OK, pre-season. But it kinda counts!

It’s too early to anything substantial but it’s very good feeling to have hockey back on. Plus, it was a fantastic off season so that’s exciting. The Rangers have without a doubt a better team now, it’s just a matter of coach Quinn finding the lines and that team chemistry forming. A big question is how goal tending is going to be and that’s a make it or break it issue for getting to the playoffs. Time will tell.

After this first game, the team looks fast and the power play lines are without a doubt better. Just seeing one game, it boosts the confidence level of the offensive line but the defensive line has been a problem for years. That half is still unclear.

The other takeaway is that the Devils are also way better than last year. The rival games are going to be nuts. The Metro division just got even better.

The 2018-2019 Saint Louis Blues made NHL history last night. The franchise’s first Stanley Cup and ridiculous turn around season from January to now. This was a team at the bottom of the standings, a new coach brought in, and a rookie goalie that no one gave a chance before, got called up because of this interim coach (who as of right now, is still the interim coach).

They fought through every round and this Final 7 games with Boston was a tough rink to cross. Binnington got lit up in two of those Boston games and he bounced back to have lock down performances in the following game. He basically won Game 7 for the Blues, fending off an absolute onslaught from the Bruins that the rest of the team couldn’t contain. He went 32-33 saves last night, giving his team the chance to strike when they managed to (only 19 shots on goal for the Blues).

Great series, great story. Congratulations to the Saint Louis Blues.

So the season is over and it’s the middle of June! So what now? The NHL Draft is next week and the shape of the 2019-2020 begins.

Another wild round is in the books. Dallas got beat by St. Louis so that leaves only San Jose still playing who I thought could make it this far. I didn’t think Carolina would do anything and they booted the Islanders off the ice in 4 games!

The only team I don’t want to win now is Boston. They have enough Cups, for now. They’re one of the most prolific winners in the NHL to date. It’s easy to hate them for that and it’s Boston so the yucks keep stacking up. While they are the favorite, they can’t relax with Carolina. They keep proving they aren’t a fluke, they have the talent on the entire team to win the Cup.

I’m pulling more for San Jose over St. Louis as they have a few guys who are close to the end of their career now. SJ has been a contender for many years now and it feels like it’s now or…a very long wait until they can get a team this strong again. St. Louis has never won the Cup either, so the West side of the bracket is a great story no matter who makes it to the Championship.

Round 1 was shocking. The heads of kings were lopped off like someone screamed Viva La Revolucion! and everyone took it seriously.

Tampa Bay, the best team in the league by a shocking amount in the regular season got beheaded in 4 games by Columbus. Calgary didn’t fare much better, 4-1 against Colorado. Washington, the defending champions, lost in 7 to Carolina. Nashville struggled against Dallas. All the Canadian teams were eliminated and Vegas collapsed in a Game 7 against San Jose, which will go down in the record books.

Controversy galore as a 5-minute major was called on Vegas (it was a minor 2-minute cross-checking call that the refs panicked on with blood on the ice from a head impact) )with 10 minutes remaining in the 3rd. Up 3-0, Vegas let 4 goals in 5 minutes happen. Vegas can be up in arms all they want but the fact is they blew it. They were up 3-1 in the series and SJ rallies back 2 in a row to tie it. Then after turning into swiss cheese for 5 minutes, they managed to tie it 4-4 to force overtime. They had all the time in the world to finish off the Sharks and they didn’t. End of story, end of season.

All the wildcards beat the top seeds, that’s insane.

All the favorites are out except for Boston. They’re the only team left with serious playoff experience and with so many Cup wins, they are the team I really want stopped. So, I’m left with wanting Dallas to win because Zucc is with them. Islanders are gross and major Ranger rivals so I don’t want them to go far but for the area to win would be pretty great.

I doubt any of these series will be short.

Here it is! It’s a stacked list. Eastern Conference has a few mainstays (Pitt, Toronto, Boston, Caps, Tampa). The Hurricane’s have a mountain in front of them with the Caps, the NYI Pitt serious could go either way and everyone thinks Tampa will cruise by Columbus,

Three Canadian teams this go around, Calgary has had a fantastic year (50 wins I think) and Winnipeg is no slouch either. Second season for Vegas, second season in the Playoffs which is amazing. They are playing SJS again and I’m sure SJ will be out for blood for last year’s elimenation.

I’m backing Tampa. A bunch of ex-Rangers (Ryan Callahan, JT Miller, Dan Girardi, Ryan McDonagh) and the most important: if they win the Cup the Rangers get a first round draft pick (part of the last year’s trade deal for Miller and McDonagh).

If Dallas goes far, the Rangers get another high draft pick (and Zuccarello has to play in every game now, I think the stipulation in his trade is still valid) but I’m not sure if anyone is confident in their chances. Nashville is again no joke this season.

Look, this season was lost months ago. The Rangers have two games left to play and it’s been more or less a slow motion car wreck since February. Lundqvist has been on the 449 win bubble for weeks and every time he has been in net, the Rangers can’t pull it together to win. They lost to Ottowa last night 4-1 and they are literally the worst team in the league. His 14th season is his worst NHL season by far. It’s rough to watch the team collapse around him time after time, it’s really disheartening.

With Lundqvist spinning in circles, Georgiev has been given more starts. He’s put on some all star showings and has shown real growth (I think his latest run is 7-4-3 wheres Hank’s is 3-10-3 or so) which is good to see.

Ranger fans have been looking to next season for a while now and a lot of work needs to be done. Hank simply can’t play 60+ anymore. I think he needs to find himself again, he’s been off kilter for awhile not able to shake off losses.

The playoffs should be fantastic, the first round will knock off the bottom 2 weakest teams quickly (one wild card spot is up for grabs in the west and 2 are being fought for by like 5 teams in the east) but after that, it’s all killers. The competition level should be off the charts and the results matter for the Rangers as it’s possible they get 2 very high draft picks out of it.

The trade deadline has past and we are in the throws of the second phase of the rebuild.

There were a couple of minor league trade shuffles leading up to this weekend and as expected the big moves have been made. Mats Zuccarello has gone to Dallas for two early draft picks. Kevin Hayes has gone to Winnipeg for a draft pick (4th round in 2022(!) with some a condition Winni wins the Cup this year) and forward Brendan Lemieux (22 years old, some ok stats). Adam McQuaid has been sent to Columbus for 4th and 7th round draft picks.

So the obvious take from this: management is looking ahead 2-3 seasons for things to come together. For some reason, they didn’t think Hayes and Zucc are part of that team which has to be mostly cap space (all three players contracts were ending this season). They both wanted long term contracts and were told no and they would have gotten big raises, Hayes especially. Odds of them coming back to the team just got much smaller. Zucc is 32 I think so I assume they think the clock is ticking on him. Hayes is 26 and is probably about to hit his prime so not keeping him seems crazy. I don’t think McQuaid got a fair shake this season since trading for him in September. Wasted opportunity, Lord knows we need some muscle out there and he’s at least got that going for him (he’s 31 so I guess management doesn’t believe in him either…he’s just under $3 million at the moment).

The other take away is, if you are over 30 and not an absolute all-star of epic proportions, you aren’t going to get resigned. Management is building a young team that they expect to mature in 3 seasons or so. They’ll work with these rookies to see who takes off and when they have a homegrown stable set, a stupid amount of money will be dropped (the caps space is being built for this now) on other franchise players to fill in the gaps.

Hank has 2 more seasons left. He’ll be 38 and a salary of just over $8 million. They have a kid named Igor (iirc) who is more of a brick wall than a human being in the KHL (iirc) so they see him as the golden goalie. This kids stats are currently unreal and if he makes a successful transition to the NHL, it’ll be the second coming of the 2014 Rangers. Alexander Georgiev is I think the stop-gap solution for the next few years, he’ll play a lot more to make up for Hank starting to fade (it’s noticeable, he’s not reacting as fast). And who knows, Georgiev could be a monster soon too which gives the team a lot of options.

That’s years away. I’m now convinced that Hank’s exit between the posts will be the signal of when these bold trade moves are expected to pay off. They are preparing for the next NY Ranger generation to start the moment the Henrik Lundkvist era ends.

This is a major player loss for the New York Rangers. Part of the team since 2010, Mats has been a force on and off the ice. He’s one of the most loved players in team history and it’s sad to see him move on. This article says it all best.

https://foreverblueshirts.com/rangers-reactions-goodbye-mats-zuccarello/

We are at the All Star Break so that means the 2018-2019 season is half way over (technically, 7 games ago as 48 have been played…some teams are at 52). Let’s look at the standings and get to the New York Rangers. This is the Top 16*

*Carolina is tied with Buffalo, at 54 points, they are just outside of the Wildcard for the East. Not shown is Dallas and Colorado who are tied at 52 points, they are currently the wild cards for the west. Vancouver also has 52 but has more games played than

Now here is just the east division.

So let’s state the obvious, the Rangers are bad. There’s no more holding out hope. They are much better than they’re record shows. the potential is there but they struggle to play as a team. See those top teams? They play as a team (Tampa Bay’s record is obscene). If the Rangers consistently played as a team. they’d be around 56 points right now.

I don’t know what it is. New coach, rookie players who have a long way to go, vets who have bad habits from years of ineffective coaching and managment? Everything that has plagued this team since 2014-15, bad passing, face-offs, special teams, penalty killing, sloppy defense, stupid penalties and plays that turn into turnovers, are all still there. We don’t have consistent goal scorers, the droughts come in huge waves and the brain dead penalties just make everything more difficult. It makes everyone on the ice have to work harder and ruins any kind of positive momentum.

This is a rebuilding year. One of many, everyone knows that. It would have been a miracle to have made a championship team in one trade session and off-season. What we have is a team that is still missing pieces and most likely some drastic trades are coming by the deadline in February. Hayes and Zuccarello are on the top of the list and if some huge deal is dangled in front of management, Kreider with out a doubt in that group. All three of them are fan favorites and would be a huge morale loss (and we do need vets to lead the team). Plus, I think it would be crazy to do another full fire sale. There’s no point in trading already great players with the hope of hitting it big in the draft. That is a huge gamble.

When the team plays together, they are a ton of fun to watch. I’m saying this on the runners high of 3 wins in a row but any kind of win streak is rare. Zucc has had a really off season and it hasn’t been until the last 2 weeks where the professional has shown up. He’s way more active, way more aggressive and that leads to plays coming together.

Even if the Rangers have a better second half of a season, I don’t think they’re a playoff team. Getting into a wildcard spot would mean going up against Tampa Bay or Washington and that would be a slaughter. It’s not worth it.

Looking around, Vegas and Pittsburg had terrible starts and turned around their season, something we hoped the Rangers would do. The Islanders have hit their stride with their new coach (it’s insane Washington didn’t want to pay him what he wanted and deserves), they are a major threat. And look at Buffalo! They have been terrible forever and this season is a total turn around. They came out on fire, cooled off, get good results but the East division is so monsterous in talent that they are on the edge of the playoffs. Considering how many goals they score it’s surprising they aren’t in right now.

Still a lot to go but the front runners are very clear (look at Calgary and Toronto! It’s been a long time since Canadian teams have done so well). Who ends up in the wildcard slots should be interesting. The closer the trade line comes up the bigger moves we’ll see league wide.