Rangers In A Free Fall

I have watched the New York Rangers since 1971. Trust me. I have gone through my fair share of downturns. 1976-78, 1987-89, 1998-04 & 2018-21. The 1998-04 period was particularly rough. No playoffs and some of the worst trades in franchise history. But in all that time I have never seen what happened Saturday afternoon at Madison Square Garden. The team I have followed since I was 10 years old did the equivalent of a lay down in front of 18,000 loyal paying fans. It was a pathetic performance from a group of players that last season won the Presidents' Trophy. 

I have tried as hard as I can to wrap my head around what is going on here and quite frankly I'm stumped. Not only is this team not playing well, it doesn't appear to be even trying. Against the LA Kings, they looked listless and uninspiring; as if they didn't give a shit. Small wonder they were booed off the ice after the game.

The Rangers have lost 9 of their last 12 games. At 15-13-1, they are currently in 5th place in the Metropolitan Division. Not only would they fail to make the playoffs if the season ended today, with 31 points, they are actually closer to the bottom of the standings in the Eastern Conference than they are to the top. Thank God for the Montreal Canadiens and the Columbus Blue Jackets.

I've heard all kinds of explanations for the dumpster fire currently residing at Penn Plaza. It's Chris Drury's fault for mishandling the Barclay Goodrow waiver and the Jacob Trouba trade; it's Peter Laviolette's fault for not being tough enough with his players. I call bullshit on both. 

True, Drury could've done a better job with both situations, but what was he supposed to do? The Rangers needed cap space badly and, let's face it, Goodrow and Trouba were the logical choices to be moved over the summer. The same people who are now bemoaning the way Goodrow and Trouba were treated couldn't wait to send them packing a few months ago. It was nothing short of a miracle that Drury got every penny of their cap hit off the books without surrendering anything of value in exchange. But by all means let's make him the bad guy.

Did you see what happened down in Tampa Bay? Julien BriseBois did everything except drive Steven Stamkoss to the airport; then turned around and signed Jake Guentzel to replace him. Stamkoss had played his entire NHL career with the Lightning and BriseBois showed him all the love and respect of a worn out lightbulb. Last time I checked the Bolts were in 4th place in the Atlantic Division, currently holding onto the number one wild card spot.

Spoiler alert: players get waived and traded all the time in professional sports. It's part of the business. Yes, Trouba was the captain. Guess what? Captains get traded too. Ask Brian Leetch what being a captain means. He was traded to the Boston Bruins literally on his birthday, two weeks after he asked Glen Sather not to be. General managers aren't paid to be guidance counselors or therapists; they're paid to put a competitive team on the ice. And in a league that has a hard salary cap, sometimes they have to make tough decisions about who stays and who goes.

Regarding Laviolette, yes, I'd like him to be tougher on his players. But last season this head coach, who, it should be noted, guided three different teams to the Stanley Cup finals and one to a Cup championship, was principally responsible for this team not only winning the Presidents' Trophy but setting a franchise record for most wins and points in a single season. Had they not faced the Florida Panthers, they would've made it to the finals. All of a sudden he's fucking Jean-Guy Talbot? Please spare me. 

David Quinn was too tough; Gerard Gallant wasn't tough enough. What's the excuse with Laviolette? He parts his hair on the wrong side? I agree with Larry Brooks: this core doesn't get to fire another coach. Besides, the way this team is playing, Scotty Bowman wouldn't make a difference. If you're looking for someone to put the blame on, how about the players? Last time I checked, they're the ones wearing the uniforms. Is it Laviolette's fault that Mika Zibanaejad can't hit a wide open net? Or that Ryan Lindgren can't back check worth a damn? Or that Chris Kreider has become a statue on the ice? Or that the only goal Adam Fox has scored all season was an empty netter? How is it that on a team with this much talent, its best player is Will Cuylle?

Enough with the excuses; enough with the rationalizations. It's time this group of players took a long, hard look in the mirror and manned up. It is inconceivable that a team that went to the conference finals twice in the last three years could've fallen off the cliff this quickly. So the answer must lie elsewhere. 

What isn't the answer is firing the coach and/or GM. The truth is there's more than enough talent on this team to still make the postseason. Whether there's enough pride is another matter. 

Why the Rangers Shouldn't Take Their Foot Off the Gas Pedal

As the regular season begins to wind down, the New York Rangers are currently leading the Metropolitan Division by one point over the Carolina Hurricanes. They are also in first place in the Eastern Conference and are tied with the Vancouver Canucks for the NHL lead. By any and all accounts this has been the best Rangers team to take the ice since that Presidents' Trophy winner of 2014-15.

But while this team continues to amaze even its staunchest critics, there are a growing number of fans who would prefer that they finish in second behind the Hurricanes, and you'll never guess what their reason is.

You see it has to do with which team the Rangers would face in the playoffs. If the Rangers finish first in the Metro, but second overall in the East, their opponent would be the Tampa Bay Lightning. However, if they were to finish in second, they would face either the Philadelphia Flyers or the surging Washington Capitals. The prevailing sentiment among this group is that if you're the Rangers, you'd much rather play the Flyers or the Caps than the Lightning.

There are three flaws in this thinking. I'll list them in order.

One: The Lightning aren't nearly as good as some are making them out to be. Yes, they've been hot of late, but since their last Cup in '21, they have turned over half their roster. The Rangers won the first two games of the season series 5-1 and 3-1, and were 28 minutes away from a series sweep. So thorough was their domination that halfway through the second period of game three, the Bolts had managed a paltry eight shots on goal. If that's your idea of a tough matchup, I shudder to think what an easy one would look like.

Two: Anyone who's seen this Rangers team play over the last few seasons knows all too well that they have a nasty habit of playing to the level of their opponent. For instance, some of the best games they've played this season have come against teams like the Boston Bruins, Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and Hurricanes. However, they've also had some of their worst games against teams like the San Jose Sharks and Columbus Blue Jackets. Now I'm not suggesting that the Flyers are as bad as the Sharks or the Jackets; far from it. But the idea that somehow the Blueshirts are just going to breeze by Philly is absurd. This is a John Tortorella-coached team. They will be a tough out, no matter who they play.

Three: Apparently, these fans must've been in a coma over the last twelve months, because this was the same stupidity we heard out of most of the players last season. It doesn't matter where we finish in the standings, they said, we can flip the switch come playoff time. How'd that work out? Oh, yeah, not so well. After going up 2-0 over the New Jersey Devils, the Rangers dropped four of the last five games and were unceremoniously bounced from the postseason. Arguably the most talented roster in decades never made it out of the first round. The fact is there is no switch. You're either ready for the playoffs or you're not. This is the message Peter Laviolette has tried to instill on his players from the start of training camp, and from what we've seen so far this season, that message has gotten through.

Look, are there inherent risks in going all out to finish in first place? Of course there are. But this is hockey, not baseball. You can get injured just as easily in second gear as you can in fifth. For me, the greater risk is taking your foot off the gas pedal because, as we've seen, there's no guarantee you can get the engine back up to speed.

Besides, if the Rangers finish first overall, their first-round opponent would be the last Wild Card team. That would be either the Detroit Red Wings or the aforementioned Flyers or Caps. They would also have home ice advantage throughout the playoffs. What's better than that?

Yes, there's the matter of the Presidents' Trophy curse. Turns out it's a real thing. In the salary cap era, only two winners of the trophy have gone on to win the Stanley Cup: the '08 Red Wings and the '13 Chicago Blackhawks. That's two out of a possible eighteen. Not a very good showing. And it gets even worse when you consider that the '23 Bruins and the '19 Lightning - both of whom had the best won-loss records since those legendary Montreal Canadiens teams of the 1970s - were eliminated in the first round.

But fear of a curse is no excuse for slacking off. This team is clicking on all cylinders. It would be the height of irresponsibility to throttle back now.

As the motto says, No Quit in New York!

Rangers Have the Opportunity of a Lifetime

The 2023 NHL postseason has certainly seen more than its fair share of surprises. As of last night, 43 playoff games have been played and the road team has won 27 of them. That comes out to a road winning percentage of 62.8. How unusual is that? Through the first round of last year's playoffs, the road team had won only 22 of a possible 51 games for a winning percentage of 43.1. Home cookin' it seems ain't all it's cracked up to be this postseason.

And that bodes well for a Rangers team that in a best of seven series against the New Jersey Devils, won its first two games on the road, then dropped the next two at home. In any other year, facing a game seven on the road, the Rangers would likely be polishing up their golf clubs, especially given that in ten road games last year, the Blueshirts won only twice. Though to be fair, one of those wins did come in Raleigh against the Hurricanes, so I guess anything is possible.

The Bottom line is that this will not be your typical road game for the men in blue. Not only do they have a chance against the Devils, but based on what happened last night, they should be the favorites to win. That's because last night, both the Presidents' trophy winner Boston Bruins and the Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche lost their respective game sevens in their buildings.

Presidents' trophy winners shitting the bed in the first round are not that rare an occurrence. It's happened six times in the cap era. The Bruins are just the latest example of why it's so hard to be a dominant team over an 82-game regular season AND still have enough left in the tank for a grueling playoff run. Boston looked gassed last night against a Florida Panthers team that on paper had no business being on the same ice with them. Oh, well.

But getting back to the Rangers. While the hockey gods may be favoring the road teams this postseason, by no means are they a lock to advance. That's because the Devils are one of the best teams in the NHL. Like I said before the start of the playoffs, this was the worst possible opponent the Rangers could've drawn in the first round. Since game two, New Jersey has been the better and quicker team in the series. And even though the Rangers finally managed to solve Akira Schmid in game six, it was only due to the sheer brilliance of their own goalie Igor Shesterkin that they managed to get to a seventh game. With a GAA of 1.79 and a SV% of .939, he has been, by far, the best player on either team.

But while beating this Devils team will not be an easy task, the Rangers must find a way to do so. Here's why. Both the Bruins and the Tampa Bay Lightning are gone. The Carolina Hurricanes look more like a MASH unit than a hockey team. The Toronto Maple Leafs are literally the only thing standing between the winner of this series and a trip to the Cup finals. An opportunity like this might not come around again for a very long time.

But if the Rangers need another incentive to win, it's this: The Devils are on the verge of becoming the team to beat in the Eastern Conference for the foreseeable future. Think about it. Both the Bruins and the Lightning are past their primes; the Canes, even when they're healthy, are not a legit contender; the Leafs have more skeletons in their closet than a haunted mansion on Halloween; the Islanders will never amount to anything so long as Lou Lamoriello is running the show; and the Rangers window to win is maybe two to three more years at best. To quote Elvis Presley, "It's now or never."

Chris Drury has assembled a team that is ready to win this year, not next year or the year after that. He has put all his chips on the table. A failure in the first round against the Devils will be a bitter pill to swallow for the entire organization. That is why, come hook or crook, the Rangers must find a way to not let that happen.

So how do they avoid playoff Armageddon? For starters, they must stop trying to skate with New Jersey. The Rangers may be the deeper team, but they are not the more athletic one. Trying to match speed with them is tantamount to a suicide mission. What the Rangers need to do is control the neutral zone like they did in games one and two.

That won't be easy. The Devils are not the same team they were in the first two games. To use a Star Trek vernacular, they've gone from sub-light to warp eight. Letting them off the ropes in game three might be the single-worst playoff mistake the Rangers have ever made.

Another thing they have to is dump the puck into the offensive zone and get in on the forecheck. Both the Zibanejad and Tarasenko goals in the second period of game six came as a result of the Rangers pinning the Devils in their own zone. As skilled as New Jersey is, they are not very physical. The one advantage the Rangers have is their size; they must use it or lose it.

Shesterkin will give them every chance to win tonight, but he cannot single-handedly drag them across the finish line. The stars have to come through. There is no tomorrow if they don't.

I predicted the Rangers in seven and I'm sticking with it. So far, I've been wrong twice: the Bruins and the Avalanche. Let's hope it stays that way. 

Some Disturbing, Familiar Trends for Rangers

Eight games into the 2022-23 season and a pattern is starting to emerge. Against teams that play a similar style of hockey or are just porous defensively, the Rangers are 3-0-1 and their power play has gone 5 for 17.

But against teams that play a more defensive style of hockey and clog the passing lanes, they're 0-3-1 and their power play is an anemic 1 for 13. And that one power play goal, it should be noted, came courtesy of a defensive giveaway while on a two-man advantage.

The knock on the Rangers last season was that they were a team that relied way too much on their special teams and their elite goaltender Igor Shesterkin. Despite their impressive record - second place in the Metro division, their 5v5 play was middle of the pack at best. 

The acquisitions G.M. Chris Drury made at the trade deadline last March no doubt helped the Rangers advance to the conference finals before finally petering out against the Lightning. Unfortunately, the same trends that dogged them last season have reared their ugly head this season, and if they aren't addressed soon, any hopes this team has of hoisting Lord Stanley's Cup will be dashed.

Stubbornness is their Achilles heel. This is a very talented team that genuinely believes talent alone will carry them across the threshold. Last night's shutout at UBS Arena proved otherwise. Against an Islanders team that didn't have a single goal from its centers, the Rangers were out hustled, and their vaunted power play was unplugged. Don't go by the 41 shots on goal they generated. Ilya Sorokin made maybe six tough saves the entire game.

Even against the Anaheim Ducks, a team nobody expects to be in the postseason, the Rangers were hardly overwhelming. Without the three power goals they scored, they likely would've lost that game too. They are predictable as dirt, and head coach Gerard Gallant must find a way to convince his players to snap out of it.

The good news is that when it comes to underachieving, the Rangers are hardly alone. The Lightning, Maple Leafs, Blues and Predators are 4-4, 4-3, 3-2 and 2-4-1 respectively. All four of those teams made the playoffs last season and all four are expected to return this season. Also, apart from their performance on the Island, in two of the other three losses, they had plenty of chances to win. This season, the Rangers have managed at least 35 shots on goal in six of their first eight games. Last season, they were routinely outshot by their opponents.

Look, there's still time to nip this in the bud. No hockey team wins or loses the Stanley Cup in October. But this group has to make up its mind how badly it wants a championship. As talented as they are, it was their foot soldiers who were responsible for putting the Lightning over the top. Their willingness to pay the price in the trenches was the difference between an early exit and back-to-back Cups. Drury has modeled his team after Tampa Bay. An argument can even be made that the Blueshirts are the more talented team. But like the Lightning learned in 2019 when they won the President's Trophy and were swept by the Blue Jackets in the first round, you need more than talent to win in the NHL.

With the Rangers pretty much at the salary cap ceiling, there's not much Drury can do personnel wise, at least not until the trade deadline. So the onus is on the players to right the ship. They have the grizzle, now they need to find the grit.

Here's How the NHL Can Fix Its LTIR Embarrassment

By now it's become something of a punch line within the ranks of NHL front office executives. Need more cap space? Simple, just put one of your players on long-term injured reserve. Problem solved.

It worked so well for the Tampa Bay Lightning that they tried it twice. At the start of the 2020-21 season, GM Julien BriseBois placed Nikita Kucherov and his $9.5 million cap hit on LTIR for the entire regular season, thus allowing the Lightning to be under the salary cap.  But once the postseason began, Kucherov made a remarkable recovery. I don't know what's in the water down in Tampa, but ole Kuch led his team in scoring with 32 points in 23 playoff games.

During the ensuing offseason, BriseBois decided he couldn't count on one of his players coming down with a strong case of injuritis so he traded Tyler Johnson and his $5 million cap hit to the Chicago Blackhawks for Brent Seabrook, who, by the way, hasn't played an NHL game since midway thru the 2019-20 season and whose career, for all intents and purposes, is likely over. Seabrook, in case you're wondering, carries a cap hit of $6.875 million, all of which goes on, you guessed it, LTIR.

Now you know why BriseBois is the best GM in the league, as far as I'm concerned. No other executive manipulates the system as brilliantly as he does, all with the tacit approval of the suits who work at 1185 Sixth Avenue, New York, NY. 

Well, almost no one. Kelly McCrimmon of the Vegas Golden Knights borrowed a page out of BriseBois's playbook over the summer when he traded Evgeni Dadonov and his $5 million cap hit to the Montreal Canadiens for Shea Weber. Like Seabrook, Weber hasn't played in at least a year, which means his entire $7.85 million cap hit goes on LTIR. When the Golden Knights traded for Jack Eichel last season, Eichel was on LTIR. In order to activate him, McCrimmon was forced to move Mark Stone to LTIR. Talk about musical chairs.

If this charade weren't so embarrassing, it would be comical. The NHL, in its infinite lunacy, has not only failed to close a loophole in its LTIR policy; it is giving a wink and a nod to teams that are ostensibly gaming the system in order to get a leg up on their rivals. As for the damage such ambivalence is causing to the league's reputation, well we are, after all, talking about the NHL: the only professional sport in North America that still tolerates fighting and allows its top stars to be mauled, all to appease a fanbase that looks upon the Broadstreet Bullies as the Golden Era of Hockey.

If the NHL really wanted to fix its LTIR embarrassment, these are the steps I would immediately consider implementing.

1. The LTIR would be eliminated altogether. In its place, each team would be allowed to carry a reserve fund of $10 million to be used to replace players who sustain season-ending injuries. If, for example, the Rangers were to lose the services of Artemi Panarin for the season, Chris Drury would have upwards of $10 million to spend on a replacement without having to worry about going over the salary cap.

Teams would also be permitted to use part of that reserve fund to acquire players they feel would improve their team. However, for every dollar spent on one of those players, two dollars would be subtracted from the fund. For instance, if the Rangers wanted to acquire Patrick Kane from the Chicago Blackhawks at 50 percent retention, they would use up the entire $10 million reserve fund plus be on the hook for the remaining $250,000. They also would be shit out of luck if one of their players went down for the season.

See how this works? The league gives each team the same amount of money to work with and says to them, use this money as you see fit. Those who know how to spend their money responsibly will flourish; those who don't will suffer. But the shenanigans will finally be over.

Since I don't for a minute believe Gary Bettman and the Board of Governors will ever agree to this, let's proceed to the following steps.

2. Any player that goes on LTIR during the season must be activated at least five games PRIOR to end of the regular season in order to be eligible for the postseason. If a team does not have sufficient cap space to accommodate the return of said player than it must create that space by moving another player or players off its active roster. If the salary cap is $83.5 million during the regular season, it's $83.5 million during the playoffs. In other words, the Kucherov maneuver is now kaput.

3. A player who is on LTIR cannot be traded either during or after the season. In order to be traded, that player must be eligible to play the moment the trade is consummated. Trading contracts simply to get cap relief will no longer be allowed.

4. To avoid any ambiguity as to what constitutes eligibility, the player in question must have played in at least five games during the regular season and be examined by a league physician prior to the trade. He also cannot be placed on LTIR immediately upon his acquisition. In other words, no more "Gee, he was healthy when he got here and now, look at him, he can't play" horse shit. Either you're eligible to play or you're not.

5. Teams that violate this new league policy will be subject to any or all of the following: 

• The full amount of the cap hit will be subtracted from the team's salary cap the following season.
• The team will lose the services of said player for the entirety of the playoffs.
• The team will forfeit a draft pick or picks to be determined by the Commissioner's office.

Wow, that's pretty strict. You bet your ass it's strict. And it will send a message loud and clear to every general manager throughout the league. If you can't manage your cap, get a new job.

I submit that the vast majority of teams will have no problem complying. Teams like Tampa Bay and particularly Vegas, who are still over the cap and have only 16 players on the active roster, are going to have to rethink how they conduct their business.

The bottom line is that this has become an eyesore that the NHL can no longer afford to ignore. The powers that be have got to put an end to it.

Over and Out

It's finally over. The New York Rangers' season came to a merciless end Saturday night in Tampa. After falling behind 0-2 in the series, the Lightning swept the last four games to close out the Blueshirts in six. Not even a 5-0 record when facing elimination was enough to save them. In the end, the most resilient team in the NHL simply ran out of gas. Igor Shesterkin was the only thing keeping this game from getting ugly. 

So now what?

Well for starters, let's state the obvious. This was a very successful season. Seriously, if you had the Rangers six wins away from a Stanley Cup in October, you're either a time traveler or high. Chris Drury should be commended for the moves he made both at the trade deadline and before the start of the season. They made this team deeper and harder to play against. And while we're at it, let's also give a shoutout to Jeff Gorton. Most of the players on that ice were acquired by him one way or the other. His decision in 2018 to rebuild was, in retrospect, the correct one, and it is because of his vision and courage that this franchise is on solid footing for the foreseeable future.

And despite some puzzling moves, particularly the benching of Kaapo Kakko in favor of Dryden Hunt in an elimination game, Gerard Gallant did an incredible job behind the bench all year. After three years of David Quinn, this team needed a breath of fresh air and Gallant was the perfect choice. I still maintain he should've won the Jack Adams award.

But as successful as this season was, the real work begins immediately. That's because the Rangers have a number of holes to fill and not a lot of resources with which to fill them. Indeed, they have just over $12* million in available cap space next year with only 14 players under contract. Given that the league allows each team up to 23 players, that doesn't leave a lot of room for Drury to construct a roster. If he can move Patrik Nemeth's contract in the off season, that'd give him an additional $2.5 million to play with.

The first hole is second-line center. It's practically a given that UFA Ryan Strome will not be returning. The fact that Drury didn't lock him up before the season began was a bad omen; that they traded for Andrew Copp at the deadline was a hint that they were willing to move on. But while Copp would be an improvement over Strome, Drury may elect to look outside the organization, especially if he feels Filip Chytil, who had a solid postseason, isn't up to the challenge. Mark Scheifele's name continues to pop up. The Winnipeg Jets center has two years remaining on a $6.125 AAV contract. A package of Kakko, Chytil, Nils Lundkvist and a future draft pick might be enough to pry him away.

Then there's right wing, a sore spot all season long that Drury was able to address in March with the acquisitions of Frank Vatrano and Copp. Vatrano will likely be too expensive to retain, and Copp, if he stays, it will be as a center. The news that Vitali Kravtsov was re-signed to a one-year contract at $875k, makes it clear that Drury is trying to get as creative as he can to shore up his lineup's deficiencies. The Russian winger had a falling out with the organization last fall that led him to bolt for the KHL this season. If both sides can bury the hatchet, the Rangers may have struck pay dirt here. The kid's got talent; it's just a matter of whether Gallant can harness it. And if Alexis Lafreniere can successfully make the transition to right wing, the first two lines should be set next season, regardless of what happens with Kakko.

But while plugging both these holes is essential for Drury, a more glaring and pressing need emerged in these playoffs. Put succinctly, the Rangers do not have a bonafide checking line. Let's face it, Kevin Rooney and Ryan Reaves were ostensibly useless. Turns out the former isn't much of a checker and the latter is way too slow to keep up with the league's elite-level forwards. In the Pittsburgh series, Sidney Crosby, Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust did pretty much whatever the hell they wanted; and in the Tampa series, Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov and Ondrej Palat looked like they were running a track meet. In neither instance did the Rangers appear to have an answer.

If you're thinking checking lines are overrated, consider this: Anthony Cirelli, Alex Killorn and Brandon Hagel didn't score an even strength goal against the Rangers the entire series, and Jon Cooper could not have cared less. They collectively held Mika Zibanejad's line to three even-strength goals, none in the final four games. And against the Florida Panthers, they completely shut down Alexander Barkov's line. That might explain why Drury was so interested in signing Phillip Danault over the summer. The former Montreal center played an integral role in the Canadiens drive to the finals last season. Can you imagine what a line of Danault, Barclay Goodrow and Tyler Motte would've done for the Rangers in this year's playoffs? Perhaps they wouldn't have needed a full seven games to dispatch the Penguins and Hurricanes. Perhaps they'd be playing the Colorado Avalanche this week for the Cup.

Yes, there's a lot on Drury's plate. The draft is coming up, and after that, free agency. The expectations will be high for this franchise going into next season. That's what happens when you advance to the conference finals after a five-year hiatus from the playoffs. The core is pretty much set: Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, Artemi Panarin, Adam Fox, Jacob Trouba and, of course, Harry Houdini himself, Igor Shesterkin. But cores don't win Stanley Cups. If they did, both the Toronto Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers would have at least two a piece.

In the end, the Lightning reminded the Rangers that championships are earned, not awarded.

* An earlier version of this post reported that the Rangers have just over $13 million of available cap space next season, but that doesn't include Braden Schneider's contract which pays $925k. That brings the number down to just over $12 million, and that will be reduced further if Vitali Kravtsov makes the team next year. I have made the correction.

We've Seen This Movie Before

One of the problems with being 61, apart from the occasional aches and pains that go along with it, is that I'm old enough to have seen a lot of shit go down that others have to look up to find out. As a sports fan who's had a love / hate relationship with my teams over the years, I've had my heart broken more times than I care to remember. The number one repeat offender has been the New York Rangers.

It hasn't been easy rooting for a team that has exactly one Stanley Cup to show for its efforts since the end of World War II. 1972, 1979, 1981-84, 1992, 1997, 2012, 2014, 2015. The list of near misses is as long as it is depressing, and it's about to grow by one.

You don't seriously think that a Jon Cooper-coached team is going to blow a chance to close out a best of seven Eastern Conference final this weekend, do you? If you do, you haven't been paying close attention to the way the Tampa Bay Lightning have played over the last three postseasons. Yes, the Islanders extended them to a seventh game in last year's semifinals, and yes they had to come from 3-2 down against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round this year. But those were the exceptions, not the rule. In every other series this team has played in, whenever they smelled blood they went in for the kill. Just ask the Florida Panthers about the Lightning's killer instinct. They were literally swept out of the playoffs in the second round.

Rangers fans have seen this movie before. During their Stanley Cup reign in the '80s, the Islanders played the Blueshirts four times and went four for four. It was frustrating knowing that no matter how hard they played, the results were always the same. Watching game five last night at the Garden, I had a sense of déjà vu. The Rangers played what was inarguably their best game since game two of the series. They skated with authority, they took the body, they cycled, they even struck first: a seeing-eye puck that found its way passed Andrei Vasilevskiy. It didn't matter. The Lightning got two of their own seeing-eye pucks passed Igor Shesterkin. In the end, the experience and poise of Tampa was simply too much to overcome. The Rangers played not to lose; the Lightning played to win. That was the difference in the game.

We can talk about the overpassing till the cows come home. David Quinn wasn't able to correct it and neither has Gerard Gallant. Face it, it's in their DNA. Last night, it was Andrew Copp's turn in the barrel. You live by the pass, you die by the pass. Right now they're dying by it. My only complaint was the way Gallant utilized the kid line. Given how completely ineffective Mika Zibanaejad and Chris Kreider have been over the last two games, it was disappointing to say the least that they had only eleven minutes of ice time as a unit, not even a minute more than the fourth line. The team's most effective forechecking line in the postseason and they barely touched the ice in the third period. If the season ends Saturday, Gallant will have some 'splainin' to do here.

So now it's onto Tampa for game six. Can the Rangers extend the series to a seventh game at the Garden? They are 5-0 in elimination games, so I suppose anything is possible. But consider this: after being pushed to the brink by the lowly Pittsburgh Penguins in the '82 preliminaries, the Islanders went 12-2 over the next three rounds to capture their third consecutive Cup. Since dispatching the Leafs in round one, the Bolts are 7-2.

I guess what I'm trying to say is don't go betting the kid's tuition on it.

Rangers Need To Wake Up

After game four of the Pittsburgh series, Gerard Gallant said his team was "soft;" after game five of the Carolina series, Gallant said his team was "tired;" and after game four of the Tampa series, Gallant said his team wasn't willing to "pay the price."

The common theme in all three games - aside from the fact that they were losses - is that the Rangers simply didn't do enough to win. Translation, sometimes your biggest opponent is the one staring back at you in the mirror.

None of that is meant to detract from the excellent job the Lightning have done since going down 0-2 in the Eastern Conference finals. Make no mistake about it: the Lightning have awoken and are playing every bit like the two-time Stanley Cup champions they are. They are making smart passes out of their zone; their speed is proving problematic for the Rangers D; they are clogging up the neutral zone, thus making it difficult for the Rangers to gain the offensive zone; and with each shift, Andrei Vasilevskiy is looking more and more like the Conn Smythe trophy winner he was last season.

But let's be honest here. Did anyone seriously believe that this proud team was going to lay down and call it a night after game two? Did the Rangers lay down after the Penguins routed them 7-2 in game four? The answer to both is no. Good teams find a way to bounce back, and that's exactly what the Lightning have done; they've bounced back. To quote Gallant's double negative, "They've won, what, ten series in a row? We're going to have to take it from them. They're not going to give us nothing."

To beat the Lightning, the Rangers are going to have to bring a helluva lot more effort than they showed in games three and four. Apart from the two power play goals they scored in game three and the meaningless one they scored late in game four, Vasilevskiy was hardly tested. He had maybe a half dozen high-quality scoring chances against in game three and almost none in game four.

New York hasn't scored at 5v5 since Mika Zibanejad's goal at 1:21 of the third period in game two. If you're counting, that's over 138 minutes without an even strength goal. Not to be a dick, but the Rangers couldn't beat the Hartford Wolf Pack with that kind of offensive output. If that metric doesn't change immediately, this will be the last home game of the season for the Blueshirts. The Bolts will wrap this series up in six.

So how do the Rangers turn it around? It won't be easy. This isn't the Pens they're playing, or even the Canes. Those opponents were tough, but they lacked the one thing the Lightning have in droves: playoff experience. Tampa has been here before; they know what it takes to win. And they will draw from that collective experience when they take the ice tonight. And to make matters worse, the Rangers might not have Ryan Strome or Filip Chytil in the lineup. Strome suffered a lower body injury in game three and Chytil suffered an upper body injury in game four. Even if both are able to return, they will not be at a hundred percent.

For starters, the Rangers have to play with the same sense of desperation the Lightning played with in games three and four. That means they must be willing to "pay the price," as their coach said. It isn't just enough to throw their weight around, they have to sellout in the corners where hockey games are often decided. In both games at Tampa, the Lightning virtually owned the boards. If you can't mount an effective forecheck in this league, you aren't going to win many games.

Another thing they have to do is dump the puck into the offensive zone. The Lightning are borrowing a page out of the Hurricanes playbook by taking away the passing lanes that allow the Rangers to set up their transition game. It's the number one reason why their 5v5 offense has stalled. To circumvent this, the Rangers not only have to be willing to shoot the puck into the zone, they have to do so with authority. They have to get on Tampa's wings quick and force their defensemen to handle the puck more. Over the last two games, it has been way too easy for the Lightning to get the puck out of their end.

The good news is that if the Rangers can manage even one even strength goal and convert on a couple of power plays, Igor Shesterkin should be able to make that stand up. He's been there for this team all season long, but as we saw in game three, he can't do it all by himself.  To paraphrase Ringo Starr, he needs a little help from his friends.

An Opportunity Squandered

I remember the moment like it was yesterday. It was game two of the 1979 Stanley Cup finals and the Rangers had already captured home ice from the Montreal Canadiens. On the strength of two first-period goals by Anders Hedberg and Ron Duguay, they were on their way to taking a commanding 2-0 lead in the series. Thirty-nine years of futility finally looked like they were about to come to an end.

That was when Mario Trembley's seemingly innocent cross-ice pass deflected off the leg of Yvon Lambert, passed a stunned John Davidson and into the net. The Forum crowd went wild, but more importantly, the home team woke up. The Canadiens scored the next five goals, on way to a 6-2 rout, and went onto win their fourth Cup in a row. Thirty-nine years became forty, and then forty became forty-one, and then, well, you get the picture.

It's too early to tell whether Nikita Kucherov's power play goal in game three of this best of seven series between the two-time Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning and the Rangers will have the same impact Lambert's goal had 43 years ago. But the parallels are unmistakable. Like that '79 team, this Rangers team had a lead of 2-0 on the strength of two power play goals by Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider in the second period. And though the Blueshirts were being outshot by the Bolts, they had the better scoring chances halfway through the game. A win meant a 3-0 stranglehold lead in the series.

But a questionable interference penalty on Jacob Trouba at 10:09 of the second period opened the door for Tampa Bay and they walked right through it. The ensuing power play goal by Kucherov at 10:50 brought the crowd to its feet and gave the Lightning the spark they were looking for. They would go on to score the next two goals, the last one coming with 41.6 seconds left in the third period.

Bye, bye dreams of a sweep. We now have a series on our hands. And though the Rangers still hold a 2-1 lead in games, this is NOT the same Lightning team they dominated in the first two games at Madison Square Garden; not even close. Tampa Bay was the better team at 5v5 and bottled up New York the latter half of the game. If you had a dollar for every scoring chance the Rangers had in the third period, you wouldn't have enough money to buy a happy meal.

To keep this series from going back to the Garden tied, the Blueshirts are going to have to elevate their level of play significantly. While Igor Shesterkin is still the better goalie, Andrei Vasilevskiy has suddenly rediscovered his game. He robbed Barclay Goodrow and Tyler Motte on consecutive shots in the first to keep the contest scoreless. He has a history of playing better the deeper a series goes. Just ask the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Florida Panthers; both teams are playing golf right now because of him.

It may well be that all that happened Sunday was that a desperate Lightning team did what it had to do to get back in the series. The Rangers still have a dangerous power play and if Trouba doesn't get called for those two third-period penalties, who knows, maybe we ARE talking about a sweep after all.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda isn't going to help the Rangers now. They had an opportunity to drive the Tampa Bay Lightning to the brink of the abyss and they squandered it. They broke the cardinal rule every sports team knows by heart: never let your opponent up off the mat.

Well this isn't your run-of-the-mill opponent we're talking about here. This is a two-time Stanley Cup championship team that has gone through hell and back together. Maybe the strain of playing all those playoff games catches up to them, or maybe they summon the will to end this marvelous postseason journey the Rangers have been on.

We'll know soon enough.

17-1

Funny thing about streaks. They have a nasty habit of being broken. For instance, going into last night's game-two matchup at the Garden against the Rangers, the Tampa Bay Lightning were 17-0 after a playoff loss.

Make that 17-1.

That was no "rusty" team the Blueshirts were playing out there. And that sure as shit wasn't a backup goaltender they beat three times. Apart from the first four minutes of the opening period and a late push in the final three minutes of the third, the Rangers were the better team throughout this game. Indeed, had it not been for a couple of lucky breaks that bailed out Andrei Vasilevskiy in the second, this game would've gotten out of hand for the defending Stanley Cup champions.

The Rangers out skated the Lightning; their passes were crisper; and their transition game has never been better. The visitors were a step or two behind all night and spent most of the game chasing the puck. At one point, New York was out shooting the Bolts 22-10. Adam Fox had his best game of the playoffs, setting up a goal by Kaapo Kakko in the first and Mika Zibanejad in the third. Once more, the Kid line dominated in the offensive zone, generating several high-danger scoring chances.

Over the last two and a half postseasons, Tampa Bay has played 61 games, beating ten opponents in the process. But they have never faced an opponent like this: a team that plays a similar style of hockey and that has an elite-level goalie of its own in net. After surviving a grueling seven game series against the Carolina Hurricanes, the Rangers are beating the Bolts at the their own game. Credit Chris Drury for adding just the right pieces at the trade deadline to make this very good team a formidable contender; a contender that is two wins away from earning its first appearance in a Cup final since 2014. And this team is better than that team.

Is the series over? Hardly. Let's not forget that the Rangers found themselves in the same pickle against the Hurricanes and managed to even the series. The Lightning are certainly capable of doing the same. And we are talking about a two-time Stanley Cup champion here. Yes, the wear and tear may finally be catching up with this team, but there's a lot of pride in that locker room. Think about it: they came this close to tying a game they had no business being in. What do you think will happen when they're actually facing elimination?

But make no mistake about it: this Rangers team is legit. The haters can continue to hate and discount their postseason successes all they want. It won't matter. The truth is that they're here because they've played better than their opponents. Period. And if they continue to raise their level of play, they might just wind up stunning the hockey world.

The Rangers Send a Strong Message

That wasn't Louis Domingue between the pipes for the Tampa Bay Lightning last night; nor was it Antti Raanta. That was none other than Andrei Vasilevskiy, last year's Conn Smythe trophy winner, the goaltender universally acknowledged as the finest in the world, and the man who in the last series posted a .981 save percentage against the NHL's number one offense. Well, when the Rangers were done, they wound up scoring twice as many goals in one game as Vasilevskiy allowed in the last four.

To add insult to injury, his "understudy" two hundred feet away stole the show. Igor Shesterkin stopped 37 of 39 shots, or as it's better known around the organization, just another day at the office. The Rangers skated circles around the two-time Stanley Cup champs, who admittedly looked rusty from being off for nine days. They threw their weight around and took advantage of the passing lanes they seldom saw against the Carolina Hurricanes. Artemi Panarin must've felt like a prisoner out on parole with all the freedom he had to maneuver with the puck. His cross-ice pass set up Mika Zibanejad's power play goal that capped off the scoring for the Blueshirts.

It was nice having a laugher for once; it was even nicer having a lead in a series, something the Rangers have failed to do throughout these playoffs. For once, the haters couldn't dismiss what happened on the ice. There were no scrub goalies to take advantage of, no Jacob Trouba hits leading to key players being concussed, no missed penalties leading to game-tying goals. The Rangers played a full sixty minutes of hockey against a legitimate Cup contender and for the better part of the contest were the better team.

New York had six players with two points, eleven with at least one. The top three lines all contributed to the scoring with Filip Chytil leading the way with two goals in the second period; the latter coming off a brilliant cross-ice pass from Alexis Lafreniere that Vasilevskiy had no chance on. Once more, the kid line was the most consistent line on the ice for the Rangers.

Yes, I get it, it was only one game, and yes, that wasn't the Pittsburgh Penguins the Rangers were playing out there; it was the Tampa Bay Lightning, the team looking to become only the fourth team in NHL history to win at least three consecutive Stanley Cups. The Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens and New York Islanders are the other three. The Bolts will almost certainly step up their game Friday night. They will have no choice, because that wasn't the Florida Panthers they were playing out there either. The Puddy Tats, as I wrote ad nauseam, were a deeply flawed team that was destined to fail once the playoffs began. These Rangers are the exact polar opposite of that team: resilient, persistent and determined. They may go down, but not without one helluva fight.

And regarding whether or not that happens, two things are worth noting here. The first has to do with historical trends. According to Stat Boy Steven, since 2000, teams that took a full seven games to dispose of their lower round opponents were 7-0 against teams that swept theirs. Apparently, having all that time off does more harm than good. The second has to do more with the style of play the Lightning employ. Put succinctly, the Rangers enjoy playing that style of hockey. It suits them well. Forwards like Zibanejad and Panarin have more room to create on the rush. That may explain why they went 3-0 against Tampa during the regular season. If I were Jon Cooper, I'd be more worried about the latter than the former. I haven't seen the Rangers this pumped to play an opponent in years. Compared to the Hurricanes, the Lightning are a walk in the park.

Bottom line, this is going to be a long and exciting series; one in which the team that prevails will be the prohibitive favorite to capture the Cup. Buckle up.

NHL Playoff Preview (Third Round)

So now it's down to four. The conference finals are upon us, and for the first time in years, we will have two incredible series to watch. No "systems" designed to slow down the game or thwart the other team's advantage. All four of these teams rely on their elite-level talent to propel them to victory. Like the NBA does every spring, the NHL will have the opportunity to showcase to millions of casual hockey fans just how great this sport can be when the stars take charge.

I went three for four in the last round; with Carolina the only team that didn't cover. Like I wrote earlier, next time I'll trust my heart. And while I usually resist the urge to look ahead, spoiler alert, the prohibitive favorite to capture the Stanley Cup will likely come from the East.

Without further ado,

Eastern Conference:

New York vs. Tampa Bay: What a matchup. The youngest team in the playoffs against the two-time Stanley Cup champions. The good news is that the Rangers will have home ice in this series. The bad news is that the one huge advantage they've had in these playoffs - goaltending - will be nullified. As brilliant as Igor Shesterkin has been, Andrei Vasilevskiy is in another world. Consider he held the Florida Panthers - the NHL's number one offense - to a measly three goals in four games. His save percentage was an astounding .981 in that series.

Unlike the Hurricanes, the Lightning have an exceptional power play, even without Brayden Point. The Rangers are going to have to stay out of the penalty box or they will get lit up. Another piece of good news is that forwards like Artemi Panarin should finally have the space to create offense that the Canes took away. Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider and Adam Fox will go toe to toe with Stephen Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman.

Both teams' GMs did exceptionally well adding valuable pieces at the trade deadline. Julien BriseBois has the inside track to be executive of the year. It's clear Chris Drury is attempting to copy the Lightning model. He brought in Barclay Goodrow, Ryan Reaves and Sammy Blais during the offseason to toughen up this roster and it has paid dividends.

The experts are all picking Tampa, and I totally get it. This Lightning team is the best the NHL has seen since those legendary New York Islanders teams of the 1980s. Sans Ondrej Palat, this core will be together for at least one more year. It is not out of the realm of possibility that they could win four cups in a row. 

And yet, even with all that, the Rangers still represent a serious threat to their reign. If they can jump out to an early series lead, they do have the depth to push the Bolts to the very edge. Sooner or later all those playoff games have got to take their toll. Rangers in seven.

Western Conference:

Colorado vs. Edmonton: I'm not much of a gambler but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict that betting the over will pay handsomely in this series. Forget about Auston Matthews, Conor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon are the two best players in the NHL, and if you enjoy watching elite hockey players put on a show, you will be in for a treat with these two. Think Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier. Yes, they're that good. The goaltenders will have their work cut out for them.

The Avalanche have the advantage by virtue of having home ice. Also Cale Makar will be the best defenseman in this series, not that there will be much defense on display. This could be turn into a track meet fast. Just look at what the Oilers did to Vezina trophy finalist Jacob Markstrom in the last round. I actually felt sorry for him.

The smart money's on Colorado, but my gut tells me the Oilers have something going for them. The way McDavid is lighting up the score sheet, there might be nothing that can stop him. And I wasn't exactly thrilled at the way the Avs blew that three goal lead against the St. Louis Blues at home. Oilers in six.

NHL Playoff Preview (Second Round)

With round one now complete, the second round starts Tuesday with four series: two in each conference. Before we get to them, though, let's review what happened in the last round.

I went seven for eight, the only miss being the Minnesota Wild. While I thought that series would go the distance, I expected the Wild to emerge on top. I also didn't think the Dallas Stars would extend the Calgary Flames out to seven games before finally succumbing in overtime. Either Stars goalie Jake Oettinger is much better than his stats indicate, or the Flames aren't quite as good as the experts thought.

One thing that stood out was how many game sevens there were: five in all. In fact, the only series that wasn't remotely competitive was the one between the Colorado Avalanche and Nashville Predators. The Avs dispatched the Preds in four straight. That may not necessarily help them against their next opponent as they've been idle since May 9, but we'll see.

Like the last round, I will start with the matchup involving my Rangers and will continue to do so as long as they are in the playoffs. Let's hope both they and I stay hot.

Eastern Conference:

Carolina vs. New York: Both these teams took the full seven games to defeat their first round opponents. What was striking was how the Hurricanes did it. They went 4-0 at home and 0-3 on the road against the Boston Bruins. It's unusual to see such results given how tight this conference was during the regular season. Even more unusual was the margin of victory in each of the games. With the exception of game seven, there wasn't a single game in the series that wasn't decided by two goals or more. The Canes won their contests 5-1, 5-2, 5-1 and 3-2; while the Bruins won theirs 4-2, 5-2 and 5-2. By contrast, the Rangers series against the Pittsburgh Penguins was considerably closer. Only one rout, two overtime decisions and four empty net goals in three games, padding what would've been one-goal margin of victories. Bottom line: the Rangers / Pens series was far more exciting to watch.

So how do these teams measure up against each other? I won't soft soap it: the Hurricanes, despite being extended by the Bruins, are the worst possible matchup for the Rangers. It isn't just that they went 1-3 against them in the regular season, with the lone win owed entirely to Alexandar Georgiev having the best game of his life in goal. It's that their style of play has historically given them fits for years. Against the Pens they at least had some room to create in the offensive zone; the Canes smothering defense will take away even that.

The one advantage the Blueshirts have - and it's massive - is in goal. Everyone who opted to vote for Auston Matthews over Igor Shesterkin for the Hart trophy must feel pretty stupid right about now, given that Matthews is home and Igor is still playing hockey. Without Shesterkin between the pipes, the Pens, not the Rangers, would be opening up Wednesday night in Raleigh.

Mika Zibanejad had the best two games of his Rangers career in games six and seven. He will have to replicate that over a full seven games against an opponent that is both deep and talented. The Canes employ the same type of stick-in-the-lane defense that the Islanders are notorious for, only they do it better. There's only one way to beat it - assuming it can be beat - and that is by driving to the net and getting as many shots on goal as possible. The Bruins accomplished that three times, but failed in their fourth attempt. This incessant need to pass up a good shot to get a better one almost cost them against the Pens; it has stop now. When the Rangers have a scoring opportunity they must capitalize on it. And when the Canes have the puck, the Rangers must do a much better job in front of their goal than they did against the Pens. Shesterkin might be able to steal one or two games, but he can't steal four. He will need some help from his teammates.

The heart says Rangers in seven; the head says otherwise. Hurricanes in six.

Florida vs. Tampa Bay: The Lightning beat the Maple Leafs in seven, while the Puddy Tats needed six to dispatch the Capitals. That by itself should be all you need to pick the winner of this series. However, if Brayden Point, injured in game seven of the Leafs series, is unable to play or is hobbled, that changes everything. Assuming he only misses the first two games, it shouldn't matter that much. The Lightning have the experience, the defense and the goaltending to overcome the Panthers' vaunted offense. Bolts in seven.

Western Conference:

Colorado vs. St. Louis: The Blues have nine 20 plus goal scorers on their roster. That's called depth and they will need every bit of that depth against an Avalanche team that seems poised to go through the postseason tournament the way crap goes through a goose. The only potential road block might be the play of Blues goalie Jordan Binnington, who went 3-0 against the Wild and has regained the form that helped St. Louis win the Cup in 2019. Avs in seven.

Calgary vs. Edmonton: The Battle of Alberta. These two teams haven't met in the playoffs since 1991, the last season Mark Messier was an Oiler. The Oilers won that series 4-3. Thirty-one years later, the Flames hope to return the favor. They are, at least on paper, the superior team, with the better goaltender, even if Connor McDavid is the best player in the series. Edmonton did something no-one thought they were capable of doing: play a defensive system in beating the Kings; and Calgary surprised a lot of people by barely beating a team that had no business hanging around as long as it did. Oilers in seven.

As with all my picks, don't go bettin' the ranch on them.

The Rich Get Richer

Some people just have a knack for making it look easy. People like Julien BriseBois, GM of the Tampa Bay Lightning, an organization that has won two consecutive Stanley Cups, and is looking to make it a three-peat.

And they might just pull it off. That's because while his counterparts in south Florida, Colorado, Calgary and New York were all busy acquiring rentals to bolster their post-season prospects ahead of Monday's trade deadline, BriseBois thought big picture and landed a player that can not only help his team win this season but for the next two seasons, as well.

On Friday afternoon, the Lightning sent forwards Boris Katchouk and Taylor Raddysh, along with two number ones to the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for forward Brandon Hagel and a fourth rounder. Leaving aside the draft picks, the two players the Blackhawks received have a grand total of 7 goals; Hagel already has 21 with 22 games left in the regular season. Depending on where head coach Jon Cooper decides to play him, it's conceivable Hagel might end up with 30 goals.

This was a heist, pure and simple. Screw the number ones. Two years ago, the Bolts gave up two number ones to New Jersey and San Jose to land Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow respectively and it helped them win back-to-back Stanley Cups. Well this move is Coleman / Barclay on steroids. And best of all, BriseBois didn't add a single cent to the team's salary cap. That's because the two contracts that he sent to Chicago and the one he inherited from them cancel each other out.

That's called genius, people. In one move, BriseBois lands a player with term who can help him now and in the future that he can afford to retain without having to scramble over the summer to cut salary. By comparison, none of the other players who were traded over the last few days are likely to be re-signed by their new teams.

There's a reason why some organizations are successful and some aren't. Julien BriseBois didn't build the Tampa Bay Lightning into the championship caliber team they currently are. That distinction belongs to Steve Yzerman, who as a player helped the Detroit Red Wings win back-to-back Cups in '97 and '98, and who is now in charge of rebuilding that once proud franchise.

But BriseBois has been the magician pulling one rabbit after another out of the hat, retooling this team on the fly. Absent his moves, the Lightning would be no better than the Edmonton Oilers or the Toronto Maple Leafs: teams that excel during the regular season only to fail miserably once the playoffs begin.

If I'm Chris Drury, I start taking notes. His move to acquire forward Frank Vatrano from the Florida Panthers for a fourth round pick was a no brainer. The Panthers needed to dump salary to make room for defenseman Ben Chiarot from the Montreal Canadiens, and the Rangers had more than enough space to accommodate his $2.5 million cap hit. A win for both sides.

But as valuable as he might be, Vatrano is a UFA after the season, and even if he'd be willing to re-sign for the same salary, it's doubtful the Rangers will be able to afford him. That's because they already have $71 million committed next year with only 16 players under contract. That leaves just over $11 million left to fill out the roster. And the lion's share of that will likely go to Ryan Strome or his replacement. Once the Sharks and Tomas Hertl agreed to terms on an eight-year deal worth $8.1 million per, any hope of getting Strome to accept a team-friendly deal to remain on Broadway went out the window. 

Anyway you slice it, Drury will have his hands full trying to field a team that can contend for the Cup while still remaining cap compliant. If he's stuck, he could always ask BriseBois for a few pointers. In the NHL, there's no one better at navigating through the murky waters of the flat cap.

Like I said, genius.

Three Reasons Why the Rangers Shouldn't Trade for Jack Eichel

Before I get to Jack Eichel, a few thoughts on the Goodrow signing. $3.642 million per year for six years may seem a little steep, but when you consider what he brings to the table, you can live with it. In fact, when this contract expires in 2027, Goodrow will be the same age Cal Clutterbuck will be next year when his contract expires, and he's getting paid $3.5 million. Question, who would you rather have, Goodrow or Clutterbuck? Before you answer that, go back and watch game seven against the Islanders. It's pretty clear that Goodrow was the better player. 

The fact is Yanni Gourde, Blake Coleman and Goodrow were, pound for pound, the best skaters on the ice for the Lightning in both the semifinals and Cup finals. If Chris Drury can add Coleman and a physical defenseman this summer, he will go a long way towards making this team considerably tougher to play against next season.

Which leads me to... the main course.

There are three reasons why the Rangers should NOT trade for Eichel.

The health concerns: I've never had a neck injury, but from everything I've read, it's one of the most serious and chronic conditions an athlete can have. And it's nothing to trifle with. Even if Eichel is 100 percent ready to go by September - and that's highly unlikely given what we know about his condition - he's one cross check away from spending half a season or more on the I.R. It would be the height of irresponsibility for Drury to acquire a player who might not be able to finish out his contract, and even if he does, will be a shell of himself for the balance of it. The risk is simply too great here.

The contract: Given that there will be a flat cap in the league for the next few years, Eichel's $10 million salary is a huge nut for an organization that still hasn't signed its own RFAs, a list that includes Pavel Buchnevich and Igor Shesterkin. Next year, they will have to pony up to retain Adam Fox, Kaapo Kakko, Ryan Strome and Mika Zibanejad. And the year after that, Alexis Lafreniere will be a restricted free agent. Even if Drury trades both Buchnevich and Strome - and there appear to be some suitors - as I wrote in my last piece, whomever he gets in return will not come cheap. 

Fox's contract alone could come in at between $7 million and $9 million per year depending on what the Colorado Avalanche and Cale Makar come to terms with this summer. Makar, an RFA, was the runner up to Fox for the Norris Trophy last season. If Drury doesn't have the money to keep these players, then everything this organization and its fans went through the last four years will be for naught. The key to his success will be how well he manages the resources he has.

The wrong fit: Even without the neck injury and with a salary cap that isn't flat, Eichel is the wrong fit for this franchise. He does nothing to address the team's most glaring needs. If anything, he's a younger version of Zibanejad with a higher price tag and a slightly less imposing shot. If Drury were to trade for him, he'd have to give up assets that would weaken other areas of the team - I'm guessing Filip Chytil, K'Andre Miller, either Vitali Kravtsov or Kakko and a number one draft pick. That is simply too steep a price to pay.

Instead of trying to replicate the Toronto Maple Leafs, an organization that has been an unmitigated disaster in the postseason, Drury should borrow a page out of Lou Lamoriello's playbook. There isn't one player on the Islanders with a contract over $7 million, and they were one win away from the Stanley Cup finals. With a few maneuvers this off-season, the best GM in the business is positioning his team to, once again, contend for the Cup. And with a healthy Anders Lee, they might just win it.

I'll say it again: The way the NHL is currently structured, teams that are overly laden with talented players simply don't succeed. What you need is a healthy balance between talent and grit. The Lightning have some of the most talented players in hockey, yet it was their foot soldiers who were responsible for them winning back-to-back Cups. Don't take my word for it; just go to the video tape, as an old New York sportscaster was fond of saying.

The Rangers have some talented players of their own. Maybe not on the same level as the Lightning, but hardly chopped liver. After they buy out Tony DeAngelo's contract, they will have around $23 million to spend, minus the $3 million or so they will need for performance bonuses. Drury has the 15th pick in Friday's Entry Draft. He can either keep it or include it in a package for a player or players that can help this team become a legitimate playoff contender. For instance, Tampa doesn't have a number one pick this year. Would they consider trading Anthony Cirelli and Ross Colton for Chytil, Kravtsov, Zac Jones and the Rangers number one pick? It's certainly worth a phone call to find out. 

In Seattle, after a less than impressive Expansion Draft, it's obvious that Ron Francis needs help at center. Given he's got enough left handed defensemen to start an army with, I'm sure a trade could be worked out. Perhaps Strome straight up for Carson Soucy. The Kraken get a solid pivot man and Drury gets the sturdy defenseman he needs on the third pairing along with $1.75 million in cap relief.

And then there's the free agent market. As we've already seen, Drury isn't hesitant about going that route. While Goodrow was a nice beginning, as Larry Brooks writes in The New York Post, he needs to be surrounded with "complimentary players" in order to be effective. The Rangers didn't sign Nick Fotiu here.

The point is, Drury has options available to him. What he can ill afford is to tie up 12 percent of his salary cap on a one-dimensional, albeit, star that'll light up the score sheet against the Devils and Sabres but get pushed around by the Islanders and Bruins. He already has an abundance of those types of players.

Which direction will he go? We'll know soon enough.

True Grit

In the end, the Islanders didn't have quite enough to pull off the upset of the decade. The Tampa Bay Lightning were simply too much for them to overcome. Credit Barry Trotz for getting this team - a team which on paper didn't belong on the same ice with the Lightning - as far as it did. Full disclosure, I had them losing to the Boston Bruins in the second round. Indeed, the Lightning looked more like those legendary Islander teams of the '80s than this Islanders team did. Apart from Mat Barzal and Semyon Varlamov, there wasn't one player on this roster who could've cracked that lineup. I know; as a Rangers' fan, I watched them win four consecutive Cups. It was the most painful period of my life.

I hope Chris Drury was watching this series, and I hope he was taking notes. Because this series was a textbook example of what is needed in order for a team to contend in today's NHL. I've been saying this for a while but it bears repeating. Talent alone isn't enough. To win in the postseason, you need grit, and tons of it. 

Question: What do Auston Matthews, Conor McDavid, Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin all have in common? Answer: They were all playing golf after the first round of the playoffs because their teams simply weren't tough enough to advance to the quarterfinals. Two years ago, the Lightning ran away with the President's Trophy, posting a record of 62-16-4 and leading the league in scoring with 325 goals. Yet they were swept in the first round by a Columbus Blue Jacket team that checked the hell out of them and limited them to a paltry eight goals in four games. How did the Lightning respond? They added size to their lineup and, lo and behold, the following year they won the Cup. Lesson learned.

Look, I am no fan of the style of play the Islanders and teams like them employ. Truth be told, I miss the good old days when the most talented players in the league were afforded the space they needed to create scoring chances. Back then, you never knew which player might go from one end of the rink to the other and score a dazzling goal that brought the crowd to its feet. Those days are long gone. Blowouts like the one we saw in game five of the Lightning - Isles series have become something of an anomaly. Scores like 3-2, 2-1 and, yes, 1-0 are now the norm.

The sad truth is that even Wayne Gretzky himself would have a hard time scoring today. Yes, he'd still get his points, but he would hardly be called the Great One; more like the Good One. And those Oiler teams that won five Stanley Cups in seven years, might not even have had one if they were forced to play in this league the way it is currently structured. And anyone who thinks that's acceptable should take a gander at the NBA, where the stars rule and the officials do everything in their power to keep it that way. Trust me, a lot of really stupid people in this league are literally running the game into the ground, and they don't seem to give a shit about it. But that's another topic for another day.

As the old saying goes, when in Rome do as the Romans do. You don't have to like the NHL of today, but if you want to succeed in it, you'd better adopt to it. The Islanders may not have had the most talent in the league - they were 20th in goals scored - but they had the heart of a lion, and any opponent that took the ice against them this year was in for the fight of its life. 

I can assure you that had the the Islanders faced off against the 2019 Lightning, the boys from Uniondale would've beaten the pants off them. But with players like Blake Coleman, Pat Maroon, Ross Colton and Barclay Goodrow on the roster, the Bolts outlasted the grittiest team in the NHL. In the final analysis, the Lightning were able to play the Islanders game, but the Islanders were unable to play the Lightning's game, and that was the difference in the series. 

That's why it's imperative that Drury and new head coach Gerard Gallant have the courage to make the changes that are necessary in order to transform this Rangers' team from the jellyfish they are into the warriors they need to be if they ever expect to drink from the Stanley Cup again. The operative question next season will be can Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin adopt their style of play the way Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov were forced to? If so, the Blueshirts have a chance; if not, this rebuild that was started four years ago was all for not and it's back to the drawing board.

You can dismiss the Islanders all you want, but with the exception of the Lightning, no other team in the NHL has been as dominant in the playoffs these past two seasons. The Bruins, the Carolina Hurricanes, the Colorado Avalanche, all were legitimate contenders with imposing lineups, and all failed to make it past the second round. Believe me, this is not a game for the faint of heart; in fact, it's the closest thing North America has to Rugby. You may hate Casey Cizikas, Matt Martin and Cal Clutterbuck all you want, but know this: Drury would give his eye teeth to have all three on his team. And deep down so would you.

To those who are clamoring for the Rangers to trade for Jack Eichel, you better pray you don't get your wish. Even if he's healthy - and that's a HUGE question mark - he's the last thing this team needs right now: another skater who loves to shoot on the fly. The smart move would be to spend the $10 million Eichel would cost on some wingers who can inflict serious pain on opposing defensemen. They're out there; in fact, it looks very much like Coleman and Goodrow will be available if for no other reason than the Lightning won't be able to afford to keep them. That's what happens when you're in cap hell.

Yep, July will be a busy month for the NHL. For the Rangers, it will be the most consequential month quite possibly in the franchise's history.

21 And Counting

In the end, the team that was built with one goal in mind - to win the Stanley Cup - not only failed in its mission, it didn't even manage to get back to the finals. The Presidents' Trophy Rangers were blanked on their home ice for the second game in a row. The team that hadn't lost a game 7 in its building since, well, forever, was thoroughly drubbed by a Tampa Bay Lightning team that only three days earlier had been lit up for seven goals. Like that great T.S. Eliot poem, they didn't go out with a bang but with a whimper.

Consider this: the Rangers scored more goals in the 3rd period of game 6 in Tampa (five) than they scored in all four games at the Garden combined (four). They were so inept in their building they made the Lightning players look like Bob Gainey clones. For those of you too young to remember, Bob Gainey was arguably the greatest defensive forward to ever play the game. He was to hockey what Bill Russell was to basketball.

So how did this Jekyll / Hyde of a series turn out to be the nightmare of all nightmares for the Rangers? Well, first off, it wasn't just this series. The Blueshirts had been flirting with disaster ever since the playoffs began. Let's not forget that they were 1:41 away from going down in five to the Capitals. Face it, if Braden Holtby doesn't whiff on Chris Kreider's shot, they never make it into overtime and instead of talking about their disappointing exit in the conference finals, we're talking about the great upset in the second round. And even the five games it took them to dispatch the Penguins - easily the weakest team in the playoffs - were all close games. The last two wins, both in overtime, could easily have gone the other way.

Funny, for a team that racked up a franchise-record 53 wins, they never once dominated in any of their postseason contests. Even in the three games where they managed to get their offense going - game 6 against the Caps and games 4 and 6 against the Lightning - they were badly outplayed for huge stretches by their opponent. In each game, their world-class goaltender, Henrik Lundqvist, either held onto to a lead his team seemed determined to hand back or gave his team the chance it needed to regain its footing and surge ahead. To say he was the team's best player would be an understatement.

Even last night, Lundqvist did his best to give his team a chance to win. He stood on his head for two periods, making save after save. He robbed Tyler Johnson point blank just outside his crease. The save was eerily similar to the one he made on Steven Stamkos in game 6. However in that game, seconds after the King made his heroic stop, his team responded by scoring a goal. Last night, there was no heroics by the men in blue. This time, there was no last-minute goal to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Even their world-class goalie looked mortal in that all-decisive 3rd period.

So now that this season is over, what do the Rangers do next? To be sure, Glen Sather has some decisions to make. While the core of this team is certainly good, it was obvious from the opening drop of the puck, it had some glaring weaknesses. I addressed some of them when the playoff began. To be sure, those roosters came home to crow in the conference finals.

For starters, I'm fairly certain Marty St. Louis has played his last game as a Ranger, perhaps even the NHL. He looked every second of his 39 years in this tournament. Expect Sather to utilize his $5 million salary elsewhere. The Rangers have some cap issues, thanks to the trade for Keith Yandle, and even with the league expected to increase its salary cap by $4 million, Sather will have to use all his skills to tweak this team so it can go the distance in the postseason.

Here's what I would do if I were the G.M. I would definitely sign Derek Stepan, but I would not offer Carl Hagelin a contract. If he files for arbitration and he wins, I would trade him. He did absolutely nothing after the Pittsburgh series. If anything, the style with which he plays is the reason the Rangers are playing golf right now instead of getting ready to play for the Cup. Instead of a flashy skater, I'd try to pry away a punishing winger who can park his ass in front of the opposing goalie's net and score a few goals. The Ranges don't have a single forward outside of Kreider who is capable of doing this. In fact, so inept were they, Alain Vigneault was forced to use defenseman Dan Boyle up front on the power play several times in this series.

Then I'd address the face-off issue that plagued this team throughout most of the season. It was nothing short of an embarrassment that their number one face-off man happened to be their number four center. Every other team in the final four all had centers with impressive face off stats. I would make every effort to get a center who can win a face off AND score. I like Dominick Moore, but if he is your go-to guy to win a face-off in a crucial spot in a game, you're screwed.  Either way, you're not going very far in the playoffs. Period!

Think about it. A first line consisting of Derrick Brassard, centering Rick Nash on the left and a healthy Mats Zucharello on the right, followed by a line of, say, Antoine Vermette centering Derek Stepan on the right and Chris Kreider on the left. The Blackhawks have even more cap issues than the Rangers, so it is unlikely they will be able to resign Vermette in the off season. If Sather is creative, he can have a formidable 1-2 punch upfront. Stephan moving to wing makes perfect sense. The way he positions himself in the offensive zone, he looks more like a winger than a center anyway. If Sather can't address the center issue via free agency, maybe Kevin Hayes could be part of a package to land one.

That would leave J.T. Miller centering Jesper Faust and James Shepard on the third line, with Dominic Moore centering a yet to be determined fourth line. A little too lean for your tastes? Consider that the Lightning got all but two of their goals in this series from their top two lines. Depth only means something if your top gunners come through. In this series, the Lightning's top gunners ran rings around the Rangers top gunners. It wasn't even close. Take away the five point night Brassard had in game 6 and it was a joke.

And then there's the coach. Alain Vigneault was the polar opposite of his predecessor. He treated his players like men with respect and dignity, unlike John Tortorella, who acted like a dickhead most of the time and drove his players like a drill sergeant. When he was fired, you could hear the entire Rangers' locker room exhale.

But Vigneault has two glaring weaknesses that unfortunately came back to bite this team. The first is he is stubborn to a fault. Not once in this year's playoff, or last year's for that matter, did he make any adjustments to his system.  It was clear that every team that played them knew what to expect. The Capitals pounded and pounded the Rangers and kept them primarily to the perimeter of the ice, limiting their scoring chances. The Lightning applied the same strategy, but unlike the Caps, had the talent to make it work. The result was that the Rangers, after winning the first game 2-1, never won another close game in the series. Credit their coach, John Cooper, for having the smarts to switch gears and convince his team to change their style from offense first to defense first. He definitely outcoached Vigneault in this series.

The second weakness is almost as bad. For all his professional demeanor, Vigneault is simply too loyal to his players. They rarely, if ever, were benched for their failures. Yes, they might miss a shift or two for a blown assignment, but they could always count on their coach having their back.  When it was painfully apparent that St. Louis had nothing in the gas tank, Vigneault still put him out on the power play. Compare and contrast him to Joel Quenneville, the Chicago Blackhawks coach, who pulled his goaltender when he gave up questionable goals in the Nashville series and even benched the player his GM traded a number one draft pick to obtain. In Quenneville's world, it's pretty simple: play well and get ice time, struggle and you ride the bench.

Sather must get his coach to be more amenable and less tolerant. If it was fair to criticize Tortorella for his shortcomings, then it's only fitting to hold Vigneault accountable for his. Systems and loyalty are all fine and dandy, but when that system isn't working or your players aren't measuring up, changes must be made. Throughout this whole season there were two constants: the Rangers were as predictable as dirt and, for the most part, they had carte blanche. If this isn't corrected, expect another disappointing postseason next year.

The good news is that, with a little tweaking, the Rangers have the horses to compete for the Stanley Cup next year; the bad news is that their window of opportunity is rapidly closing. Lundqvist is 33. Billy Smith, the great Islander goaltender, won the last of his four Cups when he was 33. The sands of time are running out on the King. He has maybe two or three years left in his prime. If the Rangers don't win the Cup by then, this team, which as played more playoff games than any other team over the last four years, will have to start over and rebuild.

And for the millions of Rangers' fans who have waited patiently since 1994 for another championship, it won't just be 21 years and counting; it might well be a decade or more.

Ironic, isn't it? When Sam Rosen said that '94 championship would last a lifetime, who knew he was being prophetic?