly Miller were sent packing for Bobby Carpenter. Rangers' fans still haven't forgiven the team for those colossal blunders. Some wounds never heal. The goal should be no more blunders.

On defense, Zac Jones has looked real good so far and has even gotten some time on the second power-play unit. He picked up his first assist against the Sabres, Sunday. Pairing him with Fox makes sense. The more ice time this kid gets the better he'll become. And let's not forget that Braden Schneider - all 200 pounds of him - is waiting in the wings. Imagine a one-two punch of Trouba on one defense pairing and Schneider on the next. Not bad. Trust me, defense is the last thing management should be concerned about. They're loaded.

The bottom line is this: The Rangers are not a playoff team. Despite some flashes of brilliance, the sauce isn't quite cooked enough. What management should be doing is getting all their cards lined up so they know whether they have a full house or a pair of duces.

Rangers Do the Right Thing and Stand Pat

The trade deadline came and went and Jeff Gorton didn't flinch. The man who three years ago let millions of Rangers fans know via a letter that the team which had twice gone to the conference finals and once to the Stanley Cup finals was going to be torn down and rebuilt, resisted the urge to take a short cut and stood pat.

Not that it was all that difficult a choice for Gorton. The players who were available were, for the most part, rentals at best and came with a high premium. To give up a first round pick for a player who not only would've been gone in a couple of months but would've taken a valuable spot away from an up and comer, might well have set the whole rebuild back a year, maybe more.

And while the team has taken something of a step backwards in its development this year, the immediate future looks quite promising. The Kid line of Filip Chytil, Kaapo Kakko and Alexis Lafreniere is finally starting to click; newcomer Vitali Kravtsov picked up his first point against the Islanders on Sunday; sophomore Adam Fox is tied with Victor Hedman for the most points among defensemen; and, as we speak, the Rangers are in the process of signing UMass phenom defenseman Zac Jones to an entry level contract. I expect him to make his professional debut soon.

Not counting Tony DeAngelo - whom they will surely buy out - the Rangers will have an extra $13 million in available cap space to play with going into next season. More than enough to work out a trade for Jack Eichel, assuming the Sabres aren't unreasonable in their demands. Gorton would've been nuts to panic now.

Indeed, the Rangers, despite the prospect of missing the post season three out of the last four years, are sitting pretty when it comes to the salary cap. Virtually every team from the Islanders to the Tampa Bay Lightning is going to have to make some tough decisions about which players they can retain and still stay under the cap, which for the foreseeable future is going to be flat at $81.5 million. Apart from extending Pavel Buchnevich to what will likely be a hefty raise, I don't anticipate Gorton having any issues with his contracts.

And then there's the Seattle expansion draft, where each team is allowed to protect seven forwards, three defenseman and one goaltender. Here again, the Rangers are in the cat-bird's seat. Thanks to a plethora of entry-level contracts that exempts almost a third of the roster from exposure, it's entirely possible the Blueshirts will emerge as the only team in the league to remain intact going into next season. Gorton couldn't have designed this any better if he'd tried.

That's not to say that everything is hunky dory over at the Garden. Far from it. There are still a lot of unanswered questions concerning the makeup of this team. They have way too many east-west type players that can bury the puck if you give them the room, but when you take away their passing lanes and force them out of their comfort zone, they tend to disappear. The three-game sweep at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes last year, as we now know, wasn't an anomaly; it was a red flag. They're way too soft, and management must find a way of injecting some muscle into this bunch if they are ever going to take the next step forward.

But even with all that, things are looking up for this organization. The glass is more than half filled, and by this time next year, this young and, at times, exciting group of players, should be a playoff team.

Rangers Are To Blame for DeAngelo Nightmare

Let's be clear, here. The Tony DeAngelo nightmare did not start after Saturday's overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in which the troubled defenseman took a swing at goaltender Alexandar Georgiev over the latter's admittedly costly mistake. Nor did it start with his tweets, which were problematic to say the least.

Indeed, if we're going to be thorough, you could say it began years ago. He was suspended twice in the OHL for slurs and abuse of officials and once in the NHL for actually going after an official. Head coach David Quinn benched him two games for getting hit with a misconduct in the third period of the opening game of the season. Clearly, he was a loose canon just ready to go off.

To be frank, it wasn't just his support for Trump that was a red flag; it was his propensity for trafficking in racist tropes and picking fights with fans on Twitter that should've sounded alarm bells in the bowels of the Ranger organization. It is inconceivable that team president John Davidson and G.M. Jeff Gorton didn't know what was going on, and both must now bear the brunt of the blame for the disaster that the franchise must now deal with.

The decision to sign DeAngelo to a two-year $9.6 million deal is indefensible. Period. Yes, he was a restricted free agent, meaning had the Rangers not made him an offer he probably would've been awarded a one-year arbitration deal. But the Rangers could have walked away from that deal, making him an unrestricted free agent. Had they done that, it is highly unlikely another team would've signed him given that the Rangers were unable to move him during the offseason.

So now Gorton has the unenviable task of trying to get a team - any team - to take the problem child off his hands. Good luck with that. Even a team with the cap space needed to take on DeAngelo's contract will want nothing to do with a player with that much baggage. That means that this team, which is currently playing musical chairs with players on its own taxi squad just to stay in compliance with the league salary cap, will have to buy out yet another contract after this season is over. Oh goodie.

Fortunately for them, because DeAngelo is under the age of 26, they will only have to eat one third of the remaining $5.3 million he's owed on the backloaded contract, which comes out to $883k annually for two years. But the point is they didn't have to go through this. They have two young, promising defensemen in their system - Nils Lundkvist and K'Andre Miller - who are a year away from making the team. They could've moved Brendan Smith over to the right side until Lundkvist is ready to take the reigns. And they would've saved themselves almost $10 million worth of cap space in the process. Cap space they would now give their eye teeth to have.

I have been patient with Davidson and Gorton, primarily because the core they are assembling has the potential to one day be a Stanley Cup contender. But there have been hiccups along the way. The buyout situation is growing alarming. Including Henrik Lundqvist, who was bought out during the off season, the Rangers currently are carrying almost $13 million in dead cap space. And while that number will go down by about $8 million next season, the DeAngelo buyout, if it happens, will bring it back up.

But here's the greater issue. That Davidson and Gorton looked the other way with someone like DeAngelo sends the wrong message, especially to a player like Miller, who is the first African American to wear a Rangers uniform. And Davidson's explanation in his press conference that this was about "freedom of speech" is absurd on its face, something that in his days as a TV analyst he would've decried.

The New York Rangers may not be the most successful hockey organization in the NHL, but even in the days of Sonny Werblin, it would never have allowed something like this to fester within its ranks. Hopefully, the braintrust has learned its lesson and won't repeat this colossal mistake.

End of an Era

It's official: Henrik Lundqvist has been bought out by the New York Rangers. An era has come to an end. 

15 seasons, 459 regular-season wins (6th all time), 61 postseason wins and one Vezina trophy. Had it not been for his acrobatics in the 2014 playoffs, the Rangers would never have made it out of the first round, let alone all the way to the finals.

An argument can be made that, apart from Mark Messier, Lundqvist is the most valuable player ever to wear the uniform. And given how many good players the Blueshirts have had in their proud history, that's quite a statement.

But as valuable and great as the King has been, it was time to turn the page. It was obvious that no team was going to trade for a 38 year-old goaltender, especially one with a $8.5 million cap hit - $4.25 with a 50/50 split - so the Rangers did what they had to do.

And now this team - officially the youngest in the NHL with the trade of Marc Staal to the Detroit Red Wings - has $23 million of available cap space with which to sign their four restricted free agents and maybe even their one unrestricted free agent, assuming GM Jeff Gorton and Jesper Fast can agree on a contract. In short, the Rangers, with the addition of first-round pick Alexis Lafreniere, will field a considerably deeper team next season than the one that was dispatched in three straight by Carolina.

This is a sad day, a bittersweet day, in New York Rangers history. A legend is gone. But it was a day that was a long time coming. Lundqvist was the oldest player from the team that went to two conference finals and one cup final. It never did drink from the Stanley Cup. Hopefully, Gorton and team president John Davidson will assemble a team that can close the deal and capture the championship that alluded its predecessor. 

 

Rangers Can't Afford To Get Sentimental Over Lundqvist

Face it, growing old sucks. Trust me, I know. I'm 59 going on 80. And that's on a good day. I can't imagine what it must feel like to be an athlete and to grow old. The window for a professional athlete is extremely small. Most don't survive for more than a decade without serious decline setting in.

For the better part of 15 years, Henrik Lundqvist has been an elite goaltender who was almost single-handedly responsible for the Rangers advancing to the Stanley Cup finals in 2014. And if his team had managed to protect multiple two-goal leads in games one and two against the Los Angeles Kings, it is quite likely that the Blueshirts would've captured the Cup that year and the King, as he has come to be affectional called, would've been awarded the Conn-Smyth trophy.

Alas, that wasn't the case. The Rangers blew those two-goal leads and with it the series, losing in five. The following year (2014-15) the team won the President's trophy only to lose to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the conference finals. From there, it's been all downhill. Back-to-back early exits in the first and second rounds respectively, followed by a two-year hiatus from the playoffs altogether.

All that brings us to this past season. A young coach and a very young team with an aging goalie, who looks more like a backup than a perineal Vezina trophy winner. Were Lundqvist making what most backups make, he'd be a steal. But with a salary cap hit of $8.5 million, he's a luxury this team can no longer afford.

In an earlier piece, I wrote that the Rangers had approximately $13 million available cap space with which to sign their RFAs and UFAs. In actuality, it's $14 million, so they shouldn't have all that much difficulty, right?

Wrong.

Turns out I neglected to factor in all those ELCs that the team is carrying. What is an ELC, you ask? That would be an entry level contract, and the Rangers have a boat load of them. While on the surface, it may seem as though players on entry level deals are quite cheap insofar as the cap is concerned, if you look under the hood, they're not quite as cheap as you might suspect.

That's because virtually all ELCs carry what's called a performance bonus that if a player hits, entitles him to additional money. And that additional money, as you might expect, gets added to the cap. According to Capfriendly, the Rangers would need to set aside roughy $7 million in cap space if all their ELCs were to hit their bonus levels.

How likely is that to happen? Let's put it this way, would you want to take a chance that Igor Shesterkin wins the Vezina and Kaapo Kakko scores something like 80 points and have to pay out more than $5 million in bonuses between them, only to find out you don't have enough cap room and are now relying on the benevolence of Gary Bettman to avoid what will almost assuredly be a substantial penalty? I sure as shit wouldn't.

So, long story short, that $14 million is now, for all intents and purposes, $7 million, which barely covers the cost of re-signing Ryan Strome and Brendan Lemieux. The former is an absolute must. There's no way this team can afford to go into next season without a number two center, not unless you think Filip Chytil is ready to assume those duties. And from what we saw last season, that would be an enormous risk, one that the franchise would be reckless to take. You don't commit $11 million a year to arguably the best left wing in the NHL in Artemi Panarin and not have a legitimate center to feed him the puck. Strome and Panarin were - to coin a phrase from the movie Forrest Gump - peas and carrots. You don't split that pair up unless you're pretty damn sure you have someone in the wings who can step right in and assume the role.

So let's say Strome agrees to a two-year bridge deal for $5 million a year, and Lemieux re-signs for, say, $2 million. Now what? You're at your cap limit, and you still have at least two players left to sign. Without shedding some salary, you're basically rolling the dice hoping your young players under perform. But what would be the point of that? Either these last three years have been worth it or they haven't. The truth is nothing would accelerate this rebuild more than to see Kakko have a breakout season alongside Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider.

And let's not forget, there will be one pretty substantial young player joining the team next season: Alexis Lafreniere, the overall number one pick. And unless the scouting reports on this kid are severely off, he will likely hit his performance bonus with room to spare, meaning the Rangers would need to set aside at least $2 million for him, not the standard $925,000.

You can see where this is going. If it sucks getting old, imagine what it must be like being the GM of the second youngest team in the league with a lot of holes to fill and not enough available cap space to fill them.

That's why it is imperative that the Rangers buy out Lundqvist's contract. Sure it adds more dead cap space to an already mountainous total, but Gorton has no other choice. He needs the $3 million in cap relief to help him fill out his roster, and even then, he'll have to get creative.

This is the part of the game nobody likes. A player who has given everything he can for an organization that came up short twice and is now on the verge of putting together a core that will hopefully be together for many years, is now the square peg in a round hole, and that sucks. If there was another way to do this, I'm sure the Rangers would've found it by now. 

He isn't going to retire, nor should he, and in a league with a flat cap and with several teams needing to shed salary themselves, no one is going to trade for a 38 year-old goaltender that is at least two years removed from elite status. Even with the Rangers picking up half the tab, you're still talking about $2.75 million. Think about it this way: the Rangers will likely have to fork over $2 million just to re-sign Alexandar Georgiev, and he's 24. Get the idea?

It's been a nice career for Hendrik Lundqvist; a brilliant career, in fact. As I've said before, he's the best Ranger never to win a Stanley Cup, but it's time to move on. Gorton knows it and so does Lundqvist.

Parting is such sweet sorrow, especially when it's bittersweet.

Post script, 

Breaking News: the Rangers announced Saturday that they have traded defenseman Marc Staal and a 2021 second-round draft pick to the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for future considerations. Staal was in the final year of a contract that paid him $5.7 million. Detroit was able to absorb the full amount of Staal's cap hit because they were significantly under the minimum and actually needed to add salary.

Given this development, the Rangers might decided not to buy out Lundqvist but I would still do it. The added cap space would help them acquire a solid left-handed defense partner for Jacob Trouba - Vince Dunn? - and allow them to re-sign Tony DeAngelo who had a good year offensively last season.

Major Decisions for Rangers This Offseason

Over the next couple of months, the New York Rangers will have to make a number of major and tough decisions regarding how this team will look once the 2020-21 season gets underway. John Davidson and Jeff Gorton have their work cut out for them.

A number of sports "analysts" have chimed in with their opinions, and with the rare exception or two, you can tell none of them have ever run a professional sports franchise. That notwithstanding, I thought I'd dip my big toe into the pool and see if I drown. Spoiler alert, I don't swim.

The Number One Pick: Under no circumstances should Davidson and company trade this pick, not even for the proverbial king's ransom, which for the record hardly ever resembles a ransom, much less a king's one. I've seen most of the prosed trade packages and not one of them makes sense, not even the one involving the Senators sending the Rangers the number three pick along with Brady Tkaczuk in exchange for the number one. No disrespect to Tkaczuk, who is a solid two-way forward, but at best he's a 25 goal scorer. You don't trade the overall number one pick for a player you can get in the middle of the first round in any given year.

Even if Alexis Lafreniere isn't the second coming of Jaromir Jagr, he's still better than anyone the Blueshirts have at left wing, including, dare I say it, Artemi Panarin. The moment he steps onto the Garden ice, he instantly becomes one of the best forwards on this team, and if he does in fact become the next Jagr, he will be the generational player this franchise hasn't had since the days of Mark Messier. Only a fool would trade that away, and I don't believe either Davidson or Gorton are fools.

Second-Line Center: Do the Rangers re-sign Ryan Strome or do they look elsewhere? I know I've beaten this like a dead horse, but thanks to the Kevin Shattenkirk buyout last year, the Rangers will have just north of $13 million in available cap space to attempt to resign four RFAs and one UFA. That's not a lot of space, given that Strome is arbitration eligible and will likely command a hefty raise from last year's $3.1 million contract.

If the braintrust decides to look elsewhere, the pickins are slim. A trade for the rights to Tampa Bay Lightning center Anthony Cirelli - the current fave of the peanut gallery - will come with a huge price tag. The Lightning will almost certainly demand something close to equal value in return, and that return has to something they can retain given their own cap problems, which are considerably worse than the Rangers. I'm thinking Filip Chytil and Vitali Kravtsov. Assuming the Blueshirts say yes, which they shouldn't, they will likely have to pony up about $6 million per over the next six years. That's roughly 45 percent of the available cap space. And I'm not even sure Cirelli is worth that kind of money given that he's scored a measly 5 points in 13 playoff games and he's currently the number two center on this team with Steven Stamkos out with an injury.

The smart move is to re-sign Strome to a two-year bridge deal for about $5.5 million per until you find out if Chytil is the real deal or not. If Strome doesn't pan out, you can always leave him exposed in next year's expansion draft. Hell, he's already been on three teams in five years, what's one more team in the grand scheme of things?

Henrik Lundqvist: Let's not beat around the bush. With the exception of Messier and Brian Leetch, no one has done more for this franchise over the last 30 years than The King. He deserves a better fate than the one that's currently awaiting him, which is to be a backup for 24 year-old Igor Shesterkin. Gorton has already said the Rangers will not go into camp with three goalies, so assuming they sign Alexandar Georgiev, that means Lundqvist is the odd man out.

The only question remaining is whether Lundqvist retires, which would give the Blueshirts all $8.5 million of his cap hit to play with, or he gets bought out, which would leave $5.5 million on the books next season and $1.5 million on the books for 2021-22. Obviously, the former would be a dream come true, but seriously, if you were Lundqvist would you leave that kind of money on the table knowing that you might be out of hockey next year? I sure as shit wouldn't.

With trade options severely limited by 1. Lundqvist's age (38) and 2. his no trade clause, the consensus is that he will be bought out. And that would mean the Rangers would be carrying a staggering sum of $13 million in dead cap space going into next season; 16 percent of the NHL salary cap. Anyway you slice it, that's insane. This is what happens when you sign players in their 30s to very long contracts with no movement clauses.

Lack of Toughness: Unless you believe in flukes, what you saw in Toronto was a Rangers team that got bounced around by the Hurricanes. We saw this all too many times throughout the season: a team with very creative forwards that wasn't adept enough to win the battles in the trenches. More often than not, the goaltending saved their bacon, but not in the Qualifying round. When push came to shove, the Blueshirts got handed their lunch and dinner with dessert on the side.

Obviously, the team needs a transfusion of toughness in order to succeed in the postseason. Perhaps Gorton can trade Pavel Buchnevich - who's in his walk year anyway - for a scrappy winger who isn't afraid to take a hit or initiate one. Or he can just promote a couple of the meatier forwards already in the system like Morgan Barron and Austin Rueschhoff, both of whom can play either center or wing and weigh 220 pounds each. Combined with Julien Gauthier, another 220 pound winger that was obtained from the Hurricanes last year, and Brendon Lemieux - a must sign - the Blueshirts could finally be the team with a chip on its shoulder instead of the other way around. I firmly believe that when it comes to hits, it is far better to give than to receive.

Left Defense: It's no secret that the left side of this defense after Ryan Lindgren is a major liability. Both Marc Staal and Brendan Smith are over 30 and at least two seasons removed from being legit starting defensemen. Staal, in particular, was about as slow as a freight train stuck on the 7th Avenue Express. The good news is that both players are in the last year of their contracts, which means they will be gone after next season. The bad news is that their contracts - $5.7 and $4.35 million for Staal and Smith respectively - make it virtually impossible for them to be traded, even with the Rangers absorbing half of the load. So what to do?

Well call me a fool, but I believe in improving where you can. With the recent, shall we say, "issues" in Arizona, the Coyotes find themselves with no first round pick in either this or next year's draft. The Rangers could dangle the number one pick they got from the Carolina Hurricanes in the Brady Skjei deal for 22 year-old left-handed defensemen Jakob Chychrun. He would instantly become their best left-handed defenseman and coach David Quinn could pair him with Jacob Trouba to make a formidable tandem. And since he's already signed to a team-friendly $4.6 million for the next five seasons, he would help solidify the one glaring weakness this team had throughout the season.

If Chychrun isn't available, the Rangers should give St. Louis a call and inquire about Vince Dunn, another solid left-handed defenseman who may be too expensive for the Blues to keep. Dunn is an RFA, so Gorton would have to come to terms with him once the two teams agreed on a trade, but somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 to $5 million per over six years should suffice. Either player would instantly slide into the number one pairing and become a staple to this beleaguered defensive corps.

Lindgren and Adam Fox would remain the second defensive pairing, and Quinn could move Smith to the right side on the third pairing, where he's played before. Staal and Libor Hajek would then alternate on the left side. When K'Andre Miller is ready (2021-22) he would take over on the left side, and if there's no one inside the organization that can step in to play the right side, they could always look outside via a trade or signing. Don't forget, most of that dead cap space will be gone after next year.

Obviously, Deangelo would be the casualty in this scenario, but if that's what it takes to shore up your top two defensive lines, then so be it. Besides, Deangelo, apart from his scoring prowess, brings a lot of baggage with him, and he's not exactly Larry Robinson on the blue line, if you know what I mean.

I'm sure there are a few other minor issues Gorton will have to attend to, but these are the biggies, as I see them. If the Rangers solve these problems, they will be able to accelerate their rebuilding process and maybe even challenge for the Cup next season.

Rangers Get the Break of a Lifetime

Well that was quite a turnaround. In less than a week, the New York Rangers went from a franchise that had just been humiliated by the Carolina Hurricanes in three straight to a franchise that just been humiliated by the Carolina Hurricanes in three straight but who won the NHL draft lottery. That's right, the second youngest team in the NHL with an average age of 25.7 years - the Blackhawks are the youngest at 25.6 - will get the honor of selecting Alexis Lafreniere with the number one pick. That's assuming John Davidson and Jeff Gorton don't lapse into the same coma their team was in last week and choose someone else.

Look, there's no way to sugar coat what happened in Toronto. In a word, it was dreadful. The Blueshirts played a total of two solid periods of hockey in the entire series, and in neither did they emerge with a lead. In fact, the Hurricanes pretty much dictated play at both ends of the ice.

I spoke about goaltending as being one of the keys to this series, and that proved to be the case. Unfortunately, it was the tandem of Petr Mrazek and James Reimer (who hadn't started a playoff game in seven years) that stole the show. Henrik Lundqvist, who was a surprise starter in games one and two when Igor Shesterkin was ruled ineligible due to a groin pull, was average at best.

Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider and Hart Trophy finalist Artemi Panerin scored one goal a piece; the latter coming on a five on three power play advantage. It would be the only power play goal the Rangers would score in the series after going 5 for 15 against Carolina during the regular season. By comparison, the top line of Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov and Teuvo Teravainen accounted for seven goals. In the end, it wasn't as close as the games' final scores would indicate.

Clearly the rebuild that started two seasons ago still has a ways to go. Davidson and Gorton have a lot of tough questions that need answering and not a whole lot of time to get them. For instance, how much stock do they put into those three games in Toronto? Was the second-half run a tease or the real deal? Does this core, as presently constructed, have what it takes to make a deep run in the playoffs? Which players do they keep and which do they show the door?

If management feels that the Hurricane series was an aberration, they will face a daunting task during the offseason. The Rangers will be carrying about $7.5 million in dead cap space next season, most of it courtesy of the Kevin Shattenkirk buyout last year. Including existing contracts, they will have just over $13 million in available cap space with which to sign RFAs Tony DeAngelo, Ryan Strome, Brendan Lemieux and Alexandar Georgiev, UFAs Jesper Fast and Greg McKegg and rookie Lafreniere. Thankfully, Lafreniere will only cost them $925,000. By the way, that supposes the kid actually plays with the big club next season. For argument's sake, let's just pencil him into the starting lineup, either on the second or third lines.

You can see the dilemma here. DeAngelo and Strome will command the lion's share of the available cap space: DeAngelo at roughly $3 mil and Strome coming in around $5. That leaves about $4 million to divvy up among the rest. Unless Lundqvist retires - a long shot - or the Rangers decide to buy him out - unwise - at least two of the aforementioned free agents will be playing for another team next season.

Frankly, depending on Lundqvist to bail out his bosses when they tossed him aside for a younger model is wishful thinking. That leaves a buyout. But before they take on more dead cap space, they should consider trading Pavel Buchnevich. Freeing up his $3.25 million salary would allow the team to promote minor leaguers like Libor Hajek, K'Andre Miller and Vitali Kravtsov. Buchnevich had a good year, but let's face it, there are players already in the system that could easily take his place. Kaapo Kakko would be an ideal choice. He was one of the few Rangers who distinguished himself against the Hurricanes last week; another was Jacob Trouba.

The Rangers should also consider moving Marc Staal, even if it means eating half of his $5.7 million contract. I suspect there are plenty of teams who'd be willing to take on an experienced defenseman for $2.85 million. Hajek and Miller both deserve a chance to prove what they can do. Having said that, I'd keep Brendan Smith. He can play both the wing and defense on either side and he's more affordable.

Moving Staal and Buchenevich, and allowing Fast to walk, would save approximately $6 million in cap space and allow Davidson and Gorton to keep this core intact. In that event, just imagine what next year's lineup could look like.

Forward Line One: 

Panarin, Strome, Kakko

Forward Line Two: 

Lafreniere, Zibanejad, Kreider

Forward Line Three:

Howden, Chytil, Kravtsov

Forward Line Four:

Lemieux, McKegg, Gauthier 

Defense Pairing One:

Lindgren, Fox

Defense Pairing Two:

Hajek, Trouba

Defense Pairing Three

Miller, DeAngelo

Goaltenders

Shesterkin, Georgiev

Time will tell what moves Davidson and Gorton end up making. But this much is certain: with Lafreniere as their number one pick and a solid core in place, this team just moved one step closer to being a contender and should be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.

Why Shesterkin is the Clear Choice for the Rangers in the Playoffs

By now David Quinn has probably made his decision as to which goaltender he's going to go with against the Carolina Hurricanes in the playoffs, and unless he saw something the rest of us didn't in the exhibition game against the Islanders, I fully expect Igor Shesterkin will start between the pipes Saturday afternoon.

It's the only choice Quinn could make. Yes, Henrik Lundqvist has started every playoff game the Rangers have been in since his arrival in the 2005-06 season. That's quite a streak, but with all due respect to the King, that's not enough to justify starting him in this round.

This team is not the same team it was back when Lundqvist was a perennial Vezina trophy finalist year in and year out. Hell, it's not even the same team it was a year ago when it was in the middle of its rebuilding effort. The fact is this is one of the youngest teams in the NHL, with an average age of just under 26, and that's with a 38 year-old goalie and two defensemen in their early 30s on the roster. After next season, it will be even younger once those contracts are off the books. To take one more stroll down memory lane for old-time sake would do a disservice to all the hard work management has done over the last two seasons.

Look, no one seriously believes this team is good enough to win the Stanley Cup this year. As I wrote in an earlier piece, if they do beat the Hurricanes, they will likely get trounced by whoever they play in the next round. But this will be an important first step for the core of this team that will allow John Davidson and Jeff Gorton to evaluate where they are in the rebuild and to determine what changes will have to be made in order to get them closer to the grail.

Frankly, this is a rather rare moment in Rangers' history. Not since the Emile Francis era has this franchise been in a position to put together a roster that has the capacity of remaining intact for more than a couple of seasons. If you recall, that team's core was together pretty much from 1968-69 thru 1973-74, and had Jean Ratelle not suffered a season-ending injury in '72 playoffs, they might've beaten the Boston Bruins for the Cup.

Since then the franchise has had its moments when it flirted with success ('79) and even caught the bear once ('94), but such moments were rare and always came with a terrible price tag. The '79 team turned out to be a flash in the pan as aging stars like Phil Esposito eventually retired and established veterans like Ulf Nilsson never lived up to expectations. The '94 Cup team was assembled by jettisoning every prospect in the system, which eventually led to a bare cupboard and a dearth of playoff appearances.

Even the most recent "run" - as some have erroneously called it - began and ended with the importing of aging stars like Jaromir Jagr, Brendan Shanahan and Marty St. Louis. Jagr played three seasons for the Blueshirts before going back to Europe, Shanahan retired after two seasons and St. Louis did the same after a year plus. The sum total for all that wheeling and dealing? Two trips to the conference finals, one to the Cup finals and zero championships.

Hopefully, this management team will not make the same mistakes as its predecessors and assemble a team that even with a flat cap can be a legitimate Cup contender and endure the test of time. If Gorton can find a way to maneuver around next year's cap hell that he, himself, inadvertently created by buying out Kevin Shattenkirk - another expensive import that should never have been signed - he's in good shape going forward to lock up his stars for the foreseeable future.

And one of those stars is Shesterkin. That's why, regardless of what happens over the next few days, he needs to start every game. Like the football Giants did when they benched Eli Manning for Daniel Jones last year, the Rangers need to make a commitment to their youngsters so that their youngsters can get the experience they need to win a title.

Maybe if Lundqvist had played with Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad in his prime instead of Rick Nash and Derek Stepan, he might've won that Cup final in 2014. It certainly didn't hurt Mike Richter any having Mark Messier and Brian Leetch for teammates on that '94 team. Great goaltenders can only accomplish so much on their own. They need foot soldiers in front of them to carry the load.

I feel bad for Lundqvist, I really do. He deserved a better fate than this. When he retires he'll be the best goaltender of all time not to win a Cup. And that's unfortunate. But unfortunate or not, that's no excuse for the Rangers to throw good money after bad.

It's Shesterkin's time. This is his team. The future belongs to the young. And the future is now.

Rangers vs. Hurricanes: An In-depth Look

The other day I previewed the NHL Play-in round and gave each series a quick synopsis. But I wanted to take a more in-depth look at the Rangers - Hurricanes matchup, because, in my opinion, this is the most intriguing series in the opening round and I thought it deserved a closer look.

First off, I agree that the regular season shouldn't be the ultimate decider when choosing a winner. Yes, the Rangers won all four of their meetings with the Hurricanes, but two of those games were close and the first - in Raleigh - could very well have been a rout for the Canes had it not been for Henrik Lundqvist practically standing on his head.

I also stipulate that this Rangers team, despite an impressive second half, is still learning how to win and was way too inconsistent for my tastes, especially on defense, where they ranked near the bottom of the league in goals allowed. Even if they do beat Carolina, the prospects for them making it past the next round are slim to none, especially if they wind up playing the Bruins.

That being said, two points separated these teams, and given that they have a decided edge at forward in goal, as well as in goal, I feel pretty optimistic about the Blueshirts chances in this series. Let's break it down.

Forward:

There's no doubt the Hurricanes' top line of Sebastian Aho, Teuvo Teravainen and Andrei Svechnikov  is quite imposing. It's arguably one of the best in the league. The Rangers will have their hands full trying to contain them. But once you get past that line, the pickens are slim. Jordan Staal is their second line center and he scored a whopping 8 goals. Trade deadline acquisition Vincent Trocheck only netted 11, one with the Canes. And Justin Williams, yes that Justin Williams, is living on borrowed time at 38. Nothing about these guys puts the fear of God into me.

The Rangers boast two of the best forwards in the league in Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad. The problem for opposing coaches is that they play on two different lines. Zibanejad scored an amazing 41 goals in just 57 regular season games. That's a higher goal per game percentage than Alex Ovechkin. He centers a line with Chris Kreider on the left and Pavel Buchnevich on the right. Panarin finished the season with 95 points and could be the best left wing in the game. Ryan Strome centers this line with Jesper Fast on the right side.

Even if you could make the argument that the Hurricanes back six forwards are better than the Rangers back six forwards, which I don't agree with, there's no denying the fact that up front at least, New York is loaded here. In fact, the Hurricanes have only three forwards with over 40 points, while the Rangers have five. Don't be shocked if David Quinn moves Brett Howden to left wing with Filip Chytil in the middle and Kappo Kakko on the right to get more offense on the third line. The kids, as they're called, are all 21 and under.

Edge: Rangers

Defense:

The Hurricanes were very stingy when it came to giving up goals. In fact, they were 6th in the league in goals allowed. And with a healthy Dougie Hamilton, this would've been a formidable group. Unfortunately for the Canes, he still hasn't fully recovered from the injury he sustained in January. If he's unable to play in this series, this will be a huge blow to Carolina.

The Rangers, on the other hand, were 24th in the league in goals allowed. They also gave up way too many shots on goal, often forcing their goaltenders to make incredible saves. But offensively, this is as good a group of defensemen as you'd want. Tony DeAngelo finished the season with 58 points, fourth best on the team, while rookie Adam Fox, a gift from the Hurricanes, had 42 points, good for seventh overall.

Edge: If Hamilton plays, slight edge to Hurricanes; if not, even.

Goal:

This isn't even close. The Hurricanes will go with Petr Mrazek, who is certainly capable, but hardly an elite net minder. How they didn't address this area during the season is beyond me. Instead of taking Brady Skjei and his $5.25 million contract off the Rangers hands, they should've inquired about either Henrik Lundqvist or Alexandar Georgiev. Either would've been a vast improvement over Mrazek.

The Rangers are the only team in the tournament to boast three number one goalies on their roster, one of which won't even dress in Toronto. Expect Igor Shesterkin to start. All he did was go 10-2 with a 2.52 goals against average. If he falters, Lundqvist is waiting in the wings. As I said, this isn't even close.

Edge: Rangers by a ton.

Intangibles:

The Hurricanes went to the conference finals last year and have the edge over the Rangers in experience, but the Bueshirts have the youth and explosiveness to overcome that. That makes them a very dangerous playoff team.

Edge: Rangers.

Coaching:

Both Rod Brind'Armour and David Quinn are second year coaches, but Brind'Armour has more relevant experience having coached his team deep into last year's playoffs, not to mention having spent 10 seasons as a player with Carolina. Both are excellent at getting their respective teams ready to play.

Edge: Even.

Based on the above, the Rangers have the clear advantage in this series. They're deeper than the Hurricanes at every position and they're more explosive, which after a long hiatus will benefit them greatly in a short series.

Rangers in four.

NHL Playoff Predictions - Play-in Round

After a four and half month sabbatical due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs will finally get under way August 1. The two hub cities - Toronto and Edmonton - will host the playoffs; Toronto the Eastern conference, Edmonton the Western conference.

The Play-in round - or as we used to call it back in the day the preliminary round - will consist of four best of five series per conference between the lower eight teams: five through twelve. The winners will play the top four teams in each conference. Because the top four teams play three games each in a round robin the final seeding is yet to be determined. That and the fact that the league has decided to reseed after each round, makes it impossible to predict what the matchups will be in the second round.

However, we do know, and have known for some time, what the matchups are for this round. Before I get into my picks, some observations. First, there's no way of knowing what effect such a long layoff will have on each team. Consider that in the 1991-92 season, the Rangers were the clear favorites to win the Cup. Then the players went out on strike just before the playoffs began, and even though the stoppage lasted only last ten days, it was enough to disrupt the Blueshirts momentum heading into the tournament. They struggled to beat the Devils in seven in the first round, then got ousted by the Penguins in the second. Just imagine what the Bruins must be thinking.

That being said, since everyone's in the same boat, my gut tells me that the best talented teams will prevail, assuming, that is, that no one tests positive for the virus. If a Sidney Crosby, an Artemi Panarin, or an Alex Ovechkin were to test positive, that would be a game changer. The fact that the playoffs are taking place north of the border in two Canadian cities where the virus for the most part is under control gives me hope that the NHL, of all the sports leagues in North America, may come out unscathed.

So, without further ado, let's get started.

Eastern Conference:

Penguins (5) vs. Canadiens (12). Forget all the hype about Carey Price possibly stealing this series for the Habs. They're just not that good a team. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh has the scoring to turn this into a laugher pretty quickly. Pens in three.

Hurricanes (6) vs. Rangers (11). Now you know why Carolina voted no to this playoff format. The Blueshirts, in addition to sweeping the season series against the Hurricanes, had one of the best second-half records in the NHL. When you consider they have two of the best forwards in the league playing on two separate lines, top scoring on the backline and superior goaltending, if Dougie Hamilton can't go, this could get ugly fast. Rangers in four.

Islanders (7) vs. Panthers (10). The Putty Tats do have balanced scoring up front, I'll give them that, but the Islanders style of play and defensive-minded system will take its toll. Both coaches are Cup winners, but only one has the players that can win in the trenches. Isles in four.

Maple Leafs (8) vs. Blue Jackets (9). If the Leafs can't win a series with all the games played in their own host city they should be ashamed of themselves. Fortunately for them they catch a break here. John Tortorella is a great coach but, unlike last season when his team swept the Lightning, he doesn't have the horses this time around. Leafs in five.

Western Conference:

Oilers (5) vs. Blackhawks (12). How pissed are the Oilers? By all rights, they should be the four seed playing round-robin games. Instead they get stuck playing the Hawks, who, let's be honest, are at least three seasons removed from being a serious playoff contender. Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid are going to have a field day. Edmonton is putting together a team that looks strangely like the one that captured five Cups in seven years three decades ago. Oilers in three.

Predators (6) vs. Coyotes (11). With Nashville, you never know what you're going to get. Since going to the finals three seasons ago, they've been perennial underachievers. Against a Phoenix team that's somewhat undermanned, they should prevail, but I wouldn't bet any money on them. Preds in five.

Canucks (7) vs. Wild (10). When J.T. Miller is your leading scorer that's not saying much. Still against a Minnesota team that did its best to put the rest of the league to sleep this season that might be enough. Interesting tidbit: Miller will be facing another ex-Rangers teammate in Mats Zuccarello, which will only mean something in New York. Canucks in five.

Flames (8) vs. Jets (9). Call this a tossup. Two seasons ago, the Jets made it all the way to the conference finals before being upset by the Vegas Golden Knights. So that's probably enough to tilt the series in their favor. Plus they have the likely Vezina trophy winner. Jets in five.

As in my past predictions, don't put much stock in these. I do them primarily for fun.

Enjoy the games. We've certainly waited long enough for them.

The NHL Says "Game On!"

The announcement that the NHL and the NHLPA have agreed on a plan to resume the 2019-20 season is good news to the millions of hockey fans throughout the U.S. and Canada. While the league still hasn't set a hard start date for play to resume, nor decided on which two locations will serve as host cities, this much we do know:

The balance of the regular season will be canceled. Any and all awards, including the Hart and Vezina trophies, will be determined based on the stats at the time play was suspended.

Each team will be limited to a total of 50 personnel, including 28 skaters and 3 goalies. The league is considering banning all fighting and requiring players to wear full face shields to reduce spread of droplets.

Training camps should begin sometime in early July, with the playoffs commencing by the end of the month or early August. The Stanley Cup final will likely be played in late September or early October, depending on conditions and length of series.

The playoff format will consist of 12 teams per conference for a total of 24. The top four teams in each conference will play a round robin to determine seeding and all will receive a bye. The final eight teams in each conference will face off against each other in a best of five as follows: 5 vs. 12, 6 vs. 11, 7 vs. 10 and 8 vs. 9. The winners of those series will go on to play the top seeds in the second round. It has yet to be determined whether those series will be a best of five or best of seven. Both the conference and league finals will be a best of seven.

The eight losers in the opening round will join the seven teams that did not qualify for the postseason in the draft lottery, which the league still plans on holding in June, even though we won't know who the losers of the opening round will be until August. They will be designated teams A through H.

Some observations on the playoff format.

There will be a total of five rounds, so even if the first two rounds are best of five, it is conceivable that the team that wins the Cup could wind up playing as many as 31 games, three more than a typical playoff season. And that means the toughest championship in professional sports to win is about to become even tougher.

Both Montreal and Chicago will qualify for the tournament under this plan, even though neither team had a winning record. While this is not the first time the NHL has had teams with sub-500 records in the playoffs, there is, understandably, some concern that either or both could pull off an upset over a better team. Last year, the Tampa Bay Lightning - the President's Trophy winner - got swept by the Columbus Blue Jackets. In a best of five, all it would take is a couple of lucky bounces here and there for lightning to strike twice, no pun intended. Still, the likelihood of that happening is fairly remote. As good a goalie as Carey Price is, the Canadiens were still a mediocre team at best; and as far as the Blackhawks are concerned, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane's best days are way behind them. Shame on the NHL if either makes it to the third round, much less the Cup finals.

The three round robin games that the top four teams in each conference will have to play to determine seeding is extremely unfair to the Boston Bruins. When the season was suspended back in March, the Bruins had an eight-point lead over the second place Lightning. Thanks to this format, they could drop all the way down to fourth, meaning if each favorite team in the opening (play-in) round prevails, they would be stuck playing a tougher opponent in the next round. Beantown should be pissed.

The Rangers caught a huge break. They were on the outside looking in when play was halted. Now, thanks to Providence, they're first-round opponent is the Carolina Hurricanes, a team they went 4 - 0 against during the regular season, and a team they stack up very well against. In fact, of all the first-round series, the Blueshirts have the best shot at pulling off an upset. In fact, here's another tidbit to nibble on. If the current seeding among the top four does not change and the league doesn't reseed after the opening round, the Rangers next opponent would be the Washington Capitals and not the Boston Bruins. While Caps are hardly chopped liver, I'd much rather play them than the Bruins. In other words, for a team that's still considered in the early stages of a rebuild, they could make it all the way to the third round. How 'bout them apples?

All things considered, this was the best possible way for the NHL to resume play. It rewards the top teams with a bye; it gives teams that were only a few points out of a playoff spot with ten games to go  a new lease on life; and by expanding the tournament to include cities like Chicago and Montreal with a postseason berth, it will generate ad revenue from those cities, which will help the bottom line of the league going into next season. Kudos to Gary Bettman for not blowing this.

Given that the NBA still doesn't know whether it will play the balance of its regular season before starting the playoffs and that Major League Baseball is currently locked in a dispute between ownership and the union over how much revenue the players will give up in a shortened season, hockey might be the only game in town this summer. The last time that happened was never.

I don't know about you but I can't wait for the puck to drop.