Caps-Rangers preview

And so they meet again.

For the third year in a row and the fourth time in five seasons, the Washington Capitals will meet the New York Rangers in the playoffs. Every year these teams take very different routes to the playoffs and this year was no different.

Every Caps’ fan knows the roller coaster season the Caps have had. After starting the season 2-8-1, the Caps went on a tear. They looked like a lottery team and finished as one of the hottest teams in the league. Much of their success coincided with the resurgence of Alex Ovechkin, who wrapped up his third career Rocket Richard Trophy for most goals in the league. Despite the rocky start, the Caps rebounded to win the last ever Southeast Division Championship, their fifth in six years and seventh in team history.

The Caps head into the postseason having won 11 of their past 13, but really have been riding a hot streak for half the season now. That kind of streak and confidence can go a long way in the postseason, as the defending champion LA Kings can attest to.

Similarly, the Rangers are riding their own streak having gone 10-3-1 in the month of April which was sorely needed as the Rangers have been underachieving all season long. Will their new found confidence be enough to lead them past the Caps?

Offensive Key: Which offense will stay hot?

New York lost in the Eastern Conference Finals last season to New Jersey. With the addition of star winger Rick Nash in the off season the Rangers looked poised to challenge for the Stanley Cup, but were unable to gain the type of offensive veracity most people envisioned. They finished the season with 2.6 goals per game, good for 15^th in the NHL. John Tortorella, the angry grandfather of NHL coaches, might not be the right coach for the roster this team has assembled.

The Ranger's recent run, however, came after a deadline trade with Columbus that sent Marion Gaborik to Columbus and brought in Derik Brassard, among others. The result thus far has been the type of offensive productions the Rangers have sought all year. Is this is a sign of improvement or simply a recent hot-streak that will cool down in the postseason?

It is well known how good the Caps are offensively, the question is whether the Rangers will be able to keep up.

Defensive Key: Can the Caps control their defensive zone?

The Rangers may have struggled to score but with their offensive talent they can put together a potent attack at any time.

Defensively, the Caps have really struggled to control their own crease. Tortorella’s teams always like to agitate and I expect on every offensive shift, someone will plant himself in front of Braden Holtby and dare the defense to kick him out.

The Caps also are terrible at covering the cross-ice pass. The defense can at times get sucked into a play and lose track of an opposing winger, leaving them open for an easy strike.

Controlling the crease will be a major key for the Caps. With the Rangers’ recent offensive surge, however, the Caps also cannot afford to lose track of New York’s dangerous scorers.

Goalie key: How many games can Lundqvist steal?

The Rangers managed to climb into the playoffs thanks to star goaltender Henrik Lundqvist. In the recent history between the Caps and Rangers, many players have come and gone. Lundqvist, however, has been there for all three of the recent series and he has been a rock each time. He will be critical in this series.

The Caps have the fourth best offense in the league and the top ranked power play. The Caps have been able at times to score on Lundqvist, but he is more than capable of stealing a game or two for the Rangers in this series and he will have to for the Rangers to have any chance.

Opposite him, will be Braden Holtby who established himself last year when he was thrust into the spotlight thanks to injuries to both Tomas Vokoun and Michal Neuvirth. Holtby unexpectedly found himself as the starting goalie in the playoffs and he was fantastic. The Caps will not rely on Holtby as much as the Rangers will rely on Lundqvist, but he will still need to be strong in this series if the Caps hope to win.

Special teams key: Can the Rangers stay disciplined?

The Caps have the best power play in the league. The Rangers have the 15^th penalty kill. They are extremely aggressive, but to a fault. There are times when all four penalty killers will swarm to the puck, leaving someone alone and open in front of the net. The Rangers know they cannot do that against Ovechkin and the Caps because they will be shredded. If Ovechkin finds himself alone and by himself, it will not matter who’s in net.

Still, unless you see drastic improvement from the Rangers, the power play will be an obvious strength for the Caps.

As I said before, Tortorella coached teams love to agitate their opponents. They will play very physically against the Caps, but they must stay disciplined. The Rangers cannot afford to give the Caps too many chances on the power play or the Caps will make them pay.

Prediction:

Offense will decide this series. The Rangers need to score like the team everyone thought they would be all season long and the Caps need to score like the team we’ve seen in the second half of the season. More specifically, Ovechkin needs to score like the player we’ve seen in the second half.

Ovechkin leads the team (and the league) with 32 goals. Troy Brouwer is second on the team with 19 and Mike Ribeiro is third with 13. For you math whizzes out there, that means Ovechkin has more goals than both Brouwer and Ribeiro combined. You can say the Caps need to get secondary scoring, but who are we kidding? Ovechkin got them here; the postseason is not the time to suddenly depend on secondary scoring.

The Caps will win this series if Ovechkin can score five goals. That’s a tall task for a playoff series and against a goalie like Lundqvist, but the Caps will need that kind of production from him to survive.

The hotter Ovechkin remains, the better the Caps will fare against their familiar foes.

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Do We Still Need All-Star Games?

Somewhere around Ne-Yo's 15th terrible song to open the NBA All-Star game, my suspicions were confirmed: we do not need all-star games anymore.

The entire NBA All-Star weekend was full of elaborate attempts to distract the viewer’s attention away from the mediocre basketball being played. None of the real stars participated in what has become the marquee event, the dunk contest. Rather than seeing Kevin Durant take on LeBron James, the fans were treated to a final matchup of Jeremy Evans and Terrence Ross. Who?

The game itself was played with an effort that would have disgusted players from the 2011 Pro Bowl. Half the players walked aimlessly around the court as the gameplay devolved into one-on-one matchups with players pretending to play defense. As soon as the other player moved to drive it in, though, the defender would pull off and casually watch his opponent take it in for the dunk. I imagine dunking is pretty easy for a professional basketball player when no one is even attempting to defend.

The entire game was meaningless and boring. After the first five dunks, they all began to look the same. The game became tiresome before the first quarter even ended. Would anyone truly care if the NBA just got rid of this pointless weekend?

The lackluster all-star showing is not specific to the NBA; the all-star games of all the major sports are just as embarrassing. Part of the problem is that there just is no good time for an all-star game to be played. In basketball, baseball, and hockey the regular season comes to a screeching halt somewhere near the halfway point for these games. The break is nice for the players, but not great for the fans.  As the playoff chase is heating up, the season stops.  Rather than watching meaningful games, fans now have to watch these lackluster exhibition games.

The problem is even worse in football. Football is too physical and taxing a sport to have an exhibition game smack dab in the middle of the season. Having it after the season, however, is incredibly anti-climactic, prompting the NFL to move the game to the week before the Super Bowl. Now, the Pro Bowl excludes all players from the two best teams in the league. The NFL is left with a choice of playing a game when no one cares or excluding some of the best, most deserving players.

Not only are these games inconvenient, the effort level makes them difficult to watch. Players do not want to play at 100% and risk injury with nothing to play for. Baseball tried to fix this problem by awarding the winning team home-field advantage in the World Series and thus make the game ‘meaningful’, but I have seen no difference in the level of play.

Before leagues begin scrambling for ways to compel their players to give more effort, they should stop and think about the consequences. Owners and players are constantly at odds over playing in international tournaments such as the Olympics because of the risk of injury. Isn’t it counterintuitive to then force players to compete in a mid-season exhibition game? How can the NHL refuse to allow its players to go to the Sochi Olympics and then demand 100% effort in an all-star game? True, the all-star game is only one game as opposed to an entire tournament, but it seems unfair to force competition in something the players seeming do not care about while denying them the chance to compete in something that matters to them.

Ultimately, leagues cannot expect fans to care in a game played at half-speed. Name an all-star team so the players are still honored, but remove the games. Not only are they terrible to watch, but the ridiculous spectacle surrounding these games have become embarrassing. Somewhere between Ne-Yo’s excruciating performance and Kevin Hart’s tiresome antics, I was done. The NBA should save itself the trouble and give us the games we actually want to see.

NHL Cancels Winter Classic, Regular Season Probably Not Far Behind

The NHL announced on Friday the cancellation of the Winter Classic.  As the Classic goes, so goes the season.  Go ahead and make other plans, get your ticket refunds, trade in your Caps merchandise for Wizards, because there is not going to be a hockey season.

This may seem like an overreaction, but I’ve said all along that if the Classic were to be cancelled, the season would not be far behind.

The NHL has lost its biggest event of the season.  According to ESPN, the Classic had 3.5 million viewers last year.  Every game of the Stanley Cup finals averaged about 3 million viewers.  The Classis is the signature event, the one day every year when hockey is relevant.  And now, it’s gone.

Yes, it is only the beginning of November.  There is plenty of time to save the season, but it does not matter. Even if the NHL and NHLPA came to an agreement tomorrow, the Classic could not be brought back.  Deputy commissioner Bill Daly told reporters as much.

Rumors of the cancellation had been circulating for over a week.  The reason why the NHL waited until Friday was because when the announcement was made, it was final.  The event takes months of planning and preparing.  An outdoor rink does not just appear over night and an event of this magnitude take time to pull off.

With the Classic gone, both sides will struggle to come to an equitable deal.  The players have lost all of their leverage.  The only thing they really had to threaten the owners with was the Classic.

The lockout began with each side feeling out the other.  How long would the league be willing to let this drag out?  Perhaps if the players could hold out until they could threaten the league’s cash cow, the owners would be willing to offer a better deal.  Now  the NHL has lost its biggest, most profitable, most important event of the year.  The players have overplayed their hand, and the league is going to make them pay for it.

Two weeks ago, the NHL offered the players a 50/50 deal.  The NHLPA responded with three counter proposals that gave them more than what the NHL was offering and the NHL quickly rejected those proposals.  Why would the NHL now give the players a better deal?  The owners would never have locked the players out if the regular season were that important to them.  They will risk this season to get the upper hand in the negotiations.

The owners have come to a point where they can force a better deal for themselves on the players.  Before, the goal for the NHL was to come to an equitable agreement in order to save the Classic and the regular season.  Now, the goal is to get the best deal they can possibly force from the players.

Think about it this way, in a hostage negotiation, what happens when there are no more hostages to exchange?  That’s when the SWAT team goes in.  The players have nothing left to negotiate with.

The NHLPA turned their noses at the NHL’s proposal two weeks ago.  They will not simply cave in now, but they also cannot hold out as long as the owners can.  The longer this drags out, the more desperate they will become.  When this is over, the players will look back at the NHL’s last proposal and wish they had accepted it because the offers are only going to get worse from here on out.

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NHL Cancels More Games, Season Suddenly in Jeopardy

As the NHL locked its doors for the second time in eight years, the feeling among most experts was not whether we would have hockey, but when.  This might be the fourth work stoppage in 20 years, but with the lost 2004-05 season still fresh in everyone’s minds, both sides knew they had to come to a quick agreement for the good of the game.  Right?

 

Apparently not.  The NHL announced today that it has cancelled all regular season games through November 30^th.  There is also some speculation that the Winter Classic could be cancelled as early as Monday.  For the first time during the lockout, the season seems to be in real jeopardy.

 

From the beginning, this lockout seemed to be a gross miscalculation by the NHL.  Granted, players rarely “win” in these scenarios, but the NHLPA had more leverage than commissioner Gary Bettman initially acknowledged.

 

The players received escrow payments in October worth 8% of last season’s salary.  Many lockouts end quickly as the sting of the first missed paycheck begins to sink in for the players.  That was not going to happen this year.  Also, unlike in 2004, the NHL now has the Winter Classic to protect.  If the players could hold out until November, then they could use the Winter Classic as a major bargaining chip against the league.

 

Last week, the NHL offered a new proposal to the NHLPA which they posted in full on their website.  It offered the players a 50/50 revenue split and a chance for a full 82 game season.  The NHLPA responded with three counter proposals that the league immediately rejected.

 

While the NHL could have considered the proposals more thoroughly, the players used some pretty creative math that really did not come close to what the owners were asking.  Now the NHLPA has miscalculated.  They may have approached last week’s talks with an eye still on the Winter Classic, but the offer was about as good as it was going to get.  That’s not to say the players could not have negotiated further, but to offer three proposals that were way off the mark cost them an 82-game season.

 

If the league does cancel the Winter Classic as it is threatening, it is not as if the players could come back and accept the previous offer.  It is off the table.  Once the Winter Classic is cancelled, the players lose all of their leverage.  The owners will have no incentive to save the season and the players will end up with a much worse deal than the one the owners offered last week.

 

Of course, the Winter Classic has not yet been cancelled and all the speculation around its cancellation is just that, speculation.  The NHL could be spreading the rumor in an attempt to bring the players back to the table, but the players cannot afford to call their bluff.  There is still time for a deal to get done to save the season.  Now that negotiations have broken down and both sides engage in finger pointing, the outlook suddenly looks very bleak.

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NHL Locks Out Players for Second Time in Eight Years

At midnight Sunday morning, the former NHL CBA expired and at 12:01 the players were officially locked out.  The NHL and the NHLPA were unable to reach an agreement on a new CBA and are now locked in an all too familiar labor dispute.  The last lockout happened in 2004 and resulted in the loss of the entire 2004-05 season.  Are we headed for another year without hockey?

While there are several issues that separate the two sides, the main dispute is over money (what else?).  Under the last agreement the player’s received 57% of generated revenue.  After watching the NFL and NBA lower the player revenue in their disputes last year, the NHL owners now look to lower this number considerably.  Most of the league’s offers made to the NHLPA would reduce the player’s share to about 47%.  While it may not be unreasonable for the owners to expect the players to receive a percentage comparable to other leagues, the players see a dangerous precedent being set by Commissioner Gary Bettman.

This is now the second lockout in eight years and the third in 18, all under Bettman.  Eight years ago, the NHL demanded a salary cap be a part of the new CBA.  The players refused, but both the league and the owners felt so strongly a salary cap was needed, they were willing to lock the players out for a full season.  The players eventually caved and gave up major concessions including a salary cap.  Just eight years later, the players find themselves locked out again.  This time, however, they have the memory of the concessions made on the last CBA.  Why did they give up so much if only to be locked out again during the very next negotiation?  Katie Strang of ESPN reports that the resolve of the NHLPA and the players is much stronger than it was eight years ago, and it’s no surprise; should the players cave again it would tell Bettman that locking the players out will always give him the upper hand.

There’s also a feeling among the players that they are being forced to fix the problems the owners created.  While the league complains about players getting paid too much, teams continue to offer massive contracts.  The biggest free agent splash in the offseason came when Zach Parise and Ryan Suter signed contracts for 13 years with the Minnesota Wild worth $96 million each.  These contracts would have once been shocking, now they seem common place.  If the teams think the players are paid too much or signed for too long, then they should not be offering those kinds of deals.

Hopefully Bettman is aware of the player’s sentiments and does not underestimate their resolve or this could be a lengthy lockout.  In situations such as this, there seems to be “unofficial” deadlines that bring both sides back to the negotiating table at various times during the dispute.  The first such deadline will be towards the end of September when the start of the regular season is put in jeopardy.  Some sort of dialog will begin, be it formal or informal.  If both sides recognize the other is serious, a real negotiation can take place.  If not, then the dispute will stretch into the regular season.

Usually, the first games missed also bring the two sides together when players start to miss their pay checks and owners start to refund ticket sales.  This year, however, the players will receive escrow payments in October equal to 8% of their 2011-2012 salaries.  Players will not be feeling the same pinch they usually feel in the early season and once the calendar hits November, the players can really make the owners sweat.  Why?  Because at that point the lockout will be putting the Winter Classic in jeopardy.  This season’s Classic could perhaps be the biggest and most successful as it features two of the most storied franchises in Detroit and Toronto playing at the Big House in Michigan.  The Winter Classic is one of the largest, most important events of the NHL season; something the league will not want to lose.

If a deal does not get done before the regular season, I do not think either side will get serious until late November/early December.  The players know the owners will be more likely to make a deal in November and with escrow payments and a stronger resolve, the players will not give in.  The question is what happens should the unthinkable happen and the Winter Classic is cancelled.  This is the first labor dispute where the Winter Classic will be an issue.  Just as the players do not want to always cave when locked out, the owners may not want to set a precedent of caving when the Winter Classic is threatened.  If it reaches that point, kiss the season goodbye.  The owners will drag it out to force concessions from the players and it will mean the loss of yet another NHL season.

While both sides try to calculate the resolve of the other, they both may have seriously miscalculated the resolve of the fans.  Let’s face it, hockey is not a popular sport in America.  It is not nearly as popular as the NFL, MLB, or NBA and yet it seemingly faces the most labor disputes.  In 2004, there was a sense among the fans that the lockout would ultimately help the sport and would mean a stronger league and lower ticket prices.  Instead, ticket prices have risen on average 39% since 2005 and the league is locked in its third labor dispute in 18 years.  At some point, you are asking too much.  Don’t expect them to understand why you could not get a satisfactory deal eight years ago and don’t expect them to feel sympathy for the millionaires who get paid to play hockey.

The NHL cannot continue to abuse a beleaguered fan base because at some point, they won’t come back.  Should this lockout last a full season, it will do irreparable damage to the league.  The NHL will not emerge in a stronger financial position, but will lose every casual fan.  Only the most die-hard fans will remain and the NHL will have cemented its position as a secondary sports league.