Devils’ season ends once again in Raleigh, fittingly in excruciating fashion

Posted on April 30, 2025 by hasan4978

Never has such an inevitable result been more annoying, other than I suppose the 2008 playoffs where we lost in five games to a Ranger team we couldn’t even beat in open play during eight games of the regular season that year. Yes, we lost in five games to Carolina which was exactly what I predicted before the series – but the way three of these last four games played out was just an organization that gets off on trolling us doing it once again in epic fashion. All of these last four games were there for the taking to be honest, sure you can say ‘if we had a healthy lineup’ or ‘if Fitz hadn’t done such a pathetic job in maintaining depth up front’ but those are far from the only reasons Devil fans are going to be plagued with a severe case of what-ifs this offseason.

I would like nothing more than to write ‘only’ a season postmortem and just be done with it at this point, but Game 5 was so ridiculous you have to talk about it. Even if I didn’t actually start watching it until almost all the goals were scored last night. I did have a rec league event I was going to go to at 9 PM (which wound up getting canceled) that was a convenient excuse for me to avoid the start of Game 5. With the reports that both Brett Pesce and Jonas Siegenthaler were doubtful for the game, I started wondering about the viability of having an emergency backup defenseman (EBUD), the way all teams are required to have an emergency backup goalie (EBUG). I figured this team was done after the way they flatlined in Game 4 with the game available for the taking, and maybe we would all have been better off if Game 5 was the housing a lot of us expected.

What transpired was actually far worse.

When I got the updates of the Devils going up 1-2-3 to nothing in the first period inside the first ten minutes I was mystified. It all of a sudden looked like the Devils got yet another second wind with their backs to the wall the way they did in Game 3. But to be up three inside of ten minutes at Raleigh? That smelled like a Canes no-show (or us taking advantage of their young backup goalie, if not both) and apparently Jordan Staal said as much after the first period. On our first goal, Dawson Mercer did what few forwards have done in this series – go to the front of the net and tip a goal past Pyotr Kochetkov. It was almost fitting Mercer had his moment of resembling a top-line hockey player while I wasn’t watching given what happened later, but I digress.

A suddenly fired up Timo Meier doubled the Devils’ lead at 5:31 with a hard wrister down low, and then egged on the booing crowd (obviously the homers there want to blame him for being checked into Freddie Andersen, injuring their starter) by asking for more. Love that you’re finally engaged after that crap call woke you up in Game 4 buddy, but this is what we’ve seen too little of from you the last three years. Speaking of waking up, after being a complete net negative in the first four games, ex-Cane Stefan Noesen finally woke up and scored an ‘almost’ power play goal, going to the front and tipping another past Kochetkov just as our man advantage expired. It would be the closest we would get to a power play goal all series, but it was still good enough to give us a 3-0 lead.

At that point I made a huge mistake and texted my friend I was suddenly looking for what time Friday’s game would start and he lectured me. Why do I do these things lol…I mean this is Carolina, Troll HC. Not that I thought the game was literally over after ten minutes, but I at least wanted to start preparing for the possibility I’d be going back to the Prudential Center Friday and was hoping the start time wouldn’t be too late. Our undermanned defense had played well through the balance of the series and Jacob Markstrom couldn’t have a second straight clunker of a game in a row, right? Right?!

My last update before I started driving to Dover was when the game was 3-0 but we’d been supposedly game managed into a lousy penalty call, ergo had to kill a penalty to start the second period. I didn’t see it but can’t really doubt it at this point, the Canes have always had ‘favored son’ status in the NHL and I don’t really get it. It’s one thing when you’re trying to establish a market down there, but that market’s already been established and it’s not like they have a lot of marquee players that’ll sell ratings points in the second round of the playoffs. Maybe it was just a bad call for the sake of making a bad call but it sounds like there were more than one in the middle part of the game.

Anyway I didn’t have the radio on or look at any updates at all, so I half gasped when I finally arrived and saw the score was 4-3 Devils and Carolina had scored the next three goals with the game still in the middle of the second period. And then further rolled my eyes when one of my other friends (who has a two-year old daughter) texted me 4-4, I’m going to bed now. At that point I was thankful I’d stayed away from watching the game and just wanted the season to end. Because let’s be honest, even if the series had gone into Game 6 or Game 7 then the trolls in Carolina would have just found a way to annoy us as much as possible, like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown.

From reading stuff online after my event was canceled and I got home in time for the slog that was the latter part of the third period and OT, it quickly became obvious Jacob Markstrom was a main culprit in the Devils’ second period meltdown. Once I saw the highlights, I knew why. Maybe goal #1 wasn’t the worst in the world to allow, but you’d like better puck control/recognition on the initial Logan Stankoven shot that Taylor Hall found on the goalline and tapped it in just as the Canes’ PP was ending. Goal #2 however was completely inexcusable by any metric – a weak wraparound attempt by Jackson Blake that turned the Canes’ spasm into a surge and completely flipped momentum.

From then on, it was like a boulder rolling downhill. Evidently coach Sheldon Keefe had that same fear, using his timeout to try to stem the tide. Unfortunately, it didn’t work and Andrei Svechnikov tied the game with a wrister through traffic at 5:40 of the period. Three goals on three shots, sorry – not good enough for a guy who’s supposed to be one of our strengths, especially after the way he stunk in Game 3. Had I been watching I would have been aghast why Keefe didn’t pull him for Jake Allen. I mean Pete DeBoer actually did this with Martin Brodeur in the playoffs when Marty was in the midst of melting down during Game 3 against Florida. And like 2012 with Johan Hedberg, we had a vet goalie on the bench. But what’s the point of having a vet goalie on the bench if you’re not even going to go to him when the starter sinks two games in a row? I saw at 4-4 he hadn’t been pulled yet and was shocked.

You have to say that decision (or non-decision) ‘worked’ in asmuch as Markstrom played well after that point, but unlike some I really don’t give him any credit for playing well when the horse was out of the barn. Not when the team is a corpse by then and you are one of the biggest reasons why. Shockingly the Devils actually did re-take the lead after blowing the three-goal edge in near record time, with Nico Hischier finding an open area in the slot and beating Kochetkov for his fourth goal of the series. Not-so-shockingly we gave it right back, with an assist from the refs handing the Canes a 5-on-3 with a dubious call and Sebastian Aho predictably scored to tie the game again. This all happened in barely over eleven minutes of real game action.

Ironically when I did get home after finding my event was canceled and was resigned to watching the end of the Devils’ season there was no more action through the end of regulation, or the first OT. Well there was action all right but it was completely tilted toward our defensive end of the ice. All told, Carolina outshot us 34-12 after the second period, including 19-4 in the two OT’s. And after each Markstrom save that kept our corpse alive, I only got madder that he couldn’t make simple stops earlier in the game and we wouldn’t even be in this fix. We would have already been planning for Game 6 with three days’ rest for a tired group of skaters clearly running on empty now.

My only hope for the second OT was they’d find yet another second wind and the Canes would start to tire from their relentless pressure. And the Nico line did have a good first shift of OT, but then we were torpedoed again due to utter stupidity from an expected source – Mercer, whose inexcusable double major on a high sticking basically sealed the expected result on a silver platter. I figured the goal would come either within five seconds of the power play starting, or within it ending for maximum troll effect. It was closer to the latter as the Devils actually killed off the first part of the major, but inexorably Aho would score the winner ending one of the most joyless ‘good’ seasons I’ve ever experienced as a fan.

Maybe I’ll do a proper season recap/postmortem once cleanout day happens, or breakup day, whatever it’s called when every player and exec gives their final season interviews as the team cleans out its lockers. Normally I avoid this stuff like the plague but I am kind of anxious to hear about the extent of some of these injuries with rumors all over the place about Luke Hughes having surgery and Brendan Dillon potentially having an even more serious injury than that. Without grading individual players (that might come later) it has to be said for the most part this team deserves credit for responding to adversity in this series. Ironically, it’s prosperity they didn’t handle too well throughout the series – caving in with the Game 2 lead, losing a two-goal lead in Game 3, failing to capitalize on momentum in Game 4 and well we just went through the worst of them all.

Still, if Game 3 was a credit to the team and you can’t really fault their effort in this series, you do wonder why they can’t show this fight more consistently? Even the MSG postgame pointed out how different the record was up until late December and after it. Why was our supposedly stable veteran goalie so up and down this season and this series? Not that Allen was great down the stretch either, and he’s one of many decisions Tom Fitzgerald has after the season as he’s a free agent and the Devils have younger goalies who could potentially be Markstrom’s backup next year.

On the one hand I don’t envy Fitz since this is a pivotal offseason, on the other he’s trying to clean up messes he for the large part made, specifically the lack of center depth and general forward depth as well as the lack of mobility + transition on the blueline. You would have liked to see more from the non-Nico forwards in this series but you can’t really ask for AHL scrubs and over-the-hill vets to do more. If I felt like I had famous last words last night with my ill-fated text, so did Fitz himself when he said either before the season or early in the season that scoring wasn’t an issue. Scoring was absolutely an issue considering the team was 19th in goalscoring (fewest of any playoff team outside of the Wild) and much of that was even before Jack Hughes’ injury.

For now though, I’m just tired of this team – tired of the excuses for an underachieving group the last two years or of watching over the hill/underachieving players and tired of having to contend with such an unrealistic spate of injuries on the blueline that if it happened in a video game I’d be adjusting sliders! Most of all, I’m just tired of losing to this organization which gets off trolling on us. Even with our issues, most of these games were there for the taking so clearly a healthy Devils team would have had a good shot at winning the series – provided the overhyped goalie didn’t still sink them anyway.

Aside from a few guys like Nico, Pesce and even Brian Dumoulin who was a revelation in this series (albeit one who’s UFA this offseason, one of Fitz’s many big decisions), I’m just tired and frustrated with almost everyone else in a Devils uniform or a suit upstairs for different reasons. Like I said, I may have a postmortem in a couple days once breakup day happens or maybe it’ll be more of a postmortem/offseason preview closer to the start of the draft/FA. If there’s anything particularly noteworthy coming out of breakup day it’ll perhaps be the former, if not it’ll likely be see you in a couple months for the latter.

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Devils revert back to form early in Game 4, run out of gas late in a 5-2 loss

Posted on April 28, 2025 by hasan4978

Fifty-two seconds…that’s all it took for all the good vibes of Game 3 and the fans’ energy in the pregame to evaporate. Fifty-two lousy seconds for Carolina to dominate us on the first shift, for Dougie Hamilton to make a critical mistake with a failed clearance keeping him and Jonas Siegenthaler on the ice for a longer shift and for the Devils to never recover the puck until Andrei Svechnikov’s seeing eye shot was fished out of the net, stunning everyone with a quick 1-0 lead before you could sit down with your beer stick at the arena (not that I did this, but those things are cute I have to admit haha).

If any first shift ever set a tone for a game, it was that shift yesterday. Both in showing that Carolina was more ready to play yesterday than they were in Game 3, and in showing that we were again going to have a flat start, not exactly uncommon with this group but just more inexcusable under the circumstances. Sure, I had the fear that we’d run out of energy after that adrenaline-filled OT win the other night, but I didn’t expect the team to actually come out as if they were satisfied with winning one game in the series and shooting our load.

That apathy from both team and crowd carried over through the first period, with Jacob Markstrom giving up a clunker of a short-side goal to Jaccob Slavin following a brutal Stefan Noesen turnover, showing we weren’t going to get any help from ‘Marky’ either yesterday. From 1-20 on the roster, that first period was as poor an effort as anything the Devils showed us in a brutal second half but for the first time in a while, it was a bit disappointing coming just after a heroic effort on Friday. Getting a grand total of three shots in the first period is just not going to cut it, I don’t care if Carolina had Freddy Andersen in net or Freddy Krueger. By the time an ice-cold Svechnikov got his second of the game with a tip in on a power play (of course) early in the second period, I was actually planning an early exit. For all the world this looked like Game 4 two years ago where the Canes responded to a bleh effort 2-0 up by running us out of the building, while this Game 4 looked like a fitting coda for a disappointing team.

Of course the Devils being the Devils, it wasn’t bad enough just to lose – they had to throw in a big tease on top of it that only served to annoy me even more over the start of the game. Even as Nico Hischier scored his third goal of the series to cut the deficit to 3-1, I figured we would give up more goals anyway and be unlikely to score the 4 or more we’d need to win the game. Then came a sequence that could have turned the game if we had more of an offensive attack, a sequence that started when ironically Svechnikov made his one misstep of the game by pushing Timo Meier into Andersen, injuring his starting goaltender for the rest of the game at least.

While the refs enraged the building by calling a five-minute major on Timo, eventually the call was overturned upon review as Toronto did its job thankfully. Making all the supposed criticism of Timo not getting a penalty during the intermission even more annoying. I was at the game so I didn’t hear it but memo to the studio…a penalty was called and was overturned after video showed Timo didn’t initiate contact with Andersen. Perhaps he went a step too far into the crease before that, but it’s very rare these days to call goaltender interference unless the skater actually initiates contact, which didn’t happen here.

Anyhow, not only did the play take out Carolina’s starting goalie but also fired up Timo, who almost immediately scored on his next shift, albeit with his worst shot of the series, a turnaround wrister from the boards that somehow went in past Pyotr Kochetkov to cut the deficit to one, and end all my talk about leaving early to join my friends for an impromptu game night (planned after I’d already decided to take the train from South Orange to save money on the inflated parking prices at the arena).

At this point, we had the momentum and the crowd back. Unfortunately what we didn’t have…was the talent or the legs to keep the pressure on Carolina’s shaky young goaltender, who only had to make fourteen saves in just over thirty-five minutes, many of them not very hard shots at all. Still, the Devils were hanging by a thread in the game through the second and much of the third period…until Markstrom gave up his second clunker of the night, starting off his own turnover and ending with an unscreened trickler through him as he completed his hero to zero arc in two nights. Svechnikov sealing matters with a hat trick goal was a fitting coda to a disappointing game, if not the entire second half of the season.

On the plus side, at least I made it for the last hour of my friends’ game night, despite wasting an hour after the game waiting for the next train back to South Orange (I hadn’t really cared about that possibility when it didn’t seem like I was going anywhere else after the game anyway). From that standpoint at least the night wasn’t a total loss.

As far as the team goes, of course there’s still at least one more game to be played. And as much as I can’t stand Carolina and want to see us put one over on them, I know that’s not really going to happen at this point – even with how underwhelming they look, our problems on and off the ice are just so pronounced at this point part of me just feels like let’s just get put out of our misery here and not have to bother with going to another game Friday which will likely be another letdown even if they somehow find a way to win tomorrow in a building they’re 1-13 in their last fourteen playoff games.

While Friday’s game to quote my arena friend ‘was a nice reward for us fans for suffering through the difficult second half of the season’, yesterday’s game was a reminder of both just how difficult the second half was and how unlikely a revival is now without any of our three injured defensemen (or Jack Hughes) coming back anytime soon it would seem.

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Devils’ dramatic 3-2 OT win over Carolina provides a reprieve and ray of hope

Posted on April 26, 2025 by hasan4978

As someone who’s been down on this team for months and really the better part of two years, I have to agree with the coach here…last night was nothing short of a heroic display of grit and determination at home. Not just because the Devils finally ground out a 3-2 win in double OT but because of the circumstances surrounding the game – while we did get some unexpectedly good news with a surprise return of Jonas Siegenthaler for Game 3, it was also pretty well timed considering we were already going to be short Brendan Dillon and Luke Hughes on the blueline after their respective Game 2 injuries, then on top of that lost Jonathan Kovacevic at some point late in the first period last night to an undisclosed injury, he wouldn’t return so the Devils played with five defensemen for more than three full periods last night.

Playing shorthanded with essentially three top six defensemen out of the lineup and another one who was supposed to be on a shift count with a lack of conditioning, things looked bleak even after we came out on the front foot in the first period and Nico Hischier scored the opening goal, seemingly willing the puck past Frederik Andersen to get the sellout crowd back out of their seats waving the towels.

A moment about the crowd and the atmosphere, while I definitely think there were…tense moments at times, for the most part everyone stayed in the game and stayed around even as the game got extended deep into the night. I also think the team or media department – I never really know who to credit with stuff like this – did a good job with the intro video. While the music wasn’t quite as goosebump inducing as the 2012 video, the rest of it was well done and the small lights around the arena to add ambiance certainly helped as well.

My exact comment to a friend via text – ‘we can’t waste this intro on a two and done’ meaning us being done after two home games. Which is what I feared before last night (and could very well still happen). Back to the point though…the atmosphere was as electric as you’d expect with a Friday night playoff game, in spite of the peril of being down 2-0 with major injuries throughout the lineup. Aside from Siegenthaler, who heroically played twenty-seven minutes last night in his first game back with only a couple of interference penalties to critique, showing his rust with timing. I do kind of wish they’d put him in the starting lineup for a little extra juice during intros but I get it, maybe they were worried he could get too excited.

Although we were ahead after the first period, the aforementioned Kovacevic injury dampened my mood a bit when my friend told me he was out, and my exact text back was great, we have basically 4.5 defensemen with Siegs ostensibly on a shift count and one of them is (Simon) Nemec who sucks. Yes, I’m telling on myself a bit here – to be fair to myself, I didn’t think he started off too well in Game 3 with a couple of early turnovers either but to Nemec’s credit he did settle in, perhaps taking a regular shift and knowing he couldn’t get the hook upped his confidence level a bit with dramatic results at the end.

Back to the game though, things looked as bad as I feared they could get the first twelve minutes of the second period with Carolina making their expected push, but thankfully Jacob Markstrom was up to the task yet again, along with some well-timed shotblocking by Brian Dumoulin and Brett Pesce. Dumoulin actually wound up leading the team with 36:24 played, and finished with a +2 to boot. Of course everyone on the Devils was either a plus something or even – but I’ll get to why later. Pesce put in another determined game with 32:30 and credited with six blocks (Dumoulin just behind him with five). Again to their credit, the Devils settled in and kept the score unchanged through the second intermission.

While I don’t always follow the advanced stats and think they’re accurate, if you look at Markstrom’s numbers, they pretty well match with the eye test so far this series. Still, I didn’t think one goal would cut it unless Markstrom literally had a 35-40 save game. We were going to need a second one, one that should have been scored by Timo Meier (and I thought had been scored but waved off due to a whistle after a long netmouth scramble, it wasn’t until I saw the replay that I realized to my disbelief it was actually saved).

I can’t even feel sorry for him at this point, dude just hasn’t done one thing right this series really although he also doesn’t get any breaks when it comes to the refs either. From the headbutt by Brent Burns in Game 2 that got missed to being tripped in the third period on a play that was similar to a call on Dougie Hamilton in the first that wasn’t called for him in the third it seems like the refs are just as down on Timo as Devils fans are! At least the refs didn’t decide the game last night though, and actually showed some balls giving Carolina two OT penalties when I was rolling my eyes at the people around me demanding penalties in OT thinking the refs would never call crap at this point.

If Timo couldn’t get the Devils a much-needed insurance goal, Dawson Mercer did early in the third. Unlike the Timo miss, this was a goal I actually couldn’t see go in the net, I just saw the puck at the side of the net after the play was over and was puzzled we were celebrating (now seeing the replay I understand why), but hey I’ll take it!

Even a negative nancy like me felt at a certain point we had it at 2-0 with the way the team was playing five-on-five. It was really one of the best games I’ve seen at five-on-five all season, which is saying something given the circumstances. I was feeling good right up until Siegenthaler’s interference penalty at 5:05 put us on the PK, without one of our main PK defensemen. The results were predictable with a quick one-two by Sebastian Aho and Seth Jarvis through the middle of the Devils’ defense (Hamilton and Pesce) setting up the latter to score and then it was fingernail-biting time again. That shift and a delay-of-game penalty several minutes later were the only missteps from Pesce in an otherwise brilliant game, unfortunately the latter also proved costly as our compromised PK was again unable to shut down their 26th ranked PP. This time it only took ten seconds and Markstrom even made the first save on this sequence before Aho scored the tying goal.

Now I was annoyed…not the least of which was the now likelihood of OT where both me and my arena friend feared their healthy lineup would eventually grind us down. Of course, we did get to OT but only after another heroic save by Markstrom at the end of regulation which could very well have been another ‘Hurricane playoff moment’ at the end of a regulation game.

Apparently, the Devils got the memo about coming out fast, but much to my surprise they kept coming throughout the entire OT period and it was Carolina who looked the more tired team (perhaps due to not having the desperation factor we did). As I told my friend in the first intermission, we were great for sixteen minutes of the period, it’s just the four we were on the power play that we sucked. Yes, the power play of doom, which seems to know only one way to play, pass around the perimeter and look for the perfect play even without two of their key cogs on the PP. You would think at some point we would just dumb it down a bit, try to just get shots on net, traffic in front and all the other hockey cliches you want to use. Carolina’s league-leading PK has caught on to our too-fancy style and snuffed out our once-mighty PP to an alarming level in this series barely allowing a shot on each OT power play we shockingly got.

Despite our hideous special teams, we were still one shot away from winning it. While I wasn’t sure we could keep up our pace from the first OT by this point a strange thing happened…I was actually starting to both enjoy the actual game itself, and revel in the length of it. Admittedly, my original plan before the game was to leave if the game went past the first OT since I hadn’t slept well lately and didn’t really want any part of a no-sleep night for a series that was hanging on a wing and prayer in terms of actually staying competitive. Last night’s effort pretty much compelled me to stick it out though, not to mention the realization that I hadn’t actually sat through a multi-OT game since the team played at the Meadowlands when Jamie Langenbrunner beat Ottawa in a series where that wound up being our only win. I vaguely remember not wanting to go to Game 5 when we were down 3-1 in that series because I wanted that game to be the last one I was at in East Rutherford.

Fortunately everyone’s best efforts – team and fans – got rewarded last night thanks to an unlikely hero, the aforementioned Nemec who channeled Scott Niedermayer with practically an end-to-end rush through the Canes’ defense for a stunning goal.

Also give credit to Justin Dowling whose turnover just before that sequence led to the Devils getting the puck, and the 21-year old who’s been under fire from within and without did the rest, finally reminding us of the promise he seemed to show last year while the team as a whole reminded us last night of why we’ve had such high expectations of both this franchise’s present and future. Things in the present still seem cloudy at best, but for one night at least it was fun to be a Devils fan again. Sort of like a standalone episode in a series – the unexpected feel-good story in an otherwise serious drama show. I’m still not expecting to win the series or even be close, but at least I got home in enough time to get seven hours’ sleep and I’ll be at tomorrow’s game now. And if we ever win that one, well…

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Boyle rips into Zibanejad on Up In The Blue Seats

Posted on April 24, 2025 by Derek

In the world of podcasts, there’s a pretty good one that’s hosted by Rangers beat writer Mollie Walker of the NY Post. Up In The Blue Seats also features NY Post hockey columnist Larry Brooks and former Ranger Brian Boyle.

A couple of days following breakup day on what was one of the most agonizing seasons in recent memory, the trio discussed what went wrong. In particular, Boyle didn’t hold back, criticizing the team and ripping into Mika Zibanejad. A member of the Black and Blueshirts, which was coined by Brooks to describe the hardnosed approach those teams took last decade, Boyle pulled no punches in going after the softest Rangers roster in quite some time.

In response to Brooks asserting that it was the most sensitive group he’s ever been around, Boyle interjected: “They continually got exposed from the start of the season on. And to Larry’s point, this is a soft hockey team. And that’s not what you want to be called. It’s the worst thing you could say.

“And to further Larry’s other point, there’s zero personality on the team. They just botted it up. … You can’t be so hypersensitive that if you make a mistake, you don’t address it. Like, get harder. Physically, mentally, everything.”

Boyle then called out Zibanejad for his lethargic play during an uninspired first half that saw him struggle psychologically. He admitted that all of the noise became a distraction. While that was true, he didn’t come close to giving the kind of consistent effort that was required of him. Instead, he looked lost. His lack of production really hurt the team.

“And if this is the way they want to go and we need more communication with management, I don’t know what Glen Sather’s doing ever,” he pointedly said while raising his voice.

“Coach, tell me what to do and then I’ll try to go do that. You want to give me more stuff? What we’re going to do with the salary cap for next year. Or how we are going to trade this guy and bring this guy up? That’s not your job. Your job is to play center ice and score goals and be a power play guy and you’re a leader. You wear a letter on this team.

It doesn’t matter what management is doing. You can’t worry about that. Worry about your teammates and that’s it. What the coach is telling you to do. And that is it. That’s all you can worry about because it’s hard enough.”

Brooks also summed up how most fans felt watching them. “It was the least enjoyable team that I ever covered. This team just turtled and went into the fetal position whenever any adversity struck. It’s the most sensitive group I’ve been around. Those were the 2024-25 Rangers.”

To catch the full episode, watch it on YouTube below. They went over how bad this team was for an hour. That’s a lot more time than they were worth. Kudos to Walker, Brooks, and Boyle for all the hard work they put in. Unlike the team, they didn’t mail it in.

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Pressure is on Drury following contract extension

Posted on April 23, 2025 by Derek

Can the NHL go a couple of days without the Rangers making headlines? At this rate, I wouldn’t bet on it. Two days after breakup day following a disappointing season without making the playoffs, they’re in the news again.

Earlier today, the Rangers announced that they’d signed team president and general manager Chris Drury to a multiyear contract extension. If there were any hopeful fans who actually thought he’d be gone, they probably also believe in the tooth fairy.

It’s no secret that Drury has a close relationship with Garden CEO James Dolan. Dolan, who oversaw the firing of coach Peter Laviolette, still thinks that Drury is the best person for the job. So, he got some job security. Now, it’s on Drury to get the hiring of a new coach right and overhaul a roster that became stale.

“I am pleased that Chris will continue to lead the Rangers hockey operations in his role as President and General Manager,” Dolain said in a press release. “Over his tenure, Chris has shown passion for the Rangers, relentless work ethic, and a tireless pursuit of excellence. While we are all disappointed in what transpired this past season, I am confident in his ability to guide this organization to success.”

Right now, the Rangers are a laughingstock. Other fans of rivals are making jokes at their expense. Even across the Hudson when the Devils find themselves in a 2-0 series deficit to the Hurricanes, some of their fans can’t contain their excitement for what’s going on at 33rd and 7th. Unless they find some offense in time for Game 3, they’ll be joining our team on the golf course soon.

Be that as it may, the calendar hasn’t even changed to May yet. Drury has his work cut out for him. The Rangers went from a league-leading 114 points to 85 in one year, subtracting captain Jacob Trouba, alternate captain Barclay Goodrow, former number two pick Kaapo Kakko, and key defenseman Ryan Lindgren. Only Goodrow changed locations before the season, with Drury making a prearranged waiver deal with the Sharks to claim him last summer. Jimmy Vesey also went with Lindgren in the roster purge that did little to improve the team. Even the key addition of J.T. Miller wasn’t enough to get them into the postseason.

While Drury is still in Dolan’s good graces, all this does is up the ante. Nobody is satisfied with the season they just had. Dolan lost a lot of gate revenue, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise for season ticket holders. They were set to raise the ticket prices again despite how underwhelming the team was. The cost for each round of the playoffs was absurd. At least, loyal fans saved money this time. Had they somehow squeaked in, the Rangers would’ve had no shot against the Caps in the first round. At least the Canadiens can compete. If Game 1 was any indication, that could be a closer series than first thought.

What lies ahead is finding the right coach who can get whoever’s left on the roster to buy into becoming a much tougher team. It’ll be the third coaching hire of Drury’s tenure running the organization. The two-year plan they’ve been on isn’t sustainable. The team’s lack of consistency further explains how they went from two appearances in the Conference Finals to getting good coaches dismissed in record time.

The onus is on Drury to get it right this time. That’ll include some tough decisions on restricted free agent K’Andre Miller, and well-respected veterans Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider. The latter two could wind up getting moved. If he’s looking to free up enough room to make an impact move that can improve the roster, Drury will have to have a long sit down with Zibanejad, who holds a full no-movement clause on a contract that pays him an $8.5 million cap hit. He didn’t suffer from any injuries like Kreider, who clearly was a shadow of the player who averaged over 37 goals the past two seasons before dropping down to 22 goals in 68 games.

There are more decisions to make, with Will Cuylle due to a significant raise from his entry-level contract. Forwards Adam Edstrom, Matt Rempe, Arthur Kaliyev, and Juuso Parssinen are all restricted free agents. Defensemen Zac Jones and Matthew Robertson are as well.

Whatever transpires this summer, it won’t mean a thing until we see how the Rangers perform next season. There will be a lot more pressure on both the GM and the players. It should be an interesting off-season.

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Devils’ attack again flatlines in another Raleigh shutdown

Posted on April 23, 2025 by hasan4978

Another playoff game in Raleigh, another defeat…the script has been old for the last fifteen years but it never changes. Now we’re 1-13 in our last fourteen playoff games at that house of horrors, with every chance we don’t get another game there this series. Sure, we’re going back to New Jersey now for two games. Obviously, the effort was better in Game 2, though it wasn’t much of a bar to clear compared to Game 1 but the goals never really came other than Jesper Bratt’s opener when for once the Devils actually got off to a good start in the game and controlled the first twenty minutes.

Take a good look cause that’s the only Devil ‘highlight’ from Game 2 you’ll see unless you want to look up some more Jacob Markstrom saves, or even the couple of clearances off the goal line Brett Pesce did. Even Pesce playing his butt off against his former team couldn’t overcome the lack of offense. Ironically, the major concern going into Game 2 was our injuries on defense with both Brendan Dillon and Luke Hughes being ruled out for last night’s game. Honestly it has to be said even with Dennis Cholowski and out-of-favor Simon Nemec taking their place, the actual defensive zone play didn’t slide too much.

Of course, where we did actually miss Luke more than in our own zone was offensively, specifically the power play which was brutal again, even giving up a shorthanded goal as the Canes re-established control in the first six minutes of the second period with two quick goals from Shayne Gostisbehere and Jordan Martinook (does this guy ever kill anyone besides us in the playoffs?). With our hideous offense even that two-goal spasm proved to be enough, as the Canes would grind out a workman-like 3-1 victory, only clinching it with an empty-netter late.

I’m past the point of giving the Devils credit for trying…sure in a vacuum last night’s effort was good and clearly there’s a talent issue now missing half your starting defense and best offensive player and I suppose the 7-10 points we dropped going at half speed for much of the second half really doesn’t matter at this point since it would have been the same matchup anyway – but now it’s obvious once again we’re in a position where we’re just hoping to get a token win to keep up the franchise’s odd badge of honor in never being swept in a playoff series. Two years off from having one of the best seasons in franchise history, we weren’t supposed to go backwards but barring a miracle the rest of this series, that will happen now.

There isn’t much else I can or want to say about last night’s game, to be honest I’ve been so beaten down by the Devils’ second half I didn’t even bother watching. I’ve missed watching road playoff games before but this is one I just flat out opted out of. I did listen to much of the game on replay later on but obviously wasn’t invested in it. Even after hearing about Bratt’s goal and the Devils’ first period, you knew a Canes surge would be coming. To be honest, I half thought we would tie the game late then immediately blow it once again, because that also seems to be a staple of Hurricane playoff series.

Right now I’m fully expecting Friday to be my last home game of the season, because I’m not going to show up in the building on a lovely Sunday afternoon if we’re down 3-0 (which I do expect now, despite my picking Carolina in 5 before the series, even I didn’t think a sweep was likely) when I could be hanging out with friends instead. Quite honestly this team doesn’t deserve to have me go down with the ship anyway. 2023’s team did, even the 2008 team that annoyingly lost almost every single game to the Rangers and of course got eliminated on home ice, at least that team gave effort for the most part. I’m not giving them any credit for finally clocking in a shift for Game 2 when the odds were stacked against them and they were in full nothing to lose mode. Where was this effort from late December on?

I know there’s a talent issue…the lack of a pulse from the bottom six is largely on the GM’s failures both in terms of contracts he did give out, and guys he didn’t ultimately get or traded away. Defensively the lack of a transition game is also on Fitz – even with a healthy Luke and Dougie this team struggled with that all season. Without Luke and a rusty Dougie? Forget it. That said, I’m sorry but we need even more from our top guys up front than we’ve gotten. Sure, Bratt and Nico Hischier have the only goals of the series but by and large they’ve been invisible or ineffective for much of their postseason career. At least neither has been as bad as the overrated Timo Meier though.

It’s bad enough the $8.8 million man screwed up the backcheck on one of Carolina’s second period goals by pinching in when he didn’t have coverage. This kind of stupidity unfortunately is all too commonplace within the team at the moment…but what we are paying this guy more for is to score goals. And barring some great March streaks he really hasn’t been the dominant force we thought we were getting from San Jose, nothing close. Especially in the playoffs where he has two goals and four points in thirteen playoff games. His agonizing near-miss at the end just says it all…sure the puck was bouncing a bit, but there’s always another excuse.

It’s been a while since I’ve disliked a Devil as much…maybe Ilya Kovalchuk during the dark days of 2010 or Brian Rolston around that same time. Timo’s a bit of both, a disappointment in terms of being expected to be a difference maker and being anything but a la early Kovalchuk and a guy who relies on a slapshot too much and doesn’t actually have another way to score goals (or contribute to the team at all) a la Rolston. You’d think a guy who put up 30+ goals three times in San Jose wouldn’t be this bad at actually putting the puck in the net. He had 66 goals and 128 points in his last 134 games in San Jose, and conversely has had 68 goals and 123 points in 183 games as a Devil. From a point a game to about 2/3 of a point in a game, that’s just not good enough and the playoff production of two goals and four points in thirteen games is a major issue. Especially when you can’t actually count on the depth guys to add anything at this point.

Friday is definitely last stand time for this team’s season, everyone knows it. Sure a handful of teams have come back from 3-0 down in the playoffs before, this year’s version of a ‘team’ isn’t going to be one of those. Even if they ride the home crowd and a bit of line matching to a win in Game 3 and compel me to attend Game 4, who really has confidence that A) we’ll sweep all three home games and B) we’ll come through in any must-win late-series game at Raleigh? I know if this second half of the season had gone another way, really if the last two years had been different I wouldn’t be this annoyed trying to get blood out of a stone at this point. I’m not counting on the role playing schleps to do anything, but the veterans and best players have to step up if this team’s going to actually show some fight at home, where they haven’t been all that great this year either.

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Rangers reveal a lot on breakup day

Posted on April 21, 2025 by Derek

Breakup day was today for the Rangers. There’s a lot to digest. Following a disappointing season that saw them fail to qualify for the postseason for the first time in four years, the players revealed a lot to reporters in the locker room.

Before we get to the interesting stuff, Calvin de Haan heaped some high praise on Igor Shesterkin. “He’s probably the best player on the team. Fuck, he’s good. I think we pissed away some good goaltending [this season].”

De Haan also expanded on his frustration last week over not playing after getting into three games following the trade from Colorado. “It might have just been a teleprompter answer, frankly, just welcome to the team, that kind of thing… They alluded to the fact that I was part of a trade for a Ranger who was a good Ranger for a long time. I was told I was going to part of the team moving forward and get an opportunity.”

Obviously, he was referring to Ryan Lindgren, who was part of a core that reached two Conference Finals and won a Presidents’ Trophy. De Haan was acquired along with Juuso Parssinen from the Avalanche in exchange for Lindgren, Jimmy Vesey, and Hank Kempf on Mar. 1. The Rangers also received 2025 second and fourth round picks.

His transparency was refreshing compared to how buttoned up the organization is. There was a communication breakdown that contributed to the Rangers’ demise. Even Chris Drury acknowledged yesterday that communication is a priority following a chaotic season in which several players were unhappy about ice time and being scratched.

“I know for a fact Lavi is really big on communication and communicated to his players throughout his two years here. Where they stood and why they were out or why they were in or what their role was or wasn’t. Communication is a priority. Being a former player myself, I always liked to know where I stood and we always try to do that with players every single day.”

For his part, Zac Jones took responsibility for what he said earlier this season. “Listen, I said what I said this year — and I don’t take it back. I stand by what I said. When you’re in this role and some days are better than others and you get asked question, question, question. I know you guys have a job to do, too, but same time it kind of eats at you. And eventually I kind of just blew up. I shouldn’t have said what I said to you guys, that’s on me. I should’ve kept it private and kept it in the locker room. Sometimes things happen, emotions get the best of you.”

Now 24, Jones is a restricted free agent this summer. Despite being in and out of the lineup, he set career bests in games played (46), assists (10), points (11), and penalty minutes (24). If he remains with the team, the 2019 third round pick needs to have a more defined role. If it isn’t here, maybe Jones can find a new home. He deserves a real chance to show what he can do. Before Monday, he said that he wants to work on improving his shot. Jones only scored one goal this season. For a defenseman with his skill set, he needs to hit the net with more regularity.

Kreider Reveals that he had Vertigo and might need Surgery

One of the biggest news items of the day was Chris Kreider finally speaking openly to reporters about his season. After struggling with a back issue, he admitted that a weird illness that went to his inner ear caused him to develop vertigo following the Christmas break.

Kreider also suffered a hand injury in the first game back following the 4 Nations. He might need to have surgery. As for how he felt about the trade memo, he said he didn’t even find out about it until people close to him mentioned it.

“I mean, that wasn’t the first time. Won’t be the last time. That kind of stuff comes out. That’s part of professional sports unfortunately. Lucky I don’t have any social media, I wasn’t really aware of it until people close to me brought it to my attention. Just try to show up and do your job to the best of your abilities.”

However, Kreider was brutally honest about the subtraction of popular teammates Barclay Goodrow and Jacob Trouba. “It’s part of professional sports, but, obviously, at a certain point it becomes somewhat of a distraction…Two guys that were massive leaders for us and a big part of our room. I just think there was its dynamic and it’s changing an environment like that. Not even to get into the personal relationships we all had, what good people they are, things that they did… It was certainly challenging.”

Kreider would love to stay put. “I mean, this is home for me. This is the organization that gave me an opportunity to live out my dream. I’ve developed so many incredible relationships and grown up and spent in this area. So, obviously, this is where I want to be and this is the group I want to help in whatever fashion and win hockey games.”

Schneider played with a Torn Labrum for two years

For two years, Braden Schneider played with a torn labrum. Somehow, he played through the injury the last two seasons. He had it since 2022-23 but wanted to keep playing to help the team win games.

Schneider had surgery to repair the tear on Apr. 17. He’s in a sling for four weeks and won’t start skating until three months from now.

Knowing that he had a serious injury for so long, it begs the question what the Rangers medical staff was doing for all this time. If he was so banged up, why didn’t they sit him out for some games. They never placed Kreider on injured reserve until he suffered the hand injury. They had options. They could’ve called up reinforcements from Hartford or played other players.

There’s something fundamentally wrong with the organization. They must have no confidence in developing players. Look how long it took for Matthew Robertson to make his NHL debut. In his two appearances at the end of the season, the 2019 second round pick played well enough to help make a case for the future. The way they do things is absurd. It doesn’t make any sense.

Trocheck tries to stay Positive

While Mika Zibanejad sounded downtrodden over his season, even indicating that the first few months was the toughest he’s ever been through in his career, Vincent Trocheck had a different outlook on things.

“I think it’s on us, inside this room, in order to make sure that the outside noise doesn’t get to us. Whether that’s talking to somebody individually or if it’s just sticking together as a team and as a family and I think we can get better at that. Lifting guys up instead of bringing guys down, I think that goes a long way.”

“I really believe in this locker room. I believe in everybody. I obviously believe in the talent we have. I just think it’s a matter of us as a team sticking together, figuring out the right way to go about things moving into next year. And once we have that team belief, then it all starts to snowball in a positive direction.”

Trocheck should be in consideration for the next Rangers captain. Unlike some of the other players that have been here longer, he seems to have a different mentality. It’s similar to close friend and teammate J.T. Miller, who wasn’t there due to losing a close personal friend. Condolences go out to Miller and his friend’s family.

Shesterkin says something broke

When at his locker, Shesterkin felt that something broke during the season. He said that they weren’t able to handle it. Judging from the interview, he was uncertain what went wrong. It sounded like he was hinting at the team being fragile. Unlike past seasons, they weren’t able to bounce back from tough losses.

In 2023-24, the Rangers handled adversity much better. They were a much mentally stronger group who were resilient. Moving forward, they must get back to that mentality. It can’t be the sky is falling after a couple of losses. You could feel the doom and gloom from watching the players’ body language and expressions during games. It was very frustrating.

Fox doesn’t blame Laviolette

Adam Fox couldn’t understand why they can’t be more successful with a coach. He hasn’t been here that long but will already be on his fourth coach in seven years. Fox didn’t blame Peter Laviolette for the team’s failures. Instead, he mentioned wanting a coach to last as long as they have.

“It’s hard not to look at us as players and say, ‘Why is that happening?’ We seem to have a lot of success and then I don’t know, it turns. I don’t think us as players at any point didn’t like Lavi or thought his message wasn’t getting through. It just seemed the execution of it was not there. I think we want to be able to come in with a coach that’s here for as long as we’re all here. Even outlast us as players because that means we’re having a lot of success.”

For Fox, he’s seen three coaches get dismissed after two seasons. It started with David Quinn, who actually outlasted both Gerard Gallant and Laviolette. Quinn replaced Alain Vigneault following 2017-18. He oversaw the rebuild and had to deal with Covid abbreviated years. Gallant replaced him in 2021-22. Laviolette replaced Gallant in 2023-24. Maybe both can give John Tortorella a buzz and get together for a drink. They’d sure have a lot to discuss when it comes to the Rangers.

Miller disappointed in his season

K’Andre Miller was very honest in his assessment. He admitted that he was disappointed in his season. He said that the noise became a distraction.

“I mean, not just my game, I think throughout this team I think there was a lot of ups and downs throughout the year. I was obviously a big part of that. I didn’t love how my season this year, I was listening to a lot of the noise and just not really playing the game I wanted to play. That was a hard season for me to kind of get a grip of how I wanted to play. There was a lot of noise at the beginning, but I thought I did a good job of just staying true to myself and showing up every day with a smile on my face and willingness to get better.”

It really sounds like Miller put too much pressure on himself. He was playing for a contract. It doesn’t feel like he handles the mental side of the game well enough. In the past, he took a break to speak to a therapist. Maybe that should be permanent. A talented player, he continues to make the same mistakes. His game hasn’t improved since Gallant was fired. Astonishingly, he set career bests in goals (9), assists (34), and points (43) in 2022-23. He’s trended in the wrong direction since. He remains a polarizing player due to his potential.

Miller has enjoyed being a Ranger. If I were him, I’d tell my agent to try to get another short-term deal. He still needs to prove that he’s worth keeping long-term. Maybe another bridge deal would work. If it motivates him, he can come in with a different approach and prove himself to whoever the next coach is.

Lafreniere didn’t make a difference

When asked to assess his season, Alexis Lafreniere said it was disappointing. He got off to a good start but struggled with consistency. He felt like he didn’t make a difference.

“I always expect a lot out of myself. Obviously, when you sign for more money, there’s always a little bit more pressure. I try not to think about it too much. If I make whatever the amount of money, I just want to perform the best I can. I don’t think I did that this year.”

A year removed from establishing personal bests in goals (28), assists (29), and points (57), the 23-year-old forward saw a dip in his overall game. Lafreniere finished with 17 goals and 28 assists for 45 points in 82 games. His plus/minus was a career worst minus-13.

Despite getting a contract extension that’ll pay him a $7.45 million cap hit starting next season through 2032, Lafreniere’s play suffered. There were times where he looked disinterested. He didn’t always hustle back. For a consensus top pick in 2020, Lafreniere isn’t well schooled defensively. Aside from the lack of production, which included attempting almost 100 fewer shots, he was caught out of position too often on goals against. He must regain his confidence offensively and become more committed to the defensive side.

Zibanejad takes ownership for season

When asked about his year, Zibanejad took ownership for his season. He clearly struggled to establish himself at both five-on-five and on the power play. With his offense suffering, it affected the defensive side of the puck. A once reliable two-way center, Zibanejad was beaten much more frequently by opponents for goals against. He finished the season with a minus-22 rating. It was his worst since going a minus-23 in 2017-18.

He also mentioned the team needing to improve on communicating with each other. He indicated that things could be better. They all want the same thing. To be standing there talking about winning the Stanley Cup. In order for that to happen, a lot must change. The question is will he be around for it. Nobody knows what will happen in the off-season.

Zibanejad finished the season stronger to wind up with 20 goals and 40 assists for 62 points. He was more productive when Laviolette played him on the right side with Miller and Will Cuylle. The Rangers aren’t paying him $8.5 million to be a right wing. He’s supposed to be a two-way center. At 32, he should still have some good years ahead of him. He needs to refocus and work on improving both his skating and getting stronger mentally. He seemed to break down due to all the distractions.

A look at what’s ahead

A lot more could be said about where things are. There’s going to be changes coming ahead. That will include a new coach, with the list of candidates including current Pens coach Mike Sullivan, Canucks coach Rick Tocchet (in negotations), Tortorella, Joel Quenneville, Denver coach David Carle, and Jeff Halpern. Both former assistants Michael Peca and Dan Muse could interview for the job.

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Devils live down to worst-case expectations in Game 1 loss at Raleigh

Posted on April 20, 2025 by hasan4978

If I didn’t know better I’d swear this was 2023…or 2006, or 2002. Whatever year you want to name where the Devils go down to Carolina to start a series and promptly look intimidated and not ready to play playoff hockey, today proved to be no different than any of those series openers in Raleigh. Of course if you’ve been watching and/or paying attention to the Devils for weeks, Easter afternoon’s 4-1 no-show wasn’t even a surprise, it was almost expected – at least from where I’m sitting.

Frankly the only thing that really kept 4-1 from matching the 6-1 of two years ago was strong play by Jacob Markstrom, particularly in the first two periods as the Canes piled up shot after shot. An outcome by the way that coach Sheldon Keefe is all too willing to concede, in an astonishing admission after the game saying that we weren’t going to outshoot them in any game the entire series. Even if it’s highly likely to be true and Carolina outshot their opponents in about 75% of games this season (including all four against us), that almost feels like you’re giving too much respect to the opponent by ceding that before at least another three games are played.

I mean instead of bemoaning the fact they shoot from anywhere and everywhere, maybe it’s time to take a page out of their book and start putting pucks on net, looking for greasy goals instead of still being a perimeter team trying to make the pretty play without our best perimeter player? Carolina’s first goal is the perfect example of this when Jalen Chatfield threw a puck on net, William Carrier coasted in front of the net close enough for Brian Dumuolin to be unable to move him without knocking him into Markstrom as Chatfield’s shot was going in for the most unsurprising goal in the first three minutes of a game ever. And a tone-setting one at that.

Yeah maybe we’re destined to be outshot by Carolina this entire series, but being outshot 38-13 in the first two periods is flat out inexcusable. Honestly I’m not sure if they were intimidated by the torrid atmosphere in Raleigh the way they were to start the series two years ago, if they flat out don’t believe in themselves with the Jack Hughes and Jonas Siegenthaler injuries, or if they just don’t give a crap anymore. I’m not sure it matters at this point cause none of those would be a good sign, though it probably is some combination of at least the first two. Especially with the horrifically dumb too many men on the ice we took in the first period while on a power play.

I’d like to think option three isn’t really the answer, but I have seen this script before – the 2009-10 Devils to be exact. A team that had a great, overachieving first half then for reasons known only to them petered out in the second half with a .500 finish no-showing through a bunch of games, then had an almost complete no-show of a playoff series against the Flyers, bowing out in five easy games to the #7 seed who would go onto make a Cinderella run to the Stanley Cup Finals that year. This team has reminded me so much of that team – which got Jacques Lemaire essentially fired – it’s kinda scary to be honest. It took hitting rock bottom after the first half of 2010-11 before a much-needed cleansing finally took place.

Hopefully we won’t need to do anything as drastic as firing two coaches, benching a HOF goaltender (albeit briefly) or trading a captain out the door the way that team did, but I’m not sure it won’t take comparable drastic measures to fix what’s wrong with these Devils at this point. There’s only so much of this you can put down to talent…to me we’re an 80-point team masquerading as a 90-point team, with the mentality of a 50-point team. It’s not as simple as saying well it’s the GM’s fault – although Tom Fitzgerald certainly will have plenty of things to answer for if things don’t improve in this series – or it’s the players’ fault, the coach’s fault, everyone has to take some share of the blame for these last three months. The full inquest can wait at least a week though, hopefully longer and not quite as widespread as it would seem to be now.

To be honest, I really don’t want to do the full game inquest anyway. You didn’t even have to be paying full attention to the game to see that Carolina pretty well dominated the first forty minutes and the Devils looked outclassed and intimidated once again in Raleigh, where they’ve now dropped to 1-12 in playoff games since 2001. Stealing one of the first two on the road doesn’t exactly sound so daunting, except when you consider the fact that we’d likely need to win two on the road because it’s also unlikely we sweep the home games with our lack of home-ice advantage. Oh I’m sure the crowd on Friday will at least start ramped and ready to go even if the worst-case scenario of being down 0-2 happens, but it probably won’t take long for the home fans to turn on the team, given just how bad things have been.

For what little ‘analysis’ I did on the effect that the Martin Necas and Mikko Rantanen trades and the effect cashing out on both might have had on their offense…by the same token does it really surprise anyone that Logan Stankoven – the younger forward who they got back in the latter trade – scored two of the goals?

Notice the nice feed from Taylor Hall on the latter…does that really surprise anyone either? Even when Nico Hischier finally scored to break the shutout late in the second, the goal was met with more of a golf clap and a shrug from me than anything else. At least Nico evened his account after a bad giveaway from the captain caused one of the earlier Carolina goals. Still, three goals in eighteen playoff games isn’t cutting it. Neither is Jesper Bratt’s two career playoff goals. I don’t want to hear that how can the stars produce when the depth is such crap – when Carolina’s depth guys have gone crazy on us time and again is it really too much to ask for more from our ‘best’ players?

For a game that was ostensibly still within reach, it really wasn’t…although the Devils finally outshot the Canes in the third period it was a score effects shot total and very little truly threatened Freddie Andersen in goal throughout the match. You would have liked to have tested a guy more that gave up twenty goals in his previous four games before the playoffs and to be honest, the goal he gave up was a bit of a clunker as well.

It felt like Petr Sykora’s goal in Game 7 against the Avs after we got down 3-0 and had already blown the Cup in 2001. Like yay for breaking the shutout…yawn. Andrei Svechnikov’s empty-netter sealed the inevitable with just over two and a half minutes remaining. One chance down, only a few more left. Carolina’s not exactly an easy team to beat if you’re playing at your best (particularly with our injury issues – that got multiplied by losing defenseman Brendan Dillon, forward Cody Glass and even briefly Luke Hughes all in this game), but we were nowhere near our best in any facet of Game 1, from coaching on down. If Keefe is as good a coach as many Devil fans hope he is, well buddy this is why you’re getting paid whatever the heck it is you’re getting paid here…find a way to get more out of what’s left of this team and at least make this a series before we head for an easy and quick exit.

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The Panarin Problem that Won’t Go Away

Posted on April 20, 2025 by Derek

Artemi Panarin is the best player on the New York Rangers. Since signing a seven-year contract worth $81.5 million on July 1, 2019, he’s been the best free agent the Rangers have ever had in franchise history.

A great skater who makes teammates better due to his tremendous playmaking skills and tremendous vision, Panarin has led the Rangers in scoring for six straight seasons. After achieving career bests with 49 goals and 71 assists for 120 points in 2023-24, the 33-year-old forward posted 37 goals and 52 assists for 89 points to pace the Blueshirts in 2024-25.

Despite the Bread Man producing some of his best hockey down the stretch, it wasn’t good enough to get the team into the playoffs. For the first time since he joined the Rangers, Panarin finished with a minus rating (-9). It was more an indication of how flawed the roster was. They weren’t good enough defensively and lacked discipline and structure. For those reasons, Peter Laviolette was dismissed a day before Easter with Phil Housley joining him. Once again, the Rangers are searching for a new coach.

Over his six-year career as a Ranger, Panarin has averaged over a point-per-game. In fact, his numbers are exemplary of the star he is. In 430 games, he has 186 goals and 364 assists for 550 points. That kind of consistent production has made him one of the game’s brightest stars. Unfortunately, it’s yet to result in a Stanley Cup. The Rangers made two appearances in the Conference Finals but fell short of their goal.

Panarin, MSG Reached Settlement with Former MSG Employee for Sexual Assault Claim

A day after Panarin won the Team MVP and Good Guy award as voted by the media, Katie Strang delivered a bombshell in an exclusive story that appeared in The Athletic. Panarin and MSG reached a settlement agreement with a former employee who allegedly accused him of sexual assault in December 2023.

In August 2024, the woman left the organization after reaching agreement on non-disclosure and no admission of wrongdoing clauses. According to Strang, several people in the organization knew about the agreements and why she no longer was employed by MSG. The individuals who spoke to The Athletic about the story had their identity withheld due to still having jobs in hockey.

The alleged assault occurred in December 2023 during a Rangers road trip, according to two Rangers sources briefed about the allegation. Panarin and the woman, who was a regular part of the team’s traveling party, were at a postgame gathering at a hotel with about a dozen other players and staff members. Panarin allegedly took her phone and said he would only give it back if she retrieved it from his hotel room, the sources said. When she went to his hotel room to retrieve her device, Panarin pinned her down on the bed. She pushed him off, retrieved her phone and left the room.

There is no record of the woman reporting the incident to law enforcement. Both MSG and the NHL consider the matter closed. When approached about the story, neither Panarin nor his agent responded to the request.

In a separate story, the same woman shared her anti-anxiety medication with a player. She suffered from anxiety from airplane travel, which the player also had. However, it’s considered dangerous for anyone to share medicine. MSG placed her on paid leave pending the outcome of an investigation.

Feeling that she’d been treated unfairly, she then informed the team of the alleged assault. MSG Sports held a virtual meeting with Rangers staff members and a human resources representative. An attorney warned them not to discuss the woman’s situation.

One person who worked for the Rangers at the time the woman was placed on leave said the suddenness of the woman’s exit made it a topic of conversation within the organization: “It’s not a secret at all anytime someone vanishes.”

It wasn’t the first time Panarin was accused of assault. In February 2021, reports surfaced in a Russian newspaper that he physically assaulted an 18-year-old woman in Latvia back in 2011. He took a personal leave of absence to return home to his family.

The Rangers denied the accusations, labeling it as an intimidation tactic due to Panarin’s strong comments on Russian politics, in reference to Vladimir Putin. Despite the hysteria, nothing ever came of it. It magically went away. He returned to the team and completed the 2020-21 season.

Questions Remain for Panarin, Rangers

There are two schools of thought. If the alleged assault took place during the 2023-24 season, how come we never heard about it until now? MSG must’ve kept it under wraps. They like to bury these stories and hope they’ll go away without ever becoming public.

How come Panarin never missed a single game? That doesn’t sit well with many fans now. At the time, he was in contention for the Hart Trophy. When such serious allegations are made, it shouldn’t be ignored. Both MSG and the Rangers addressed the situation without anyone knowing what happened. Maybe that’s what the woman wanted. It still makes me feel a little uncomfortable.

Obviously, big corporations will do exactly what MSG did to address what happened with Panarin and the woman. When asked if he had anything to say about the story from reporters following the final game of the season on Apr. 17, Panarin said, “No.” He also asked why. As if it wasn’t a big topic of discussion. That response didn’t come off well.

Panarin put himself in a bad situation. If it was a prank, it wasn’t well thought out. He took her phone and forced her to come to his hotel room to get it back. Then, he allegedly pinned her down before she wrestled it away. At the time of the alleged incident, his wife was pregnant with their first child. Even if he didn’t do anything wrong, it looks bad.

The Rangers have a lot of questions moving forward this off-season. At the top of the list is naming a new head coach. They also will be making changes to the roster, with possibly both Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad getting moved this summer. Panarin will likely remain with the team to play the final year of his contract. He wasn’t disciplined. They should have investigated what happened. That falls on MSG.

Will the league conduct an investigation into the alleged incident? They like to turn a blind eye to things. Regardless, it’s a subject that won’t go away anytime soon. What an embarrassing season.

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Rangers Fire Laviolette and Housley following Dismal Season

Posted on April 19, 2025 by Derek

Following one of the most disappointing seasons in franchise history, the New York Rangers fired coach Peter Laviolette on Saturday. Assistant coach Phil Housley also was dismissed.

Considering how miserable the year was, it was expected. Following a terrific 2023-24 season in which he guided the Rangers to a 55-23-4 record with 114 points for the league’s best record, Laviolette didn’t come close to duplicating that success which included a run to the Conference Finals. Instead, a dark cloud hovered over Madison Square Garden. A team that at one point was 12-4-1 finished a forgettable season with a 39-36-7 record with 85 points, failing to qualify for the postseason.

It wasn’t all Laviolette’s fault for what happened. A lot of the blame goes to Rangers team president and general manager Chris Drury for his complete mishandling of last off-season. A successful team coming off a Presidents’ Trophy was fractured due to both Barclay Goodrow getting dumped on waivers to the Sharks, and captain Jacob Trouba having his name mentioned in trade rumors. None of it sat well with the veterans on the team.

The off-ice distractions really didn’t materialize until Drury sent out a memo that made both Trouba and Chris Kreider available last November. Growing impatient with how they were playing despite a good record up to that point thanks to the stellar play of Igor Shesterkin, Drury created a rift in the locker room that affected both Trouba and Kreider negatively. What followed was a 4-13 record the Rangers never recovered from.

One of the biggest problems was the inconsistency with the defensive system Housley was in charge of. Despite having some success with the man-to-man system in Year 1 under Laviolette, the Rangers struggled mightily defensively in Year 2, with all sorts of breakdowns in coverage that left opponents wide-open in the slot for goals and high danger scoring chances. They kept allowing the same thing to happen night after night, becoming like a broken record. Or in the Rangers’ case, a broken team thanks to management.

During a tumultuous season that saw them never put together another three-game winning streak since Nov. 14-19, several players voiced their displeasure with how things were handled by the coaching staff. After he was finally forced to accept a trade to Anaheim, Trouba called it, “A rite of passage to get fired by MSG.”

He admitted that all of the trade rumors last summer became a distraction that affected his play. Something he was upfront about with teammates entering the season. He became a lame duck captain thanks to Drury, who eventually got out of Trouba’s contract that still has a year remaining with a $8 million cap hit.

The next dissatisfied player was 2019 second pick Kaapo Kakko, who was made a healthy scratch for a game against the Blues on Dec. 15. He didn’t mince words by correctly pointing out that it was always a younger player on the roster who’s made the scapegoat. Having also been sat out by Laviolette for Game 6 versus Florida in the Eastern Conference Finals, he was fed up. Ironically, Kakko didn’t play in Game 6 versus Tampa Bay in the same round under former coach Gerard Gallant. The Rangers were eliminated in each instance. By sitting him over an underachieving veteran such as Mika Zibanejad, it was understandable why Kakko was upset.

After he was dealt to the Kraken, Kakko performed better while playing with Matty Beniers and Jaden Schwartz on the top line. Asked what the biggest differences were between the Rangers and the Kraken he said, “I feel confidence is the biggest thing since I got here. I feel like I got more ice time and they trust me here more… I feel our line did a pretty good job… I was making plays and maybe things I didn’t do before.”

Following a blowout loss to the Devils at home on Dec. 23, Zac Jones wasn’t in the lineup again until Feb. 5 against Boston. Having to sit out after having a different role in the top six was tough for him.

“It’s tough. It’s really [expletive] tough,” he told reporters. “I mean, I’m just generally a pretty easygoing, happy person. And no matter what is going on in my life, I’m gonna try and come to the rink with a smile on my face . . . But it [expletive] sucks. Like, there’s nothing else I can say about it.”

Jones went from playing with Braden Schneider and playing on the second power play unit to often becoming a healthy scratch due to the additions of Will Borgen and Urho Vaakanainen. He did play more down the stretch even after Adam Fox returned from an upper-body injury. Jones is a restricted free agent this summer. A scenery change would probably be best for him at this point.

Even Kreider had issues with how things were handled, which mostly had to do with the trade rumors. In an injury riddled season that limited his ability to be effective, he often didn’t speak to reporters following games. When asked about it by reporters, he took the high road before a game at Winnipeg.

“I’m not privy to that information,” Kreider told Mollie Walker of the NY Post. “I worry about what’s right in front of me and right now it’s Winnipeg. Happy to be here, enjoyed my time here and I’ll continue to try to help this team win hockey games.”

When Calvin de Haan called attention to his situation by speaking to reporters about how he’s been treated before taking a morning skate, it really was an indictment of the organization. After coming over with Jusso Parssinen from Colorado for Ryan Lindgren, de Haan partook in three games and played well to help the Rangers go 2-0-1 between Mar. 2-5. That was it for him. He never played again despite looking better than trade deadline pickup Carson Soucy. Another Drury brain cramp.

Most recently, following a bad loss, Fox seemed to question Housley’s defensive system. That was probably the final straw. Laviolette and Housley were attached. His coaching staff also included Michael Peca and Dan Muse. Both haven’t been let go by the organization. According to hockey insider Frank Seravalli of Sportsnet, each will have a chance to interview for the coaching vacancy.

Laviolette wasn’t the first coaching casualty of the day. The Ducks relieved Greg Cronin before Laviolette was let go. Regarding how things went down this season, it’s probably a relief for him. You could tell that it was wearing on him from the closeups on the bench and postgame interviews. How many times did he keep repeating the same things over and over again? The team quit on him. It wasn’t pleasant to watch.

Two years after Gallant was fired, Laviolette is now out of a job. In two seasons, he went 94-59-11 with a .607 winning percentage. A Stanley Cup winning coach with the Hurricanes in 2005-06, he’s guided three different teams to the Stanley Cup Finals. Unfortunately, he won’t get the chance to do it with the Rangers. For his career, Laviolette has 846 wins, which ranks seventh all-time. Among active coaches, he ranks third behind Lindy Ruff (900), and Paul Maurice (916).

It’s too early in the process to start guessing who the next coach of the Rangers should be. Whoever it is, it can’t continue to be every two years, they’re out. There’s something fundamentally wrong with the organization. They really need to take a closer look at themselves. This isn’t only about personnel. It’s about how they’ve been run. Why do other teams put younger players in a better position to succeed? That’s something that needs to change moving forward.

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