Rangers Can Learn From Kentucky Loss

Seconds after watching the Rangers take apart the Jersey Devils 6-1, I switched over to see the final seconds of the Kentucky - Wisconsin semifinal. Duke had won a few hours earlier and I was checking to see if the Wildcats would be meeting them in the NCAA finals.

Needless to say I was shocked when I learned that Kentucky had lost 71-64. Not only had they lost, but they went the final 90 seconds without scoring a single point. They had been undefeated up to that point and it was looking very much like their year.  It just goes to show you that that old Tony D'Amato line "on any given Sunday you're gonna win or you're gonna lose" is true. Except of course this was Saturday. But you get the point. Anybody can win and anybody can lose. Or, more importantly, anybody can beat you if you're not careful.

And that got me thinking about the Blueshirts. For the last three months the hockey world has been touting them as the team to beat; the prohibitive favorites to make it back to the Cup finals and win it all. And who could blame them. On December 6th, their record stood at 11-10-4 and they looked lost. Since then, they have gone 39-11-3 and are currently number one in the Eastern conference. They are only four points away from capturing their first President's trophy since the 1993-94 season - the last time they won the Cup.

The comparisons to Kentucky are unmistakable and unavoidable. Best record? Invincible? Inevitable? I'm sure at the University of Kentucky, they are still in a state of shock. How could the vaunted Wildcats have lost? Actually, if you take a step back and look at their season, they were lucky to advance as far as they did. Several times throughout the tournament they almost lost. In the game before, they survived a last second three point attempt to hold off Notre Dame.

Throughout this season the Rangers have managed to win a lot of close games by margins of 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2. All exciting games to be sure and all games that could easily have gone the other way. One of those wins came against a Buffalo Sabres team that is currently battling for the worst record in the NHL. Of the 50 wins they have amassed this season, only 18 have been decided by more than 2 goals. An argument could certainly be made that the Rangers have been as lucky as they've been good.

Now I'm not poo-pooing luck. Most head coaches will tell you they'd rather be lucky than good. A lot of good teams end up losing. But the problem with being lucky is that sooner or later your luck runs out. The Rangers may be an elite team this year but they've got company. Of the eight teams that will qualify for the playoffs in the Eastern conference, six are good enough to make it to finals. In the Western conference five teams can make that claim; six if the Kings manage to get in as a wild card. That's a pretty crowded field if you ask me.

Bottom line, yes the Rangers are good enough to win the Cup. Then again we all thought Kentucky was good enough to win the NCAA tournament before they got beaten in the final four. As a result, tomorrow Duke will be playing Wisconsin for the championship. If I were Alain Vigneault, I'd get a copy of that final four game and make sure his players watch it before they start their playoff run.

Are the Rangers For Real?

They're the hottest team in the NHL. They've won 12 of 13 for the first time since the 1972-73 campaign. But the operative question around New York is this. Are the Rangers for real? Can the team that shocked everybody last season, including their head coach, by going to the Stanley Cup Finals, get back the championship round?

Conventional wisdom says no. Teams that lose in the final round seldom get back there the next season. But, over the last month, the Blue shirts have made a compelling case for being the exception to the rule. They haven't just won, they've beaten a lot of good teams. On this current west-coast road trip, they beat the Anaheim Ducks and the defending Cup champion L.A. Kings on back to back nights.

But while die-hard Rangers fans have reason to believe, I wouldn't reserve my final-round playoff tickets just yet. Why? Because a careful look at the roster reveals a potential roadblock to a long and sustained playoff run.

Last year, if you'll recall, head coach Alain Vigneault was able to rotate four solid lines. That gave him an advantage over opposing coaches who may have had more upfront talent, but couldn't keep up with the Rangers' depth. Eventually they wore down both the Penguins and Canadiens. It wasn't until the finals that they met their match in the Kings.

This year, most of the scoring has come from the top two lines with a rejuvenated Rick Nash carrying most of the load. Derick Brassard, last year's third line pivot, is centering the number two line. Brad Richards, last year's number two center, had his contract bought out and is now playing in Chicago. This year's number three center, Dominic Moore, was last year's number four center. Gone from last year are Benoit Pouliot and Brian Boyle who were vital cogs during last year's run. It is doubtful the team would've advanced as far as it did without both players. Role players like Lee Stempniak and J.T. Miller have some big skates to fill. If they're up to the challenge, the Rangers will go far - maybe even all the way. If they're not, an early exit is in the offing.

With that in mind, GM Glen Sather has a big decision ahead of him. Does he make a deal at the trading deadline and risk upsetting the team chemistry? If so, for whom? He has roughly $3 million in cap room to play with, more than enough to rent a scoring forward for three months. If the Devils decide to dump Jaromir Jagr, I'd grab him. Jagr still has speed and is a proven clutch player. He could play on either the number 2 or number 3 lines as well as the power play. He's also a solid citizen in the locker room, something Vigneault demands of his players.

And the best thing about it is that the cost of obtaining Jagr wouldn't be that much: a low-round draft pick probably and Sather has no commitment to Jagr beyond this season. Indeed, with both Marty St. Louis and Jagr's contracts expiring at the end of the year, Sather could potentially have $9 million in cap money to go shopping for some new blood if the team doesn't win the Cup. That should allow him to lock up both Mats Zuccarello and Carl Hagelin to long-term contracts. With a developing Chris Kreider and phenom Anthony Duclair on the horizon, the Rangers could have one of the youngest and fastest teams in the league for years to come.

Bottom line: the Rangers are a solid playoff team. How far they go this postseason will depend on how big their role players play and whether their GM is willing to role the dice the way he did last year when he traded Ryan Callahan for St. Louis. That move helped propel them to the finals.

Only time will tell if lightning can strike twice.

A Mugging in Dallas

I won't mince words. I hate the Cowboys. I've hated them for years, decades in fact. I hate how smug their fans are and I especially resent that they call themselves America's team. Even the Yankees - who it should be noted have considerably more championships - don't have the nerve to refer to themselves as America's team.

That being said, what happened last night was atrocious and an embarrassment. The Detroit Lions got mugged, period. Please spare me all the "it wasn't a clear-cut penalty" and "the Lions still had time to recover and win the game" drivel. Try telling that to the city of Detroit. They have every right to feel like they got screwed. Because they did.

I don't know which I find more offensive, the incompetence of the officiating crew or the litany of irrelevant explanations from apologists who are more concerned with protecting the integrity of the NFL than calling a spade a spade. One such example of this was from Frank Schwab of Yahoo Sports who managed to come up with a whopping five reasons for why the Lions lost, none of which, surprise, had to do with the call. In the interest of common sense, allow me to dispense with all five.

1. The Lions should have gone for it on 4th down. Really, no REALLY! That's your strategy? Eight minutes to go, up by three, at midfield. You want to risk giving the ball back to the opponent with a short field? I'm glad you're not a coach; you'd be fired. Head coach Jim Caldwell made the right call - the ONLY call he could've made. He decided to punt the ball and force Dallas to go the length of the football field. Given that the Cowboys had only scored 17 points up until that call, he had every reason to believe his defense was capable of making a stop. Had he gone for it, he would've been saying he had no faith in his defense. Worse, if he went for it and didn't make it, his head would rightly be on the chomping block. You don't take that kind of gamble that late in a playoff game.

2. The kicker shanked the punt. What can I say, shit happens. Tell me you knew he was going to do that and I'll buy you a house. 99 times out of a hundred, the punt goes off without a hitch. At the very least, the Cowboys would've gotten the ball at the 20 yard line; at most, the ball would've been downed near the goal line. You count on players to make plays. When they don't, it can prove costly. Shank or no shank, the call reversal is still unacceptable.

3. No one play wins or loses a game. This one's a beaut. First of all that statement depends on when the play occurs. For instance, three years ago the Giants were playing the Packers in the playoffs. Aaron Rogers threw a pass to a receiver who caught the ball and then was stripped of it as he was being tackled. Everyone who saw the play knew it was a fumble, but the call on the field was down by contact. The call even withstood a challenge by Giants' head coach Tom Coughlin. On the very next play Rogers threw a touchdown pass. It was still very early in the game and the Giants had plenty of time to recover from the blown call, which they did. They ended up routing the Packers. Had that call happened later in the game, there's no telling what might've happened. The point is you can't simply make a blanket statement like the above without knowing all the details. If the call is upheld, the Lions have the ball first and 10 at the Cowboy 26 yard line with just over eight minutes to go. They could've scored another touchdown, making it a two-score game for the Cowboys; they could've potentially run out the clock; or, at the very least, taken a good chunk of time off it before giving up the football deep in Cowboys' territory. They were denied that opportunity. End of story.

4. If the Lions had simply beaten the Packers the week before, they would've had a bye and hosted a home game next week. So, I guess it's okay then if the Packers had been the ones robbed. I just don't understand this reasoning. What difference does it make whether the Lions were home or on the road or whether the Packers would've been the team on the road? None of this is relevant. A bad call is a bad call, no matter where you are or which teams are involved.

5. It wasn't a clear-cut penalty. I don't know which universe you're in but that was about as clear a penalty as you're likely to see in the NFL. In fact, Hitchens, the Cowboys' linebacker who committed the foul, actually was holding Lions' tight end Pettigrew's jersey before the actual pass interference was committed. So he could've been called for either foul or maybe even both. It happens all the time. In fact, holding penalties are so common place in the league, a defender can be called for one for just breathing on the receiver. Furthermore, when Cowboys' receiver Dez Bryant ran onto the field with his helmet off, a penalty should've been called just for that. So that's three pretty cut and dried penalties. Don't take my word for it; take the word of Dean Blandino, the NFL head of officiating, who said all three fouls were committed and should've been called.

So there you have it. A horrific call which badly tainted what was up to that point a pretty good game. One team goes home empty handed; the other lives to play another game. And, once more, the NFL is embroiled in an embarrassing controversy that was avoidable. They say the worst errors are the unforced ones. This was one helluva unforced error.


Go Packers!

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

A year ago, I took Rangers' G.M. Glen Sather to task. The Rangers had just been been rudely bounced by the Boston Bruins in the second round of the playoffs and Sather "relieved" John Tortorella of his coaching duties. While no one was shedding any tears over Torts' exit, Sather, I felt, had to share in the blame for the team's dismal performance.

Since being hired by the Rangers, Sather has had a rather strange and often bewildering tenure. He hired former Islander center Brian Trottier as coach, then fired him 54 games into the season. Sather hired Tom Renney, who led the team to four consecutive playoff appearances. But when Renney couldn't get passed the second round of the playoffs, he was replaced by Tortorella. In 2012, Tortorella coached the Blueshirts to the conference finals, only to lose to the New Jersey Devils. It was generally acknowledged by many that it was Tortorella's style of coaching, combined with his shortening of the bench, that contributed to the team's failure to advance to the finals. They simply ran out of gas.

While Sather was responsible for drafting players like Henrik Lundqvist, Ryan Callahan and Marc Staal, he's also been responsible for some of the worst free-agent signings in the club's history, like Eric Lindros, Chris Drury and Scott Gomez. Yes, he signed Marion Gaborik, but when the winger wound up in Tortorella's doghouse, Sather traded him away. And while he did get Derick Brassard in return, Gaborik leads all players in goals in this year's playoffs with 11. The nightmare that was the 2012-13 season was as much Sather's fault as it was Tortorella's.

But if it was fair to hold Sather accountable for the wheels falling off last season, it is now equally fair to give him credit for the team's resurgence this season.

Of all the moves Sather has made, perhaps none were more critical then the signing of Alain Vigneault as head coach. It goes without saying that Vigneault was the polar opposite of Tortorella. While Tortorella ran his players ragged, played favorites and often chewed them out in public, Vigneault has treated them like adults, gotten valuable contributions from his role players and has earned the respect of the entire team. His calm and collected persona was the perfect tonic for a team that, for over four years, lived under a reign of terror.

By rotating four lines throughout the playoffs, Vigneault has managed to keep his team fresh. Thursday night's conference-final finale was a text-book case of how to coach a team. The Rangers speed and relentless forechecking pinned a Canadiens team that looked exhausted in their zone most of the night. The only goal of the game was fittingly scored by the fourth line. Under Tortorella, they would never have seen the ice so late in the game.

But Sather didn't stop with just hiring the perfect head coach. His controversial decision not to buy out Brad Richards' contract could have blown up in his face. Had Richards not rebounded this season and decided to retire afterwards, the Rangers would've been stuck with almost $6 million of the remaining $17 million Richards is owed against their cap. That would've been a huge pill to swallow. But Sather rolled the dice and, so far, has been rewarded. Richards has been one of the team's strongest leaders and steadiest players.

The story gets better. Sather's most difficult decision was to trade his captain, Ryan Callahan, who was demanding more money than the team was willing to pay him, to Tampa for winger Marty St. Louis. Throughout the balance of the regular season, the trade looked very much like a bust for the Rangers. But in the playoffs, St. Louis has been a valuable cog in this improbable run. The tragic passing of his mother acted as a springboard for a team that was trailing three games to one against the Penguins and looked dead in the water. Since then, the team has won seven of nine games and is now four wins away from its first Stanley Cup in twenty years.

But perhaps Sather's most clever move as G.M. occurred five years ago when he stole defenseman Ryan McDonagh from the Montreal Canadiens for Scott Gomez. McDonagh has not only been the Rangers' best blue liner this season, he's tied with Derek Stepan and St. Louis for the team lead in points this postseason with 13. Talk about redemption.

If the Rangers go on to win the Stanley Cup this year, Sather will have had a lot to do with it. He made all the correct moves when it counted. It will also mark the sixth time he has been the architect of a championship team; the other five coming with the Edmonton Oilers. He deserves much of the credit for climbing out of the hole he was partly to blame for digging.

He will also have the last laugh.

Close It Out

This has been a very strange and difficult to figure conference final series between the Rangers and Canadiens.

You could easily say that were it not for the outstanding goaltending of Montreal's Dustin Tokarski, this series would've ended last night with a four-game sweep. How bad have the Habs been in this series? By my count they've played three solid periods of hockey in four games. They've been slow and sloppy and their number one offensive player, P.K. Subban, has been, well, offesive.  Last night's power-goal was the first point he's had in the entire series.

Of course, the Rangers haven't been that much better. With the exception of game one's rout, they've been their own worst enemy. Yes, they've been the better team, but let's face it, that's not saying much. Consider this: if the Canadiens had managed to score just one more power play goal last night, as strange as it might seem, this series would actually be tied with the Blueshirts going back to Montreal and their backs against the wall.

Funny game, hockey. A bounce here, a bounce there. Last night's game was about as sloppy as you could get. The Rangers had to kill off eight penalties, five of them committed in the offensive zone. As a result, they never got their forecheck or speed game going. And yet they still managed to score three goals, all of them off of defensive lapses on the part of the Canadiens; the last one coming in overtime from Marty St. Louis, who took a brilliant pass from Carl Hagelin and went top shelf on Tokarski. With all the talk about the goaltenders in this series, Hagelin has been, by far, the best player on either side.

And now the Rangers find themselves in a rather unusual and unfamiliar position. They are up three games to one. They have three chances to close out their opponent. They haven't been this fortunate since they swept the Atlanta Thrashers in '07. So what will they do?

If I'm the Rangers, I close this sucker out Tuesday night. I would not look a gift horse in the mouth. There is no guarantee that the Rangers would win a game six at home. And, should they lose game six, it's over. No way they win a game seven in Montreal. Ask the Penguins what happened to them after they blew a chance to close out the Rangers in five. You can bet the ranch Montreal has the tape of that game.

The Canadiens will throw the kitchen sink at the Rangers. They've done their best to goat the Blueshirts into scrums designed only to incite and distract them. Brandon Prust's late hit on Derek Stepan, which resulted in the latter sustaining a broken jaw, shows the lengths to which they will go to get the Rangers off their game.

It will be up to head coach Alain Vigneault to keep his cool and convince his team not to lose theirs. Vigneault has been nothing short of brilliant in these playoffs. After four plus years of enduring the ranting and raving of John Tortorella, Vigneault has been a breath of fresh air in the locker room. Compare and contrast him with his counterpart, Montreal coach Michel Therrien, whose "small world" comment concerning Derick Brassard's upper-body injury, was about as unprofessional and amateurish at it gets. Credit Vigneault for not biting on that poisoned apple.

Tuesday night, the Rangers have three objectives: resist the urge to retaliate when the Canadiens come after them; stay out of the penalty box; and throw as many pucks as they can at Tokarski. If they do that, they stand an excellent chance of getting some badly needed rest in preparation for a Stanley Cup final round against either the L.A. Kings or the Chicago Blackhawks.  If they don't, they could end up being only the third team in the last sixty-eight to blow a 3-1 conference final round lead.

It's been twenty years since the last championship. This might be the best chance a Rangers team has of drinking from the Cup for quite some time. It would be nothing short of catastrophic if they let it slip by.

Hab Nots

What to make of yesterday's drubbing of the Canadiens. On the one hand, the Rangers were quick on the puck, solid defensively and Henrik Lundqvist exorcized, for at least one game, his past demons in stopping 20 of 22 shots.

On the other hand, however, Montreal was simply dreadful. They were slow, sloppy and, for the better part of the game, seemed to be hungover from their game 7 victory over the Bruins. How bad were the Canadiens? They allowed the Rangers to score three power play goals, one of them by Rick Nash, whose last playoff goal, if memory serves, was scored sometime in 1911. They left their goalie, Carey Price, virtually naked and made Chris Kreider look like Steve Shutt. Thomas Vanek and P.K. Subban, second round heroes over the Bruins, were invisible.

And yet, even with all that, it was a 2-1 game until the 18:59 mark of the 2nd period. That was when Steve, er, Chris Kreider split through both Montreal defensemen for a breakaway goal. Fifty seconds later Brad Richards caught Carey Price leaning the wrong way and shot the puck past him. 4-1 Rangers after two. The third period seemed almost anticlimactic.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good laugher as much as the next fan. Of the Rangers' eight playoff wins coming into this series, six were nail biters. Indeed, both game 7s were as excruciating as they were exciting to watch. So it was a nice reprieve to not have to sweat out a third period for once. Trust me, I have enough gray hairs.

But a reprieve is all this was, period. If anyone thinks for a moment that game 2 is going to be the cakewalk game 1 was, they're delusional. The Canadiens are a very fast and very talented team. And very proud. Despite what all their players said after the game about putting this behind them, believe me, the way they played will stick in their craw. They will look to exact revenge on the Blueshirts in game 2. There is no way Montreal can lose both games at home and expect to win this series. They know that and so should the Rangers.

In the last round, the Rangers beat the Penguins in game 1 by out skating them. Pittsburgh couldn't contend with the Rangers' speed. Then, for some reason, they stopped skating and checking. The Penguins won the next three before the tragic death of Marty St. Louis's mother sparked an emotional resurgence and miraculous turnaround. The Rangers rolled off three consecutive and decisively emotional wins to oust the Pens.

Know this, if the Rangers pull that against the Canadiens, there will be no miracle comeback. No way in hell Montreal will blow a 3-1 series lead. They are considerably better, deeper, sounder and more resilient than Pittsburgh. You don't defeat the Eastern Conference champs by letting up. They know how to deliver a knockout punch; a trait which the Rangers have been sadly lacking.

It's also worth noting that the last time a Rangers team found itself up one game to none against a Canadians team was 1979 in the Cup finals. That was a fairly lopsided win, too, if I'm not mistaken.

We all know how that series turned out.

Who Will Win Super Bowl 48?

Let's get something straight. If I really knew who was going to win the big game in February, I wouldn't be writing this silly blog; I'd be in Vegas planning my next villa in the south of France. But, if recent history is any indication, the winner will most definitely NOT be the number one seed in its conference.

Going back to the 2005 season, only two Super Bowl winners earned a first-round bye. They were the '08 Steelers (#2 seed) and the '09 Saints (#1 seed). The other SB winners were either low-seed division or wildcard teams. The '06 Colts, '11 Giants and '12 Ravens were low-seed winners while the '05 Steelers, '07 Giants and '10 Packers were wildcard winners. That's six out of eight winners that were not even favored to get to the conference championship game, much less the Super Bowl.

What that tells you is that in today's NFL, anything goes. Parody is the key to what drives the sport. It's what makes things so interesting and predictions so hard to make. In fact you could say the only predictable thing about the NFL is its unpredictability.

So, with that in mind, let me go on record as saying who ever wins Super Bowl 48, will NOT be the top seed in its conference. That means no Denver Broncos and Houston Texans (my picks for #1 and #2 seeds respectively in the AFC) or San Francisco 49ers and Atlanta Falcons (#1 and #2 seeds in the NFC).

The likely teams to represent the AFC are: The Indianapolis Colts and Baltimore Ravens (again). In the NFC, I like the Green Bay Packers, Seattle Seahawks and New York Giants.  Since the big game is being played in New York, I'll go with the Giants over Ravens at Met Life Stadium.

Don't bet the ranch.  Remember, I'm a Mets' fan.