Battle Of Hudson covers the Rangers and Devils, who's intense rivalry heated up in the 90's. With fresh faces added, they battle for supremacy in NYC and NJ..
Still a day and a half after the Devils’ critical loss in Game 4, I’m angry. Not angry at the team per se but angry at this joke of a league, and angry at this faux tough guy Lightning team who’ve lost all the respect I had for them as a franchise between the end of Game 3 and the first period of Game 4 with their Flyer-like shenanigans that had very real consequences for the Devils. I still don’t feel like recapping the 3-1 loss that put the Devils season on the brink of ending tomorrow to be honest. What’s the point? I feel like coach John Hynes who was…not exactly vociferous in the postgame Wednesday night.
There isn’t much to recap anyway, the difference in the game was the first period and in more ways than one. I know it’s strange to say in a 2-1 plus empty net goal game but both goalies made a difference – obviously Andrei Vasilevskiy in a positive manner holding the Devils to just one five-on-three goal during their initial surge and Cory Schneider once again in a negative sense. Just minutes after the Devils took the early lead Cory again allowed a short side special that flushed the goodwill he earned Monday back down the toilet along with with the other two goals allowed in the first. Granted, the most egregious goal Cory allowed was actually taken off the board due to the world’s most obvious offsides miss. Which also should have been a harbinger over how poorly an officiated game it was going to be when it takes barely a few seconds to disallow a goal on offsides.
It’s not as if the officials were only messing up one way either, an insanely quick whistle on a bad rebound in the third period prevented another hideous goal off Cory. However the refs were too invested in making the ticky tack call while missing obvious intent to injure penalties on the Lightning in that chippy first period. Culminating in the most controversial play of the night, Nikita Kucherov’s brutal takeout of the Devils’ best D in Sami Vatanen. I don’t care what anyone says about the ‘point of contact’, that was a dirty hit whether the league wants to admit it or not. For the simple reason being Kucherov left his feet before impact and launched himself at Vatanen. I thought he jumped at the time and still think so after replays. I don’t care where he actually hit him, that’s missing the point in this case. That hit was worse than the Drew Doughty play which did garner a one game suspension.
Of course this league being the joke it is there was no penalty called on Kucherov, and no supplemental discipline after the fact. Just like there wasn’t even a fine for Victor Hedman spearing Nico Hischier in the jewels toward the end of Game 3. For a league that professes concern over player safety they have a funny way of showing it. Usually on the NHL’s warped wheel of discipline the fact Vatanen was taken out of the game and probably the series with an obvious concussion would factor in the discipline but evidently not when a Devil is involved. Those Devils vs. the World T-shirts seemed more apt than ever after Game 4.
Predictably the Devils’ transition game and PP both became a tire fire without Vatanen for the game’s final two periods. Sure we also missed several breakaways but there was a clear difference in the final two periods with both the team and a defeated crowd. A grinding, unhappy loss seemed inevitable after the opening twenty minutes and it came to pass. As much as anything I felt it was a bit unfair the game and the series both likely ended on the same highly questionable hit, it’d be one thing if Tampa outtalented us the way they did the first two games but to have quite possibly the final home game of the season end with a whimper and bitterness seems unfair to a team that rejuvenated interest in the Devils this season.
Yet I know life itself can be unfair at times. Sometimes you just have to shrug and say nothing can be done. Plus who knows, maybe this team which has pulled a number of rabbits out of its hat this year finds at least one more tomorrow afternoon in Tampa, setting up one more home game on Monday where in a worst case at least this team can get a send off it deserves. And in a best case keep the series going even longer and annoy these Slapshot wannabes.
It’s funny the way things can be in life. It was just the other day that I was thinking about John Amirante. How much I missed him. Maybe it’s because there’s no Rangers playoffs this Spring. Or perhaps because of how little the True Blue fans saw him at games since 2015. Ironically enough, the last big run the old core had in them.
We all wanted Johnny to stick around forever. Since 1980, he’s been a fixture at Rangers games, also doubling for the Knicks when he first started at the more fun and less corporate Madison Square Garden.
When I first heard the news that the voice of MSG had passed away yesterday at the age of 83, it was by accident. I had just gotten back to the car from substituting at a nice middle school near Clove Lakes Park in Staten Island. I got a message from a good Twitter friend about her being sad. I wondered why because it’s not like I was on my phone during school hours. I stumbled upon a Facebook status from a loyal diehard fan my age who is as passionate as they come. He didn’t say it directly but the inference was enough to make me realize the wonderful voice who graced Seventh Avenue and 33rd Street was gone. 😢
It’s always sad when you lose someone who felt like part of your extended family. It happened to us last November when a great referee friend of my Dad passed suddenly. He truly was a good man with a keen sense of humor who cared about you if he knew you. Maybe many of us didn’t have that relationship with Mr. Amirante. However, reading some of the stories and tributes to the man are enough to know how great a person he was. A true family person who was professional and unbelievable at what he did before big Rangers games. Who could forget where they were for that memorable June summer night in 1994 when he belted out “Oh Canada” and the Star Spangled Banner with as much emotion as possible in front of the loudest atmosphere I’ve ever seen. That was just watching on TV. Sam Rosen was wowed by the energy of the building recalling how in all his years going to MSG, he’d never seen anything like it. Neither did we.
This was a remarkable performer who was as much part of that ’94 team as the players and coaches. Seeing Adam Graves pen a tribute in Tuesday’s New York Post said plenty about the true admiration and respect they had for Amirante. He still did big events and also some games for charity that Graves, Ron Duguay and other ex-Rangers played in.
The best for me live is Game 6 of the 2014 Eastern Conference Final against the Canadiens when the Rangers closed it out 1-0 to advance to their first Stanley Cup Final in 20 years. That along with a emotional anthem before Game 6 against the Penguins on Mother’s Day following the tragic passing of Martin St. Louis’ Mom France really energized the place.
We were there on that Sunday and the building went nuts, especially when St. Louis scored the game’s first goal. I knew right there there was no way they were losing.
I want to cry and shed tears for a man that was and always will be a true Garden icon. I knew his health was failing. Maybe that’s why I was thinking of him with no playoff hockey at a dim MSG. However, I can’t help but smile and be proud at the kind of a person Amirante was.
He’s in a better place. I’m sure he’s smiling down and belting out those two anthems with the same passion and enthusiasm he did on so many nights. The encouragement near the ending which pumped fans up along with the friendly wave of the playoff towel in recent years. No wonder we loved him. He was and still is one of us.
I’ve always said, “Legends Never Die.” Johnny is a legend who will forever and ever never die. When the 2018-19 season begins, they should do the right thing and play that rendition and hang up his jersey. If Billy Joel can have a banner, then so can our Johnny!
Thank you for all the wonderful years and amazing moments. I’m so glad we were able to see you perform one final time on Jean Ratelle Night. RIP John Amirante 💜😢⭐️
In a Game 3 that had violent swings of momentum – and at the end a little violence on the ice – the Devils once again showed the mettle that powered their drive to the postseason, rallying from two deficits and scoring four unanswered third period goals to gain a vital 5-2 win in front of a sellout crowd at the Rock, getting back into their first-round series after two road losses in Tampa Bay. While the game’s first star was no surprise (again Taylor Hall after another transcendent multi-point effort), there were plenty of other unexpected heroes last night as well.
It’s hard to know just where to start this recap since there were so many different aspects to last night’s game, so let’s just start at the beginning with some surprising returns to the lineup – one from injured Marcus Johansson, who was finally cleared to play after nearly three months on the shelf following his latest concussion, and another from Cory Schneider who got a shot for redemption after a poor 2018 which led to him only starting two games since March 8 (one of them being the meaningless season finale in Washington). Keeping true to his word after a dissapointing Game 2, coach John Hynes made multiple changes to the lineup, not only sitting stretch run hero Keith Kinkaid after two games in Tampa where the puck stopped hitting him, but also benching defenseman Mirco Mueller and the dissapointing Michael Grabner – who’s officially a trade deadline bust now and no doubt one of the players Hynes was talking about when he said some guys didn’t deserve to be in the lineup after Game 2.
I wasn’t exactly overjoyed over keeping Ben Lovejoy in the lineup but it’s obvious Hynes feels he can’t do without his veteran presence on the blueline in the postseason, and I already stated my reservations about going with Cory in a must-win game in my last blog. Beyond those choices, I was even more mystified over inserting Drew Stafford as the twelfth forward. Not only has Stafford been totally unproductive since the season’s first two weeks but having him in over guys like Brian Gibbons and Jesper Bratt weakened both the penalty kill and overall team speed. I didn’t exactly have a lot of confidence in those moves after the game’s first 20:42, where the Devils essentially tried to play a road first period instead of trying to take it to the Lightning early and get some momentum with the home crowd ready to rock. Instead they seemingly played a very cautious game, and their lack of footspeed seemed to be a hinderance early. After an overall meh first period where they did pick up their play later on, an ill-timed penalty from Andy Greene doomed the Devils to an early second-period deficit when once again the PK was victimized, this time from an Alex Killorn deflection.
Despite this team’s resilience all year I really thought they bought the farm after Killorn’s goal, the Lightning had completely taken the crowd out of the game and a veteran team with playoff experience looked like they were squeezing the life out of the Devils as well. Ironically enough, it was one of our few good penalty kills of the series that finally turned the tide midway through the period after John Moore again was a total rockhead, committing a high-stick penalty following a turnover. An inspired kill led by Blake Coleman (who had a goal disallowed after checking a Lightning defender into goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy) got some needed momentum back and it was – who else? – Hall that capitalized on the next even strength shift, one-timing a deflected Brian Boyle pass past Vasilevskiy and looking to the sky with the same sense of relief that most Devil fans were no doubt feeling all while celebrating the goal.
Of course there was still a long way to go before the Devils got out of the woods completely. In a game dominated by special teams (with a total of twelve power plays and one four-on-four nearly taking up half the sixty minutes) it was yet another late penalty in a period, this time from Coleman which once again proved costly early in the third after Steven Stamkos got open for a patented wrister from the faceoff circle. Despite being in position for it, the puck squirted through Cory for what again looked like a killer third period goal. It does need to be said that Cory’s 27 saves in the first two periods held the team in the game during those tense moments, it was perhaps unfair that I was annoyed with him after not getting that one but also indiciative of the tenseness of the situation and the lack of equity Cory had after his poor play could have kept us out of the playoffs. I was envisioning another hard-luck 2-1 or 3-1 loss that would confirm the black cloud that’s hung over Cory as a Devil.
If our own PK has been awful throughout the series, our power play has been nearly as bad and the insertion into the lineup of Stafford (who played over five minutes on the man advantage) didn’t help one iota as the Devils failed to convert on their six normal power plays. However, back to back penalties on the Lightning early in the third gave the Devils a golden opportunity to take momentum back on a minute-long 5-on-3, which they did with a Will Butcher blast from the blueline tying the game and getting the crowd rocking again. Then midway through the third period came a potentially decisive moment when Schneider cramped up during a seemingly innocuous rush but despite being down and nearly out, he still made a pair of critical saves during that sequence as the Lightning’s failure to put the puck in the net there would prove costly to them later on. As did their inability to put pressure on Cory afterward, when the goalie stayed in despite clearly being in pain from the cramps.
New Jersey played its best single period of the series in the third, outshooting the Lightning 20-8 and got Cory’s back after he had theirs for much of the night. Still needing a goal to get out in front, it was once again Hall with the big play, this time feeding Stefan Noesen whose one-timer somehow beat Vasilevskiy from beyond the faceoff circle on a sharp angle. My thought was it looked like one of those one-timers you would score on in NHL94 (the video game). However it went in, Noesen’s goal at 12:55 proved to be the game-winner and yet another crucial goal the unheralded third-liner’s scored this season. Despite playing a solid, emotional third period there was bound to be late drama and a rare bad penalty from Hall gave the Lightning one last power play chance to potentially stick it to us.
I was surprised Bolts coach Jon Cooper didn’t pull Vasilevsky and try to set up a 6-on-4 sooner than he did. Despite the risk of having an empty net without icing coming into play I figured they’d try to put pressure on our normally laughable empty net defense. Still, maybe the Devils just weren’t going to be denied in the third period last night no matter what Cooper did, and fittingly it was Coleman – one of the four best Devils on the night – whose clear had eyes and was just hard enough to get to the empty net for the clincher with fifty-eight seconds remaining. Cooper left the net empty long enough for us to get an even more improbable goal, from Lovejoy nearly 200 feet away from the net, when his clear somehow stayed true and made the score a flattering 5-2.
Even that goal didn’t end the action on the night though, as a melee broke out mostly from the Lightning acting like faux tough guys the way they did for much of the third period when they committed a string of chippy penalties and one more egregious one that wasn’t even called – when defenseman Victor Hedman speared prized rookie Nico Hischier in the…jewels. All the general chippiness and typical postseason sore loser goonery culminated in no fewer than ten misconduct penalties – five for each team – and an epic verbal punking from Boyle of Lightning defenseman Mikhail Sergachev as both were being escorted off the premises. It was all over but the shouting at that point, and a celebration six years in the waiting – as the Devils’ last playoff win came in Game 5 of the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals against the Kings, seemingly another lifetime ago.
Yet it wasn’t another lifetime ago for Travis Zajac, one of the two remaining holdovers from that team, who deserves special notice for his game last night. In a must-win situation, Zajac played a team-high 24:23, including a whopping 12:50 in special teams time (playing nearly eight of those minutes on the power play and the rest shorthanded). Not only did his line shut down the formidable Lightning contingent at even strength but Zajac also wound up a +2 and did exceptional work in the faceoff dot, winning 23 of 34 faceoffs. Both numbers are astonishing for any game, much less an NHL playoff regulation game. When I referred to the four best Devils last night, I was referring to Hall, Schneider, Zajac and Coleman – though the latter two weren’t named stars (Noesen got the third star for scoring the winner), all four were vital to the team’s success in Game 3, and you need those kind of contributions come postseason, both from your veteran leaders and from gritty role players like Coleman.
While some of the pressure’s off now after avoiding the first sweep in franchise history, things will only go from tense to intense in Game 4. If the Devils are to even this series up heading back to Tampa they’re going to need Cory to be healthy and just as on point as he was in Game 3. Ideally the Devils are going to have to shut down the deadly Tampa power play at some point if they want to stay in the series. Giving up five PP goals in three games is a recipe for disaster against an offense that can turn it on at any moment, but at least we improved at even strength in Game 3, giving up zero 5-on-5 goals after giving up three in Games 1 and 2 each. While I doubt Hynes makes any lineup changes off a win, he’s really going to have to figure out how to solve the Lightning PP – if that means taking Stafford or one of the other fourth liners out (Stafford, Boyle and Miles Wood each played less than six minutes at even strength) for someone that can help the PK or just making tactical changes.
In its amazing inaugural season that included a Pacific Division crown and 109 points, the Vegas Golden Knights are continuing to prove they’re for real in the NHL Playoffs.
Playing a experienced and tough opponent with a championship pedigree in the Kings, they have been up to the challenge so far. In winning the first two postseason games on a electric home ice unlike no other at T-Mobile Arena, these Knights don’t back down from anything.
Nothing seems to intimidate Jack Adams lock Gerard Gallant’s cohesive team that plays like one functioning unit. All year, they’ve played a aggressive style utilizing speed, skill with grit to put opponents on the defensive. Their transition makes teams uncomfortable.
That’s been the case so far against natural rival Los Angeles. While the Kings boast the best player up front and on the blueline in the best-of-seven first round series, they’ve been unable to match the Golden Knights. They can’t keep up.
It hasn’t even mattered that former Conn Smythe winner Jonathan Quick has played remarkably. In the two games, he’s allowed only three goals on 84 shots. In Game 2, he was sensational throughout stopping 54 of 56 shots in a gut wrenching 2-1 loss in double overtime. He was beaten once in regulation by Alexander Tuch on a unlucky bounce off the back boards for a rebound.
Sudden death was just as lopsided with the Knights outshooting the Kings 23-10. LA’s chances were minimal with a couple of near misses from Anze Kopitar. The star centerman who doesn’t have a point with Game 3 critical Sunday night when the series shifts to Hollywood. Along with Jeff Carter, Dustin Brown, Tyler Toffoli and Tanner Pearson, the Kings’ best players have to get going. They will get perennial former Norris winning defenseman Drew Doughty back after a bogus suspension for a hit on Knights’ spark plug William Carrier. It wasn’t a direct headshot with Doughty going shoulder to shoulder on a tough hit that cut Carrier, who was his rugged self finishing checks for a game high 11 hits in Game 2.
When one looks at the speed and tenacity these Golden Knights play with on both sides of the puck, they don’t give you much room to breathe. It helps explain why the Kings have had a tough time establishing a consistent forecheck. Their best period was the third the other night following defenseman Paul LaDue’s first career postseason goal late in the second that tied it.
They had eight shots on Marc-Andre Fleury, who has shown his own championship big game experience. The former Pen who’s won three Stanley Cups has just given up one goal on 60 shots in eight periods to the Kings. He hasn’t faced the same volume or degree of difficulty as Quick. In fact, the Knights out-attempted the Kings 111-68 on Friday. They outshot them 56-30. Vegas had 55 attempts that never reached the net with LA selling out to block 35 shots. They also missed on another 20.
The overtime winner from Golden Knight hero Erik Haula was a perfectly executed play by veteran James Neal. A former teammate with Fleury on the Pens, Neal took a Shea Theodore pass and drew three Kings before moving the puck to a trailing Haula, who broke in one on one against Quick. He was able to make a nice fake going with a deke before just tucking the puck around Quick’s aggressive poke check at 95:23 of the second overtime.
That’s the kind of year it’s been for those fancy Knights in those cool dark jerseys with the ultra cool Knight logo. Even though I picked the more proven Kings in this series, I knew Vegas had a good chance. They’re a very good team with excellent chemistry. Well coached by Gallant, they suffocate opponents by limiting their time and space.
There’s nothing fake about them. They execute it to perfection. Even in tight checking, low scoring games, they’ve prevailed 1-0 and 2-1 to put themselves in good position to advance to the second round. It’ll take a Herculean effort from the Kings, who are without D Jake Muzzin and Derek Forbort. The Knights don’t have leading assist man David Perron.
🎥 Erik Haula: That's one of the best feelings in sports, finishing the game in that fashion pic.twitter.com/NOwKiTovXp
Vegas will continue to play aggressively using their greatest asset. Their speed to make things difficult on LA. They will continue to hit whenever they get a chance. After the teams combined for 127 in Game One favoring the Kings 68-59, they totaled 136 with LA holding a 80-56 edge in Game Two.
Basically, that means the Knights had more puck possession which would explain the lopsided shot totals and attempts. They were far more dangerous forcing Quick into difficult saves. He played as well as he could, eerily reminding of 2012 and ’14 when he helped lead the Kings to two Cups. He’s a big game goalie like Fleury, who’s won 404 games on his way to the Hockey Hall Of Fame. Quick leads the Kings franchise in wins (293), games played (556), shutouts (49) and losses (195). He’s also first in shots against (14,759), saves (13,526), save percentage (.916) and goals-against-average (2.28).
None of this is a revelation. It’s a tribute to two great netminders who are in a epic battle where goals are hard to come by. Unless the Kings figure out a way to find the offense needed to get to Fleury, they can’t win. Not even with Quick.
The scary aspect is William Karlsson doesn’t have a point either for the Golden Knights. Who will hit the score sheet first? Him or Kopitar. It might not matter due to the Knights’ superior depth.
BODY CHECKS
-The NHL Department of Player Safety is batting .500 so far. They were wrong to suspend Doughty for a game. However, they made Leafs center Nazem Kadri pay for this reckless hit from behind in Game One against the Bruins.
Nazem Kadri. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? Awful, awful, AWFUL decision to make a dangerous run at Tommy Wingels while he's on his knees.
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) April 13, 2018
He got three games which hasn’t helped Toronto one bit. They find themselves in a 0-2 hole.
-I’ve said how much I love that Bruins top line of the rat Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and emerging star David “Pasta” Pastrnak. After doing a good number in a 5-1 win in Game One, they absolutely destroyed the Leafs in a 7-3 Game Two humiliation at TD Garden. How impressive was the best line in hockey? They combined for 14 points (3-11-14) highlighted by a Pastrnak six-point effort that included a hat trick with the pasta 🍝 man finishing it in style.
-Pastrnak’s nine points through two games tied former Bruin and Hall of Famer Phil Esposito for the most points in NHL history.
-If you could choose one goal of these playoffs only four days in, which is it?
A.Sidney Crosby’s baseball bat backhand connection on a knuckle puck en route to a natural hat trick in the Pens’ 7-0 win in Game One over the Flyers.
B.Filip Forsberg’s between the legs of Samuel Girard and ridiculous finish in Nashville’s 5-2 win in Game One over the Avalanche.
C.Artemi “The Magician” Panarin’s unreal toe drag around Dmitry Orlov for a sweet finish top shelf to beat the Capitals in sudden death for the Blue Jackets’ come from behind 4-3 win in Game One.
D.Avalanche superstar Nathan MacKinnon’s filthy backhand goal during a brilliant rush past Pekka Rinne Saturday in a tough 5-4 loss in Game Two at Nashville.
E.Evgeni Malkin’s one on three blow by out of the penalty box beating Flyers goalie Brian Elliott with a sick backhand in Game One for the Pens.
Honorable Mentions:
-Pastrnak’s sweet finish to the backhand from Marchand to complete his hat trick on Saturday.
-Sean Couturier’s no look behind the back feed for a Claude Giroux power play goal in the Flyers’ 5-1 win in Game Two over the Pens.
-Patrik Laine’s rocket 🚀 one-time slap shot top shelf by Devan Dubnyk in Winnipeg’s 4-1 win in Game Two over the Wild.
-Evander Kane’s backhand deke and tuck past John Gibson for his second goal in the Sharks’ 3-0 Game One shutout of the Ducks.
-Travis Konecny’s strong power move and finish upstairs on a mini break past Matt Murray in Game Two for the Flyers.
-There’s probably more. That’s the great part about the hockey playoffs. Players raise their level.
-Winnipeg has so dominated Minnesota that they look like the best West team. While Nashville has struggled so far to put together a complete 60 minutes against the surprising Avalanche, the Jets are busy attacking the Wild all over the ice with physicality, puck possession, shots and a overlooked defense that’s made life easy so far on Vezina candidate Connor Hellebuyck.
-The Jets possess elite scorers Blake Wheeler, Laine, Nikolaj Ehlers, Mark Scheifele, Paul Stastny and 31-goal rookie Kyle Connor. They’re a very scary team who also features twin towers Dustin Byfuglien and Tyler Myers on the back end. Both of who can contribute on offense with top heavy shots and bang around opponents with physicality.
-If form holds with both the Predators and Jets up 2-0 in their first round series, they’ll face each other in a electrifying second round that would be similar to Caps vs Pens in past years. That’s the one downfall of the divisional playoff format because sometimes, fans get the best match up in Round 2 instead of the Conference Finals. Three points is all that separated the bitter rivals during the season.
-As much as I enjoy natural rivalries, I believe they should reseed. That would reward the best teams for the regular season.
-From the non-PR department. How can NBC explain having two games at 3 PM on a Saturday? It makes no sense. While you had the Devils and Lightning on NBC, the Avalanche and Predators were playing on CNBC at the same time. So much for logic prevailing. This is the NHL’s partner. At least ABC/ESPN gets it right in the NBA scheduling four games in a row at different time slots. Are you listening Gary?
-I also didn’t understand the Flyers and Pens at the same time as the Wild and Jets during the week. Is it so difficult to move the other game to half an hour later? At least that way fans aren’t channel flipping back and forth. It’s hard to keep track of two games when they’re both scheduled at identical times.
-I know it’s not the way they envisioned starting their first round series against the Lightning. But if the Devils can avoid the penalty box and stay disciplined, they have a chance to come back and win Game 3 in Newark. That requires playing the lethal Bolts at five-on-five and not having any brain cramps. They don’t need many chances to score.
-I didn’t realize the Devils defense had suddenly morphed into the Rangers under former coach Alain Vigneault. Where the motto was vacate the front of the net and let Henrik Lundqvist fend for himself. Could anyone really blame folk hero Keith Kinkaid for the mess his team left him?
-I also don’t advocate playing only 11 forwards and seven defensemen in any playoff game. See how well that worked for AV against the same Lightning in 2015. You need to roll four lines and believe in your best six guys on D. Hasan is 100 percent right in his post.
-For as much as they made the Flyers look like amateurs in Game One, the Pens didn’t play as good as they would have you believe in the 5-1 loss in Game Two. They may have outshot the Flyers 35-20 and out-attempted them by a significant margin but Philadelphia showed up ready to play. Not only getting big stops from Elliott but taking advantage of a loss of discipline from Pittsburgh. You betcha Game Three at 3 EST today is a huge game for the two-time defending champs. They’ll be in enemy territory. They’re still heavy favorites to win this series. They don’t want to make it harder than it has to be. Especially with a shot at history.
-There’s never been a better player than Crosby when it comes to hand eye coordination. You can take whoever you want. Nobody has ever done it better than the supremely skilled Sid The Kid on deflecting pucks for goals. He’s amazing.
-It was brought to my attention that former Rangers coach and current Columbus bench boss John Tortorella looks like a rat man by buddy John “JPG” Giagnorio. He might have a point.
Is that you Splinter?!?! I’ve never seen him smile like that ever at a fan during a game. Maybe he has lightened up. His team has a chance to make franchise history. The Blue Jackets have never advanced out of the first round.
-There’s a lot of pressure on the Caps in that series. Lose tonight and they go down two games to a much improved Columbus team that’s been very different since adding Thomas Vanek and Ian Cole at the deadline.
-I’m still trying to locate Alexander Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom.
-The Blackhawks had to dump salary and gave up Panarin for former Cup hero Brandon Saad in a four player deal last summer involving picks. How did that work out?
-Congrats to longtime Bruins national anthem singer Rene Rancourt on his retirement after 40 years. There’s still some games left if the B’s make a run. The king of the fist pump!
-I know I’m not alone. I sure am gonna miss Stan Fischler. I was so privileged to intern and get to know The Maven. What a character. He’s still telling jokes making us laugh. Congrats on your retirement!
-If I’m the Rangers and it largely depends on GM Jeff Gorton’s summer plans, I would consider going after Evander Kane. He brings all the missing ingredients they need. Imagine him and future captain Chris Kreider on the same roster. If they have the cap space, would they consider it? The goal is to be competitive as long as Henrik Lundqvist is still around. First, they must choose a coach. Take your time.
-I never understood why the Islanders weren’t open to trading John Tavares. Mathew Barzal is a better player to build around. Don’t forget. Kieffer Bellows is on the way. They really are betting on the dynamic duo of Garth Snow and Doug Weight this July. Their bigger need is a top flight defenseman. Sure makes sense to tie up Tavares for another eight years while failing to address the real weakness.
-I really enjoyed playoff hockey without every game on NBC or NBCSN.
-If you haven’t already, please contribute whatever you can to the Humboldt Broncos. A heartbreaking tragedy that’s brought the hockey community together. I donated. Stick taps for all the families with a heavy heart. Over $11 million has been raised. That’s amazing! 🏒💜😢
It’s hard to know how to start this piece after the Devils’ 5-3 playoff loss in Tampa put them in a big two-game hole against the top-seeded Lightning. If you want to look at a glass half-full, you could point to the fact the Devils were able to limit Tampa’s chances throughout Game 2 and dominated the last twenty-two minutes, sending a message to the heavily favored Lightning that this Devils team isn’t going away. Of course if you want to be glass half-empty you have to question certain lineup choices and why for two straight games this team’s made a slew of glaring mental mistakes. Not to mention it’s taken them falling behind by three goals in each game before the urgency factor kicked in, or they stopped worrying and started playing – however you want to psychoanalyze the team’s uneven performance the first two games.
Of course growing pains were to be expected with young players in the postseason for the first time, but you would have hoped the vets could carry the slack and lead the way. Instead the vets with playoff experience have been among the biggest culprits so far as up and down the lineup the first two games have been littered with unforced errors from guys you would hope wouldn’t make those kind of errors, many of which have wound up in the net. Tonight the gong show started with the miscommunication between Andy Greene and Damon Severson on Tampa’s first goal off a faulty line change in the opening twenty minutes – which granted was probably more on Severson for not covering the left side when Greene hadn’t gotten on the ice yet – but still that was a harbinger for a dreary Game 2.
A harbinger that was followed by a string of mental miscues in the second period which turned a deceptively tight game into a horror show. Starting with Ben Lovejoy’s rushed delay of game penalty in the second period which led to the tie-breaking goal to Kyle Palmieri’s selfish roughing penalty which led to another goal, and Sami Vatanen’s own-goal later on in the second period, it was a rough game for a lot of the ‘playoff-experienced’ guys. At 4-1 I even shut it off and turned on Colorado-Nashville for the remainder of the second period (before turning it back – but not really watching the third period). I can’t remember the last time I did that for a playoff game, but the gong show was just too depressing to watch. It looked like men against boys out there. Granted our shots on goal total was still favorable even early but if you watched the first period you could tell Tampa had a lot more pressure on our net than we did on theirs, we just got fortunate with some blocked shots and missed nets from Tampa.
Sure after it got to 5-1 things got mildly interesting with a late-second period goal from Vatanen, a third-period marker from Blake Coleman, some chippy play towards the end and some great saves from both goaltenders – a couple early in the period from Cory Schneider doing a rare relief turn and a few more from Andrei Vasilevskiy in the Tampa net that prevented us from making the game any closer (including a stop on a breakaway from Miles Wood). I get all that, and the Devils had their best period of the series in the third when they threw caution to the wind, attacked and kept plodders like Lovejoy off the ice. Still, all veteran hockey fans know or should know things tend to be different once a team gets a huge lead as the Devils have now found out in two straight games and that you’re not going to dominate a team like Tampa in the run of normal play.
I’m particularly skeptical that the Schneider you saw in the third period tonight is the one you’ll get in Game 3 if coach John Hynes does what a lot of people expect and start Cory down 2-0, after the clock seemingly struck midnight on Keith Kinkaid, who allowed nine goals in less than five periods of this series. Maybe it has, but nobody can deny the Devils aren’t in the playoffs without Kinkaid and while yes Cory played well in relief it’s a different story when you come in as the backup in a longshot effort and coming in as the starter with all the heat on you. Personally I feel Keith has still earned the first home start in the postseason but with a very short leash, but I’m bracing myself for the alternative being Cory with the very short leash. I just hope the sellout crowd doesn’t turn on Cory with the first goal scored on Monday since he hasn’t actually started a home game in over a month, before Kinkaid became a folk hero while Cory turned in an embarassing effort in San Jose and hasn’t been seen again till this afternoon.
Other lineup changes need to be considered for Game 3 as well. Perhaps Hynes went too mad scientist going with an 11 forward, 7 defense lineup for Game 2, one that hasn’t been employed in months. Taking out one of our leading PK guys in Brian Gibbons probably didn’t help against a dominant Lightning PP, which put up another two goals tonight. Granted Gibbons’ non-PK game has been crap lately but when the alternative is going 11-7 putting yet another struggling defenseman in the lineup? Very questionable, and the cloak and dagger manner the lineup was only announced just before gametime suggested some indecision…perhaps Hynes should have taken a page from Dave Hakstol in Philly who stubbornly did nothing after their Game 1 mutiliation in Pittsburgh and got rewarded with a big Game 2 road performance. And though he looked better later in the game (as did most of the team) I didn’t exactly get a lot of confidence back in Severson after that botched first goal against.
Yet, I don’t even think Severson should be the one to sit in Game 3 – I get Lovejoy has that ever valuable postseason experience, but experience doesn’t help you catch up to younger, faster skaters and the Lightning have been skating circles around the vets (including Andy Greene, who you’re not benching) all series. Trying to play slow-down tight-checking hockey really isn’t how this team is built and sure hasn’t worked against Tampa on the road so far. Now that the next two games are going to be back in Newark, the team needs to get a spark early in Game 3 and jump on the Lightning. Either put Gibbons back in for Lovejoy and shore up the PK or roll the dice on Jesper Bratt. Leave Severson in the lineup but get him away from John Moore and that radioactive pairing once and for all. If you have to, bump Will Butcher up to play with Severson and bump Moore down to play with Mueller. Either way you need your six best skating and offensive defensemen in the lineup. Continuing to give Lovejoy third-period shifts down multiple goals was laughable before the staff finally remembered it had seven D and did the math, sitting Lovejoy later on.
One thing’s for sure, this team needs to be more competitive in New Jersey than they were in Tampa if they want to ensure at least a return trip there and avoiding the first franchise sweep in playoff history. Even against a great team like the Lightning that would be a sour way to end what’s been an otherwise rewarding season. Clearly the recipe for Game 3 is get ahead and drop the hammer early, don’t let this talented team think it can finish things off quickly. Turn the series into hand-to-hand combat and let them know they’re in for a fight.
It was their first game in quite a while. For the first time since 2012, the New Jersey Devils officially returned to the NHL Playoffs on Thursday night in Tampa Bay. With a cool slogan of #NowWeRise and a nice ad campaign with Mr. Devil Ken Daneyko declaring, “We’re back where we belong,” which could have been the lyrics to a linkin Park song, they are playoff ready.
For most of the younger Devils, it’s a new experience. So they’re learning what it takes to win a postseason game let alone a first round series against the top seeded Lightning. What they gained in a tough 5-2 loss in Game One is that it’s very different to beat a good opponent in the playoffs.
While it would be nice to put some stock in going 3-0-0 versus the Bolts during the regular season, it doesn’t mean a thing. There’s so much more intensity during the playoffs. Every shift matters. Every mistake. That was magnified last night with the Devils making some costly errors that led to Lightning goals.
One thing stood out from listening to Devils coach John Hynes prior to the start of the best-of-seven first round series. Tampa doesn’t need a lot of chances to score. Never was that more true than in Game One.
Making his first postseason start, Keith Kinkaid was hung out to dry by his teammates who left the front of the net wide open. Very uncharacteristic of this team’s DNA. The Bolts took full advantage burying their opportunities.
Following a nervous start in which the top seed had them on their heels with Kinkaid making some timely saves to keep it scoreless, the Devils started to find their game. They generated some good chances off forecheck pressure, forcing Andrei Vasilevskiy to be good. They were in good shape for most of the first until a couple of miscues hurt big time.
If they thought just shutting down the dangerous trio of J.T. Miller, Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov was enough, they were sadly mistaken. The thing that makes the Lightning tough is the scoring depth with proven playoff performers Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat doing a number on the Devils. They combined for two goals and three assists factoring in on the game’s first three goals.
With five minutes left in the opening period, first it was Palat who introduced himself by getting free in the slot for a easy finish from Johnson and former Ranger Ryan McDonagh. He had too much time and space which gave Kinkaid little chance.
If they did some positive things in the period trailing only by one, the Devils forgot to play the final shift. It cost them another goal. With the defense running around, Brayden Point and Palat combined to find a wide open Johnson alone for his 22nd career postseason goal. Mirco Mueller lost a battle behind the net and both Ben Lovejoy and star Taylor Hall didn’t pick up Johnson in front. It was inexcusable. The poor coverage put them down two with under 29 seconds left.
Despite only being outshot 13-11, the Devils found themselves playing from behind in enemy territory. That’s never what you want in your first playoff game on the road.
Miles Wood is also new to this. The second-year grinding forward is a important player. He is on the second line with Pavel Zacha and Patrick Maroon. He has to play feisty to be effective. A meaningless slash to Dan Girardi five seconds into the second period off the draw isn’t what he had in mind.
It didn’t take long for the Lightning to make it 3-0. They got a bit of a fortunate bounce when Palat attempted a pass that Mueller accidentally chipped across the crease right to Yanni Gourde, who buried a power play goal into a open side. It was a rough night for Mueller, who was caught on for three goals against.
Let’s give credit to the Devils for not giving up. They showed some heart nearly rallying back from a three goal deficit. All year, they’ve been resilient. It was again evident that despite some mistakes, the effort was still there. Vasilevskiy made some pointblank stops in tight to keep the Devs off the scoreboard until Hall broke through for his first postseason goal in his first playoff game. He got plenty of help from a unlikely source when Palat passed a puck right up the middle to him. Hall quickly shot and beat Vasilevskiy to cut it to 3-1.
They kept coming in the third. A iffy slashing minor on Miller allowed New Jersey to get within one with plenty of time left. On a wonderfully constructed play, Hall faked shot to get Anton Stralman down to his knees. He then fit in a perfect shot pass for a neat Travis Zajac redirection for a crucial power play goal that suddenly made it 3-2 with 10:25 remaining. Rookie Will Butcher picked up his first career postseason assist on the play.
Unfortunately, that was as close as they would get. A bad turnover from Maroon allowed the Lightning to speed through the neutral zone in transition with Gourde setting up Alex Killorn for a goal through traffic with Kinkaid screened. The quick response by Tampa came 2:39 later to restore a two goal lead.
The Devils were unable to sustain enough pressure to make it interesting late. They only wound up with five shots in the third while the Lightning had a dozen including a Kucherov empty netter that concluded the scoring.
The final shots were 32-31 Tampa. The final hits were 36-35 Devils. They competed. Tampa had 10 takeaways to the Jersey’s four. Blocked shots were also close with 16 for the Devs and 15 for the Bolts.
What they’ll need to do better for Game Two on Saturday after 3 PM is play smarter. Tighten up. Get back to playing the kind of Devils hockey that got them back in. If they can, there’s no reason they can’t return to Newark with a split for what will be a electric atmosphere on Monday night.
It’s finally arrived. After a long 82 games, the best time of year is here. For six of the 16 participants, the NHL Playoffs gets going tonight. Sixteen teams can achieve their ultimate dream of winning the Stanley Cup. It’s time to break it all down.
The biggest theme entering this postseason is can the Penguins three-peat? Not even the legendary Oilers teams headlined by Gretzky and Messier did that. You have to go all the way back to the great Islanders dynasty when they won four in a row between 1980-83. So, what the Pens are trying to accomplish is special. As loaded as they are with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel, it shouldn’t be easy. They’ll start the first round against the arch rival Flyers renewing the interstate Battle of Pennsylvania rivalry with Game 1 in the Steel city tonight. It says here that they’ll only go as far as Matt Murray takes them. Kris Letang should help.
CONTENDERS
The contenders to the throne are quite a few. In the East, you have the Lightning and Bruins as the strongest opposition with the Maple Leafs standing in Boston’s way in a compelling first round match-up that could have plenty of momentum swings. This is good news for the Pens because two of the three could be gone before the Conference Final.
The Bolts are hoping they can turn it on after a subpar finish. The top seed will face a scrappy Devils bunch led by Hart candidate Taylor Hall and Keith Kinkaid. They didn’t beat them in the regular season. How much impact if any will that have? Tampa needs its stars to lead the way. There is a lot of pressure on Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman and young All-Star goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy to deliver along with key additions Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller (1 goal in 40 career playoff games).
The Bruins are formidable led by Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak which form the best line in hockey. They should be able to exploit the Leafs’ defense. But Toronto counters with Auston Matthews, William Nylander, James van Riemsdyk and Mitch Marner on a dangerous offense that loves transition. Stylistically, Boston can control the tempo with their forecheck and try to wear down Toronto with David Krejci, David Backes, Ryan Donato. They boast Zdeno Chara and polished rookie Charlie McAvoy on the top pair and should have a edge in net with Tuukka Rask over Freddie Andersen.
The Caps also could be in the mix after wining the Metro Division. It all will depend on which goalie steps up. They’re starting Philipp Grubauer over Braden Holtby for Game 1 against the Blue Jackets who enter hot since adding Thomas Vanek and Ian Cole at the trade deadline. They’re no pushovers. Artemi Panarin and Cam Atkinson are playing well. The top tandem of Zach Werenski and Seth Jones could pose problems for the Caps despite the obvious talent in Rocket Richard winner Alexander Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov. If he can finally play to form, Sergei Bobrovsky could punch the Jackets’ ticket to the second round for the franchise’s first series victory.
The Predators are the top dog until proven otherwise. Boasting great defense, balanced offense and a elite goalie in Pekka Rinne, they have home ice. A blueline highlighted by P.K. Subban, Roman Josi, Ryan Ellis and oft overlooked Mattias Ekholm should give them a decided edge in any series defensively. Add to that a skilled and gritty mix up front led by Filip Forsberg, Victor Arvidsson, Ryan Johansen and Craig Smith which can score dirty goals and you have a tough number one overall seed. Kyle Turris, Kevin Fiala, Nick Bonino lend support along with Mike Fisher and Calle Jarnkrok.
It’s too bad Winnipeg plays in the same division because they’re the second best team. Even if they advance over the pesky Wild led by Eric Staal, Jason Zucker, Mikael Granlund, Nino Niederreiter, Matt Dumba, Jared Spurgeon and Devan Dubnyk, they’ll likely have to face the Preds in a riveting second round. They played some great games during the season. Minnesota is without top D Ryan Suter which could hurt their chances against one of the league’s most dangerous scoring teams.
The Jets feature Blake Wheeler, Patrik Laine, Mark Scheifele, Nikolas Ehlers, Kyle Connor along with the lethal Dustin Byfuglien on a underrated back end that includes Tyler Myers, Jacob Trouba and Josh Morrissey. If American netminder Connor Hellebuyck plays like he did during the season in which he won a record breaking 44 games, they have the potential to make a run.
The Vegas Golden Knights had a amazing inaugural year winning the Pacific with 109 points. Led by Marc-Andre Fleury and amazing headliners William Karlsson, Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith, they play a very high tempo under Jack Adams certainty Gerard Gallant. He must love having ex-Panthers Marchessault and Smith, who they stole last expansion draft. Think Florida could’ve used either? They have the speed and tenacity that can work in the playoffs. It’s just whether or not guys like Erik Haula, David Perron and Karlsson will come back to earth. They haven’t all season. James Neal and Tomas Tatar could be important if they’re to advance over the difficult battle tested Kings. Fleury will have to be superb. Is a D that features Colin Miller, Shea Theodore, Nate Schmidt and Vegas inspiration Deryk Engelland good enough to slow down Hart contender Anze Kopitar and Jeff Carter?
UNDERDOGS
The Flyers had a very good season making it back to the playoffs. They didn’t finish far behind the rival Pens. But the question remains the same. Can questionable goaltending with this time it being Brian Elliott shutdown a scary Pens attack featuring Crosby, Malkin, Kessel, Derick Brassard, Patric Hornqvist, Jake Guentzel, Bryan Rust, Conor Sheary, Letang and Justin Schultz? They can’t take bad penalties or get into a run and gun series.
Philly can score with Hart hopeful Claude Giroux on a excellent first line that includes Sean Couturier and Travis Konecny. They also have Jakub Voracek, young center Nolan Patrick, Michal Raffl and power forward Wayne Simmonds, who is a liability five-on-five but does his best work on the power play. Shayne Gostisbehere is lethal offensively and Ivan Provorov is the kind of two-way threat the Flyers haven’t had since Eric Desjardjns. They’ll need to be flawless to pull the upset.
The Devils are a feel good story having gotten back to the postseason for the first time since 2012. Led by Hall, smart two/way rookie Nico Hischier and the Jersey Rocket Kyle Palmieri, John Hynes’ club doesn’t back down from anyone. They play their game and can fluster opponents. Just ask their first round opponent Tampa, who lost all three games in the season series. If they can avoid the penalty box and play the Lightning at even strength, it’s not impossible for them to win. But this is a seven-game series. Kinkaid will have to be dynamic as he was the final two months against a potent attack that not only features Kucherov, Stamkos and Miller but 30-plus goalscorer Brayden Point, Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, Alex Killorn and rookie Anthony Cirelli. Ryan McDonagh is back with Dan Girardi as part of the Tampa Blueshirts featuring Anton Stralman, Miller and Ryan Callahan.
For New Jersey to win, aside from remaining disciplined, they’ll need big contributions from checkers Travis Zajac, Brian Boyle, Blake Coleman and Stefan Noesen. Their goal along with Miles Wood and Patrick Maroon is to turn this series into a physical battle. Make it tough on the skilled Bolts. Michael Grabner must show up. He can be a game breaker due to his defensive acumen and speed at both five-on-five and on the penalty kill. There will be a lot of pressure on Andy Greene and Sami Vatanen who will draw the difficult assignment against the Lightning top line of Kucherov, Stamkos and Miller. Will Butcher and Mirco Mueller are key cogs along with vet Ben Lovejoy.
The Avalanche had a plus-47 improvement under second-year coach Jared Bednar. Nathan MacKinnon is why. The Hart contender was superb all year centering a lethal top line with Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen. The lethal trio are amazing. Particularly on the rush and power play. MacKinnon will need to go berserk for Colorado to have any chance against Nashville. Rantanen is great at finishing plays around the net with his quick release. Landeskog can score the dirty goals and is back to being the player he was a few years ago.
It’ll be hard for them to win. Jonathan Bernier must play unreal with Semyon Varlamov out for the season. Tyson Barrie had a bounce back year on the back end. He and Samuel Girard will be huge with Erik Johnson uncertain. Nikita Zadorov showed improvement. Unless youngsters Alex Kerfoot, Tyson Jost and J.T. Compher are ready for prime time, the Avs can’t win. They’ll look to vets Carl Soderberg and Blake Comeau for leadership.
It’s hard to label the Ducks, Sharks and Kings underdogs. But that’s exactly what they are entering the first round. We know this much. Either the Ducks or Sharks will advance to face the Kings/Knights winner for a shot at the Conference Final.
Picking between Anaheim and San Jose is like playing craps. The Ducks enter playing well earning home ice for this awesome Battle of California match-up. Featuring beast Ryan Getzlaf and top sniper Richard Rakell, the Ducks obviously need their best players to rise to the occasion. A year removed from a run to the Western Conference Final before falling to Nashville, they’ll have to do it without ace blue liner Cam Fowler. It’ll fall on Brandon Montour, Josh Manson, Hampus Lindholm and popular vet Francois Beauchemin to stifle a dangerous Sharks attack led by Logan Couture, Joe Pavelski and great deadline pickup Evander Kane. Good luck. Even without Joe Thornton, the Sharks are formidable thanks to Kane, who’s been splendid. Youngsters Kevin Labanc and Timo Meier are key contributors along with Tomas Hertl and Chris Tierney.
If there’s a big difference, it’s on the back end with San Jose featuring The Caveman, Brent Burns. He will bomb away from the point and can be a threat at even strength and the power play. Marc-Edouard Vlasic remains a solid shutdown D who will see a lot of Getzlaf, Rakell and likely Ondrej Kase, who’s developed into a good scorer. Neither defense is great. The Sharks rely on Brenden Dillon and Justin Braun to play big minutes.
It could come down to which goalie or goalies are better. While the Sharks boast Martin Jones who is the unquestioned starter two years removed from a Stanley Cup Final, Anaheim has both John Gibson and proven American veteran Ryan Miller. Depending on Gibson’s health, that’ll decide who plays. Gibson is young, talented and streaky. Miller has been splendid all year and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he’s in net.
The Kings are underdogs due to where they finished. But the West’s first wildcard has the match-up they want. Sure. The Golden Knights are very good and have a great home ice. But LA proved they can beat Vegas in the season series with two great comeback wins that saw Kopitar in full beast mode. He’s the best forward in the series with Carter right behind. The best defenseman is Drew Doughty, who pairs with Jake Muzzin to make a formidable tandem. Jonathan Quick is a two-time Stanley Cup champion and former Conn Smythe winner. There’s nothing separating him and Fleury, who’s won three Cups and was a huge part of last year’s repeat in Pittsburgh. He’s played phenomenally in his first year with Vegas and that must continue.
It depends on the style. The Kings want to slow down the Knights and turn it into a meat and potatoes series. That’s where a rejuvenated Dustin Brown and Tanner Pearson can do damage. They want Doughty and Muzzin to control the tempo and Kopitar to dominate all three zones. He really is one of the game’s best players and he could finally get that recognition.
Sometimes just a picture says it all. It’s been nearly six years since seeing a playoffs logo on Prudential Center ice, but here it is again in anticipation for the Devils’ home playoff games 3-4 next Monday and Wednesday against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Newark should be rocking for the Devils’ long-awaited return to the postseason, especially considering how perilously close it came to not happening. With Florida refusing to taper off and winning an unbelievable five games in seven days to end the season, the Devils’ margin of error wound up being zero. As in just one more point lost or one more point gained by Florida earlier in the season would have meant we suffer the current fate of Panther fans and at least tie a dubious record for most points ever by a team that didn’t make the postseason.
Like Derek outlined in his previous post, the Panthers have nothing to be embarassed about. Especially on the ice where their monster second half made at least half the Eastern Conference playoff field sweat bullets. Although if I’m a Panther fan my biggest annoyance is still with the ghastly offseason trades of Johnathan Marchsseault and Reilly Smith to expansion Vegas and Jason Demers to Arizona more or less for salary relief. Who knows what the Eastern Conference field would have looked like if their ownership didn’t do their best Rachel Phelps imitation in the offseason? Marchsseault and Smith were certainly two big reasons why Vegas pulled off its shock top seed finish as an expansion team out West and might be the first expansion team to have a serious shot at making the Stanley Cup finals since the NHL’s dopey playoff format of the late ’60’s where an expansion team got an automatic bye into the finals playing the expansion bracket.
Still, despite excellent hockey all around from the Panthers behind them and the Blue Jackets and Flyers who eventually passed them, the Devils didn’t flinch – dominating down the stretch when it mattered most, going 10-3-1 in their do-or-die fourteen game stretch culminating in their playoff-clinching win in the penultimate game of the season Thursday night. Perhaps that’s the most impressive thing about this young, upstart Devils team. They’ve been playing playoff games for the better part of a month against tough competition. If the favored Lightning have one main concern going into the series it should be that this team is more than battle-tested in its own right.
Granted, the Lightning are more experienced as a team in the postseason. It’s not like the Devils don’t have postseason vets though. There are more than you think on this roster, including almost all its top defensemen. Obviously Andy Greene as one of the few holdovers from 2012 has a ton of playoff experience in New Jersey, but Sami Vatanen, John Moore and Ben Lovejoy also have played in multiple postseasons in other cities. Part of GM Ray Shero’s rationale for his deadline deals to bring in Michael Grabner and Patrick Maroon aside from bringing in their various skills, was to bring in another pair of forwards that have postseason experience. Other than Kyle Palmieri, Travis Zajac (the only other player on the roster to have played in a postseason for the Devils) and heart-and-soul guy Brian Boyle, few of our other key forwards have postseason experience though. A few guys that do include Marcus Johansson, Jimmy Hayes and Drew Stafford but all three are expected to start the postseason in the press box.
Sure, top forward Taylor Hall, prodigy Nico Hischier and starting goalie Keith Kinkaid are all going to be playing their first postseason game in Tampa on Thursday night. And John Hynes will be coaching his first postseason game as well. Experience doesn’t always win the day though, as the Lightning themselves well know when an upstart team in 2015 knocked off more seasoned playoff foes Detroit, Montreal and the Rangers on their way to the Finals where they gave the mighty Hawks a series before finally going down in six games. Nor is experience going to help stop Tampa’s loaded attack, which contains no fewer than four forwards and one defenseman (Victor Hedman) who have 60+ points, spearheaded by Nikita Kucherov’s 100-point season. That leads me to the perhaps the biggest difference between the two teams – Tampa’s nearly 50-goal edge in goalscoring.
OFFENSE
In fact, Tampa has scored the most goals in the league by a considerable margin with 290, outgunning its closest competitor (Winnipeg) by a full seventeen goals while the Devils finished middle of the pack with 243 goals. Our forward depth is actually comparable to the Lightning’s with ten forwards that have scored at least a dozen goals, and twelve forwards with at least twenty points in what’s been a balanced attack outside of Hall. However, there’s a big dropoff between Hall (93 points) and Hischier (52 points) in scoring while the Lightning have five twenty-goal scorers compared to just two for us. Not to mention six fifty-point players compared to just two for us. Tampa’s top two lines, and keeping them in check are paramount to closing the gap between the two teams and turning it into a hand-to-hand combat series where our role players can make a difference.
It’s not just the top two lines where the difference in scoring shows though, it’s also among the defensemen. Their defense has not only outscored ours 48-31 but our leading goalscorer on the blueline (Damon Severson) is likely to start the postseason in the press box after repeated miscues down the stretch lost the trust of Hynes and the coaching staff. Other than rookie Will Butcher, any offensive production we get from the D is a bonus at this point while Hedman and teen sensation Mikhail Sergachev have to be accounted for, as well as top forwards Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point, Yanni Gourde, Tyler Johnson and deadline acquisition J. T. Miller. That task will fall to our unheralded but improving blueline
DEFENSE
Tampa has the bigger names in Hedman, Sergachev and the Derek All-Stars (re: ex-Rangers) in Dan Girardi, Anton Stralman and another big deadline acquisition in Ryan McDonagh but New Jersey’s blueline improved throughout the year and finished middle of the pack in both shots allowed per game and goals allowed. Ultimately, the Lightning finished marginally ahead in goals allowed per game (2.85 to 2.93) and marginally behind in shots allowed per game (32.7 to 31.9). In-season acquisition Vatanen was a big reason for the Devils D’s improvement as well as growth from Butcher and a surprising stretch run by Mueller, but they’ll clearly face a huge challenge trying to keep pace with Tampa’s attack. Earlier in the season they struggled to do so despite winning two high-scoring games – 5-4 after a shootout in October at the Rock, and 4-3 in another high-scoring tilt in February at Tampa, but completed a surprising series sweep in March with a taut 2-1 win on the back end of a brutal home-and-home that proved decisive in the Devils’ postseason charge.
SPECIAL TEAMS
It’s a tale of two units for the Lightning, who dominate on the PP with a 23.5% efficiency (finishing third) but struggle on a PK that’s surprisingly poor at 76.1% – good for 28th among 31 teams. For the Devils’ inconsistent but improving PP this could be an area to exploit. For all my kvetching over assistant Geoff Ward and his deployment of personnel and tactics at times, the PP got more consistent throughout the season and finished in 10th place overall at 21.4% efficiency. Of course like with most other things offensively, the PP ran through Hall who directly scored or assisted on 37 of the team’s 54 power play goals this season. Our PK on the other hand was steady throughout the season finishing in 8th with an 81.8% efficiency, and became a threat – leading the league with twelve shorthanded goals. New Jersey’s PK against Tampa’s PP could be the single most important micro matchup of the series other than top defensive pair Greene and Vatanen and checkers Zajac, Blake Coleman and Stefan Noesen against the Lightning’s top unit five-on-five. Of course as with any playoff series, the one-on-one matchup that will determine so much is:
GOALTENDING
Both goaltenders come into this series with huge question marks. For Tampa’s Andrei Vasilevskiy, it’s whether he can regain his first-half form after a rocky finish to the season that had Vasilevskiy himself admitting he was tired in his first year playing more than 50 games, while for the Devils’ Keith Kinkaid it’s a question of how long can this career backup sustain a superstar level that led to his season-saving 16-3-1 run? Will fatigue eventually kick in for a player that’s never played more than 47 games in a season at any level of pro hockey (and that was in 2013-14 at the AHL level, his last season getting a starter’s workload till now)? Should the Devils play seven playoff games, Keith would surpass that plateau after having played 41 games in the regular season this year. While Vasilevskiy’s overall numbers are still better (2.62 GAA .920 Save, 8 SHO) compared to Kinkaid’s, Kinkaid’s first few months are a distant memory now, since the Devils’ overnight sensation has played at an otherworldly level in the last two months as detailed in prior blogs by me and Derek.
COACHING
In his five full seasons as Lightning coach, Jon Cooper has won games at an astonishing rate with a record a full hundred games above .500, and a winning percentage of .617. Although Tampa hasn’t gone all the way to the promised land yet, they came close in back-to-back seasons of 2014-15 (Finals loss to Chicago in 6 games) and 2015-16 (losing in Game 7 of the Conference Finals to Pittsburgh). After missing the postseason last year, Tampa’s locked and loaded for another deep run into Spring, especially with their deadline acquisitions of McDonagh and Miller add to an already deep and experienced core.
On the other side, Devils coach John Hynes is in just his third season and will be coaching in the playoffs for the first time this week, but the likely Jack Adams finalist has done a good job in guiding a young team with few big names to a 97-point season and a hard-fought playoff berth. Almost any other team would have been sunk if their franchise goalie (Cory Schneider) got hurt and then imploded throughout the second half of the season and certainly their six-game trip across America in March was a defining moment for both team and coach. Through it all, Hynes struck the right balance between discipline and confidence-building and put everyone in positions to succeed from his younger players to his role players to Hall, who had a career-best season that put him in the discussion for the Hart trophy.
OUTLOOK
Let’s be honest, it’s hard for a fan to predict a series you have a vested interest in, so to speak. As happy as I’d be with this season pretty much no matter the outcome, I’m hopeful this series at least gets back to the Rock for Game 6 two weeks from today. Should that happen, let the chips fall where they may from there. Though I normally roll my eyes at the just happy to be here cliche, how could you not be as a Devils fan? They weren’t expected to make the playoffs this season but once they got out to a huge lead and held a spot from day one, it would have been a giant dissapointment to blow it and waste Hall’s transcendent season. With the worst-case scenarios gone, the Devils can just focus on playing their best, being loose and carrying their confidence from the regular season sweep of the Lightning into this series. Not that it will mean anything on the ice, but it can provide an intangible benefit for a young team that will help them not be intimidated by the moment.
My best-case outlook is a 4-2 series win clinching in front of an emotional sold-out crowd at the Rock in two weeks – although I almost see it as more likely to go up 3-2 and lose Game 6, only to win Game 7 on the road which would somehow be a fitting coda to a season that’s had many unforseen twists and turns. My worst-case outlook is losing in five games, but I can’t see us going out that quietly even to a juggernaut like Tampa. Ultimately I at least see something in between the two – a split of the first four games then it gets down to crunchtime and becomes a three game series with an interminable three-day break between Games 4 and 5. Almost as interminable as the wait between last night and Thursday will be. Aside from that midseries layoff, the teams will play every other day starting Thursday at 7 PM in Tampa. Time to get ready for the next roller coaster ride.
Give the Panthers a lot of credit. They didn’t roll over for the Bruins. It might not have meant anything for Florida after having been eliminated from postseason contention by the Flyers on Saturday. But you wouldn’t have known it by the way they played.
If this were a different year, Panthers coach Bob Boughner would deserve the Jack Adams. He probably won’t even be nominated with Gerard Gallant, John Hynes and Dave Hakstol prime candidates along with Jared Bednar.
What the Panthers proved is that even though their final two games didn’t mean the playoffs, they didn’t care. They played the same way getting timely scoring and great goaltending from both James Reiner and proud veteran Roberto Luongo, who came in ice cold to stuff the Bruins’ chances of winning the Atlantic Division and clinching home ice in the Eastern Conference.
Florida went into Boston and defeated them 4-2 at TD Garden. A game that meant a lot more to the Bruins due to a big difference in first round opponents. Had they won in regulation, overtime or shootout, they would’ve passed the Lightning in total points and earned the number one seed which would’ve meant a match-up against final wildcard the Devils. Instead, they’ll have to deal with arch enemy Toronto in a very intriguing 2 vs 3 first round in the Atlantic semifinals. One which isn’t the easiest match-up against the high flying Maple Leafs.
Leading by a 3-1 score after outplaying a surprisingly flat Boston team, the Panthers were on their collective heels in a lopsided third period controlled by the more desperate Bruins. Boston outshot the Cats 26-6 as they gave every effort to get the game tied for a chance at first place.
A hi-sticking double minor that drew blood on captain Zdeno Chara allowed Boston to creep back within one thanks to some wonderful passing down low. Ryan Donato made a nice one touch pass to Patrice Bergeron, who swung the puck right to a open David Backes for a power play goal by Reimer with 10:06 remaining. It came on the first half meaning they still had another two minutes to work with.
During it, they continued to apply the pressure on Florida’s penalty killers and forced Reimer into some difficult stops. The Panthers backup was writhing in pain after two saves. Both which brought out the trainer to boos from classless fans who should’ve realized he wasn’t faking. The second save saw him bent over in obvious discomfort which NESN’s Jack Edwards noted to color analyst Andy Brickley that that was it for Reimer.
Having already stretched, Luongo came in relief giving a tap to Reimer with eight minutes left. It would’ve been easy for the 39-year old legend to spit the bit. But a couple of close calls from Boston near his post never got past him. He came up with a big pad save to deny a tying bid. Following the brilliance of Reimer stopping 33 of 35 shots including over half before giving way, Luongo was a perfect eight for eight in relief.
Evgenii Dadonov put it away when he got to a loose puck in front and swept home a backhand past Tuukka Rask for his 28th with 1:49 to go in regulation. A terrific read by a gifted scorer who had a very good year in his return to Florida after spending the past several seasons in the KHL. He really was tremendous during their playoff push and a big reason the Panthers didn’t wilt down the stretch.
Even without inspirational leading scorer Aleksander Barkov the final two games due to injury, the Panthers had enough heart to beat both the Sabres and much better Bruins to finish out the season winning their last five including twice over Boston and a impressive one goal win over Nashville.
The Panthers finished the 82-game schedule with 96 points in Boughner’s first year. In other seasons, that would be enough to make the playoffs. But a Flyers 5-0 laugher against the Rangers along with a Devils 5-2 laugher over the same Rangers allowed both I-95 rivals to make it. The Flyers earned third place in the Metro Division jumping over the Blue Jackets into a appetizing first round Battle of Pennsylvania against bitter nemesis the Penguins.
Meanwhile, Columbus will play Metro first seed Washington as a first wildcard. That means the Devils get who they wanted in the East’s top seeded Lightning. Even though Tampa had a conference best 113 points, they lost the season series to the Devils 3-0. What will it mean? If you’re NJDevs blogger Hasan, probably nothing. But you can’t deny that these determined and gritty Devils could have a mental edge entering the first round series which starts on Thursday.
New Jersey boasts Hart candidate Taylor Hall, who has been on a mission. He posted career bests in goals (39) and points (93) narrowly missing on Patrik Elias’ single season franchise record 96 points in ’00-01. Hall has formed unreal chemistry with superb rookie Nico Hischier and a sizzling Kyle Palmieri. The trio must be a big factor to pull the upset.
The Devils are looking for secondary scorers Miles Wood and Patrick Maroon to be royal pains in front of Lightning Vezina contender Andrei Vasilevskiy. He had a outstanding season and can make the great save that swings the momentum.
Keith Kinkaid has been on a special run the past two months making clutch stops when his team needs it most. He’ll have to duplicate it against the Lightning Bolts’ dangerous scorers Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos and a loaded lineup that features Brayden Point, J.T. Miller, Tyler Johnson, Alex Killorn, Ondrej Palat, Yanni Gourde and Norris favorite Victor Hedman.
It’s gonna take a Herculean effort from checkers Brian Boyle, Stefan Noesen, Blake Coleman, Travis Zajac and Michael Grabner. Sami Vatanen, Andy Greene have their work cut out for them along with Mirco Mueller and Will Butcher.
The Devils can frustrate opponents with their tenaciousness. They don’t back Diem which might explain their success against Tampa and Pittsburgh. But it’s one thing to do it in the regular season and quite another to accomplish it over a best-of-seven series.
Either way, in resting Hall and Kinkaid in a loss to the Caps, Hynes got the match-up he wanted. We’ll see what happens.
Along with the Bruins/Leafs, Pens/Flyers and Caps/Jackets, every series could go either way. It speaks to the parity. The bottom teams have a chance. It should be a exciting first round.
In a bit of a stunner considering there are games still going on, the Rangers didn’t wait around. Apparently, whatever went on in today’s awful display in a 5-0 loss to the Flyers and a bizarre press conference was enough.
In a move that came a day or two earlier than expected, the Rangers have fired Alain Vigneault. After five years behind the bench where the former Canucks bench boss had similar success that included a trip to the Stanley Cup Final and coming within a period of a second straight appearance, time has run out on the veteran coach. The Rangers made it official on Twitter a short while ago following the rumors from XM Sirius Radio via reliable source TSN’s Bob McKenzie.
OFFICIAL: #NYR Head Coach Alain Vigneault has been relieved of his coaching duties.
So, the ax officially fell. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t think they would do it tonight. It definitely came as a shock. Maybe Vigneault’s big defense during his postgame was enough for GM Jeff Gorton and even staunch supporter Team President Glen Sather to cut ties immediately.
Given how uncompetitive they were at the rival Devils on a playoff clincher and the same at the Flyers allowing them to easily clinch, something was wrong. There had been rumblings about player dissension recently. I had heard through a reliable source that players were disenchanted with Vigneault, who was a very successful coach.
However, in sports all good runs come to an end. As well as it started with the old core featuring Ryan McDonagh, Dan Girardi, Derek Stepan and Derick Brassard to name a few, had a remarkable run in the 2014 postseason. Rallying around Martin St. Louis following the tragic death of Mom France, they rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to stun the Penguins in the second round with Brad Richards getting the series clincher and Henrik Lundqvist turning into a brick wall.
That special run continued when they beat the Canadiens in six at a raucous Garden to advance to the first Stanley Cup Final since ’94. Following a gut wrenching loss to the Kings in a closely fought five game series with all three games in LA decided in overtime, they came back and won the President’s Trophy in ’14-15 for home ice throughout the entire playoffs. It looked like the end when the Caps had them down three games to one and leading by a goal with less than two minutes left in Game 5 of the second round. But Chris Kreider had other ideas taking a feed from Stepan and tying it. The building absolutely rocked when Stepan made a drop to McDonagh who beat Braden Holtby to save the season.
After hanging on for dear life against Alexander Ovechkin and Co. to win Game 6, they went to sudden death again in the final game. This time, the hero was Stepan off a face off play when he got to a Girardi rebound and sent the puck into a open side for a unbelievable seven game series win. But in a oddly played Conference Final in which the road team played better, the Rangers were shutout in both home games 5 and 7 in mystifying fashion to lose in crushing fashion to the Lightning, who had old faces Anton Stralman, Ryan Callahan and Brian Boyle. In between, Brassard scored a hat trick and had six points. But the Rangers were outplayed and outcoached at home which didn’t sit well.
From there, the wheels started to come off. The wear and tear from the past 2015 playoffs which saw McDonagh play through a broken foot, Staal, Girardi and Keith Yandle also through injuries, started to show. Neither Girardi nor Staal were the same in a perplexing ’15-16 that saw Vigneault overuse both vets when they needed rest. He didn’t manage them well and both were battered in a first round loss to the Pens.
Lundqvist also suffered as time went on. The confusing defensive system which relied heavily on forwards rotating for D in front backfired. The Rangers went from a hard forechecking team who was hard to play against to a soft vanilla one cut out in Vigneault’s personality. This despite some puzzling lines and usage where at times he would play skilled young talented players like Pavel Buchnevich and Jimmy Vesey with grinders. It made little sense. He also jerked around J.T. Miller, who eventually was mistakenly included with McDonagh in a selloff to Tampa Bay for prospects and draft picks along with disappointing Vladislav Namestnikov.
It didn’t have to be this way. What if the ’16-17 outfit hadn’t blown late leads in regulation and lost in crushing fashion to Ottawa? We’ll never know. Only that the ghost of Jean-Gabriel Pageau ended the run in a very disappointing second round loss to the Senators with Brassard on the winning side.
With the team going only as far as Lundqvist took it with his best play in five years during the first half, they recovered from a poor start to be in playoff position. But it all fell apart in the second half. It made MSG realize that the team wasn’t good enough. So they moved Rick Nash, Michael Grabner, McDonagh, Miller and Nick Holden for first round, second round picks and thirds along with prospects.
With a hands off coach who relied on vets to take control of the locker room, the writing was on the wall. It was painfully obvious Vigneault’s style didn’t fit the future plan. He did a good job with Kevin Hayes turning him into a better player as a match up center. He also found chemistry between Mika Zibanejad and Kreider. So it wasn’t all bad. He used Neal Pionk with Staal on a solid pair. But more often than not, he made baffling decisions that left fans and media confused.
His last defense was a plea that he and his staff should be back. It was desperate and probably was the final straw for Gorton.
Now, it’s time to see what they’ll do next. There will be a new coach for the first time in a while. Since the lockout, the franchise has had stability in Tom Renney, proven vets John Tortorella and Vigneault. Who ever takes over will be a different kind of coach. One who can work with young players and have patience for mistakes and not be so quick to bench them for shifts or shuffle the deck.
It says here Sheldon Keefe would be a good place to start the search. He’s had great success with Sault Ste. Marie of the OHL and is the current Toronto Marlies coach since 2015.
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