Rangers vs. Sabres: Time to Stop Pretending
If you had any playoff hopes and dreams for the Rangers as the NHL resumes from the 4 Nations Face-Off break, this game should have completely dispelled them.
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- It probably wasn't necessary in order to appreciate it, but seeing the Rangers get absolutely wrecked in their first game back really made me appreciate the 4 Nations Face-Off break, because we saw some really exciting and competitive hockey. We also saw no New York Rangers hockey during that time, which was probably an even bigger blessing.
- Joe and I have talked about it twice on the podcast now, and I'm sure we'll say a few words about the championship game in which Team Canada prevailed in overtime on the next episode, but a few quick thoughts on the 4 Nations before we move on to this abomination of a Rangers game:
- The 4 Nations was a bigger success that I could have imagined. It was a bigger success than Joe could have imagined, mostly because he didn't even try to imagine it, and ate his appropriate serving of crow in the last pod ep. We'd both, in our minds, lumped in the World Juniors to the general concept of international hockey and didn't really appreciate that we hadn't seen best-on-best in more than a decade.
- The numbers speak for themselves: 9+ million viewers in the United States, and more than 16 million when you include Canada, for the championships game. It was the most-watched non-Olympic hockey game on record, and the highest US domestic viewership for an NHL-related hockey game in a decade. And the players played like it mattered. Any notions that the players would treat this like an extended All-Star Game exhibition were quickly dispelled. I think we, as fans, serially underrate how much these players care about international hockey. For one, if you're an NHLer, you've likely been raised in it. You've likely played in the World Juniors, at a minimum. These players care about representing their country. The name on the front is a hell of a lot more important than the one on the back. The Olympics next year should be incredible. I already can't wait. USA revenge tour beings now.
- At the same time, none of the Rangers players who participated in the 4 Nations had a particularly good go of it. I might get into this more (again) later but, no, Adam Fox did not have a particularly good tournament. But also, no, you shouldn't extrapolate too much from that at all. J.T. Miller's most memorable moment was being the third fight nine seconds into the first USA-Canada game, where the best punch he landed was on himself. Chris Kreider scored USA's lone goal in their loss to Sweden, and then didn't play much in the championship game. Vincent Trocheck supposedly broke his finger in one of the games, and wasn't particularly effective after that, though he wasn't particularly effective before it, either. Urho Vaakanainen played fine for a Finnish team that didn't really have much of a chance. And Mika Zibanejad wasn't very good for Sweden. I know, you're shocked.
- If the NHL is going to do this tournament or a version of it again—we'll have the Olympics next year and the World Cup of Hockey is set to return in 2028, so not sure when/if we see another 4 Nations, or if this is a one-off—there needs to be some rule changes, and one in particular. The idea that reserve players couldn't practice with their teams unless another player was declared out with an injury was ludicrous. The idea that they had so few reserve players was also pretty silly. USA played most of the championship game with 10 forwards, as Matthew Tkachuk dressed but was unable to contribute much, and Chris Kreider (who I'm still convinced has nagging injury issues), who was in the lineup for an ill Kyle Connor, didn't play much. That has to be addressed.
- Alright, enough delaying. So, that Rangers game was hot garbage, wasn't it?
- That is now the league-leading 10th time the Rangers have surrendered a goal in the opening two minutes of a hockey game this season. They are just serially unprepared for the start of games. The players take some blame there but, for me, that's on the coaching staff. They have to get these guys ready to go. And while we got the typical boilerplate hockey-speak from the coaching staff about the Team USA guys being ready to go, maybe they weren't, actually? It sure didn't look like they were.
- At the time Buffalo made it 5-0, the Sabres had more goals than the Rangers had shots on goal. Not great, Bob!