MONTREAL — If the adage is an NHL playoff series does not truly begin until a home team loses a game, you can make book that this opening-round matchup between the Rangers and Canadiens will be over almost before it begins if the Blueshirts fail to win one of the first two that will be […]
Read MoreMONTREAL — The first big lineup decision of the postseason was made by Rangers coach Alain Vigneault, as defenseman Kevin Klein is set to be a healthy scratch for Game 1 of the first-round series against the Canadiens at Bell Centre on Wednesday night. Klein had missed almost a full month with a back ailment, […]
Read MoreMONTREAL — The league that promotes its hard cap as the mechanism that enforces unparalleled parity is also the one that has produced the fewest number of champions over the past eight seasons. That’s right, while four franchises have won the Stanley Cup over the past eight years, with Chicago a three-time winner, Pittsburgh and […]
Read MoreFor a month, general manager Garth Snow knew he wanted to hire Doug Weight as the full-time head coach of the Islanders. But Weight, Weight, maybe the man in the organization with the best sense of perspective and patience, waited until he sat down with ownership two days after the playoff-less season before deciding he […]
Read MoreRangers center Kevin Hayes is used to playing in front of A-listers at the Garden, but seeing them outside the arena is another story. In a personal essay published Wednesday by The Players’ Tribune, the 24-year-old Boston native recalls being starstruck by a famously devoted Philly sports fan. “I brought him [Keith Yandle] to one of my […]
Read MoreIt’s apparent day after day and year after year that the Islanders operate in their own bubble, and the surrounding world of the NHL has little impact on how they operate. Sometimes, that’s a positive. Often, it’s not. It’s an outlook and an attitude they created out of the idea that they get no respect. […]
Read MoreMONTREAL — When Antti Raanta talks about “getting into the game” come playoff time, he is talking about the mental part of it rather than the literal meaning that would be attached to the sentiment. Even if, literally, that is exactly what happened to Raanta not once and not twice, but three times in the […]
Read MoreMONTREAL — It was the first thing out of Tanner Glass’ mouth after the game, and it might have summed up the night. “Expect the unexpected,” the Rangers’ hard-line winger said after he scored what would be the game-winning goal in his team’s 2-0 victory over the Canadiens in Game 1 of this best-of-seven first-round […]
Read MoreMONTREAL — This was just before the Rangers and Henrik Lundqvist took the ice for Game 1 of their first-round series against the Canadiens, which is to suggest the franchise goaltender was not watching the French-language telecast of the match. So Lundqvist would not have been watching the broadcast focusing on his plebeian regular-season 2.74 […]
Read MoreMONTREAL — Expect to hear some rumblings out of the Canadiens corner soon concerning what could have been a dangerous knee-on-knee collision initiated by Rangers winger Mats Zuccarello on Montreal forward Brendan Gallagher. With 7:40 to play in the second period of the Rangers’ 2-0 Game 1 victory over the Canadiens on Wednesday night at […]
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