Being fans of Boston sports teams means that one usually has nothing but antipathy and a certain hatred for New York teams. As a Patriots fan, I have a long standing hatred of the New York Jets which isn’t really fair because they hate themselves. Jets fans are pretty terrible as football fans go being very entitled for that one Super Bowl win before they were born. Again, it’s almost unfair to hate them since they hate themselves because they’re Jets fans. You see how it is.
The New York Rangers are in a similar situation as the Jets in that haven’t won a championship in a long time (1994) and it seemed like they were in a good position this past year. Of course, they benefited from the draft lottery last year by obtaining the first overall pick, which turned out to be Alexis Lafreniere. GM Jeff Gorton and President John Davidson had been working on building a skills-first team picking up Lafreniere, Kappo Kakko, and K’Andre Miller is recent drafts. While it took a while for the team to win during this unusual season, they picked up momentum late and almost overcame the slumping Bruins before the trade deadline. During that same deadline timeframe, they dealt away the one tough guy they had, Brendan Lemieux, son of Claude, to the Kings. Was that a mistake or just making room for more talent?
By now, you’ve heard about the melee that occurred Monday night between the Rags and the Caps, that involving Tom Wilson retaliating for a hit on his captain by cross checking Pavel Buchnevich as he was falling in a netfront scrum and punching his head while it was on the ice. Later Wilson would ragdoll Artemi Panarin, ending his season a few games shy of May 8th. Wilson got 3 penalties including a Game Misconduct and an additional $5K fine from the NHL DoPS. There was all sorts of fallout, glee from Wilson apologists and eventually a statement from the New York Rangers expressing no confidence in NHL DoPS head, George Parros.
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) May 4, 2021
An aside: I think Parros needs to go. Word came out this week that the only reason why he allowed the suspension of Wilson for the Brandon Carlo boarding incident was because Gary Bettman stepped in because the optics were bad. also, I fucking hate Tom Wilson.
george parros: “i will enforce player safety❤️”
also george parros: pic.twitter.com/fmeKDqbXNr
— ʅʕ•ᴥ•ʔʃ (@avatarrant) May 4, 2021
Then yesterday, a bombshell dropped: NYR fired both President John Davidson and GM Jeff Gorton and promoted former Ranger player and current highly-sought executive Chris Drury to both positions. Drury was an associate GM under Gorton and will perform his duties under the guidance of senior advisor Glen Sather and possibly Mark Messier.
This New York Rangers season has been bonkers.
-Tony DeAngelo kicked off team
-Artemi Panarin leave of absence
-statement calling player safety head George Parros "unfit" for job
-And now, this… all while the young team was making strides.https://t.co/RwvXsV8a7M— Emily Kaplan (@emilymkaplan) May 5, 2021
There were all sorts of rumors about the dual firings ranging from their not backing the statement put out by the team to Drury being courted by other teams.
Wonder if Drury had an offer elsewhere. There is a team about 100 miles south of NY that underachieved a lot worse than the Rangers
— steve conroy (@conroyherald) May 5, 2021
What it seems to be though is a performance issue; back in 2018 when the Rangers penned a letter to the blueshirt faithful promising a rebuild and even luring Davidson back from Columbus in 2019, ownership expected the team to be a playoff contender not falling just short.
Last night, the Rags and Caps faced off in their final game of the season. It started off just as well as you would expect.
Line brawl to start tonight's game between the Rangers and Capitals at MSG pic.twitter.com/52pvvVZHwx
— Brady Trettenero (@BradyTrett) May 5, 2021
100 penalty minutes combined were assessed between the Rangers and the Capitals in the 1st period alone. pic.twitter.com/zqLWZlyYMo
— ESPN (@espn) May 6, 2021
And somehow, Pavel Buchnevich will likely end up with a heftier penalty than Wilson did after a cross-check.
Pavel Buchnevich gets a major for cross-checking Anthony Mantha and a game misconduct #NYR pic.twitter.com/yfTIkhLZNq
— Shayna (@hayyyshayyy) May 6, 2021
George Parros: pic.twitter.com/qmvga8pFCX
— Drew (@_DrewWheeler) May 5, 2021
Perhaps the funniest part of the night was Chara getting tossed for having words with Brendan Smith. I miss these two.
Zdeno Chara has some choice words for Brendan Smith and gets thrown out of the game pic.twitter.com/izQrij2uBf
— Rob Taub (@RTaub_) May 6, 2021
Never forget.
Morning all. What’s the joke again? “I went to a boxing match and hockey game broke out.”?
Had some good laughs last night and some sunshine on my morning walk. Definitely helped the mood!
You gatta know that the Rags locker room looked like this last night
I saw the lowlights from last night’s Caps/Rags game.Yeeesh. The Caps were running around, and the Rags were looking for blood, but the Rags don’t have the beef.
Brendan Smith went after Wilson on the opening draw, but Wilson is tougher than Smith. It looks like Nic Dowd, then Hathaway started the line brawl, not one of the Rangers.
Then 4 minutes later there were 2 more fights off of faceoffs (the clock didn’t even move between the fights) with the Caps getting the upper hand.
I don’t much like the Rangers, but seeing the Caps push them around like that, and knowing that the Caps had Chara waiting in the wings – in case the Rags somehow got a leg up – really bugs me. And so many people want to celebrate TJ Oshie getting a hat trick after losing his dad. Fuck that. Would Oshie even have been able to do that had the Rangers not just had their best player’s season ended by Wilson driving him into the ice?
What happens in the playoffs if Wilson pulls that crap on Crosby or Pasta or Barzal? Does DoPS give Wilson the Kadri suspension or just a fine or 1 game?
Yeah, but to be fair, crosschecking a guy in the face is some next-level, Eddie Shore type shit right there.
Multiple sources have told ESPN that the statement was commissioned by Rangers owner James Dolan.
Morning all,
Wow. I did hear there was a kerfuffle about Tom Wilson having done something dickish, but it didn’t come as much of a surprise. Looks like it’s a good thing Rags and Caps won’t be meeting in the playoffs.
Good morning!!
Wow! I think the Rags had a legit beef over Wilson not getting suspended. Didn’t Parros go to Princeton? Maybe he did too much Marques De Queensbury back in his playing days. He’s certainly the wrong guy for player safety. There should be a Lady Byng trophy winner in that office!
Back in CT for a day. Gotta mow, etc.
The Wilson antics reminded me of when Shawn Thornton got 10+ games for yanking Brooks Orpik down to the ice and punching his lights out. Thornton was originally given 20 games, and he was a guy with very few discipline issues!