Musings on Easter Weekend

There's an old saw that asks, "If you were arrested and put on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"

I'm honest enough to admit that the answer would be "No" when it comes to me, but that does not make me an atheist or agnostic. I believe in God not on faith alone but also on evidence (though that's a whole other blog post) and my mind and heart always rev up when Holy Week comes around.

The notion that the universe was created by God (or "a higher power," if you won't say the G word because you're afraid of what the cool people might think) makes intellectual sense and is easy to accept. The story of Jesus as handed down over two millennia? Not so much.

The story of Jesus involves a virgin giving birth to a human baby who is simultaneously human and God, and who later makes a splash around the age of 12 then disappears for 18 years, then reappears as a grown bachelor who preaches radical sermons for three years during which he runs afoul of the Jewish religious establishment and Roman police state, resulting in him being executed atop a hill and his corpse being placed in a cave, only to come back to life three days later and then walk around preaching for another 40 days before rising from the ground and ascending through the clouds to a place he assured everyone was a kingdom.

That does not seem like a tough thing to believe -- it is a tough, perhaps impossible, thing to believe. Yet hundreds of millions believe it all the same, and they are not fools. They are doctors, lawyers, scientists, philosophers, astronauts, and captains of industry, and they know whereof they speak.

Ronald Reagan summed it up best back in 1978, when he was an ex-governor with a radio show who had not yet been elected president. In a letter to a minister who had expressed doubts about the divinity of Jesus, Reagan wrote: A young man whose father is a carpenter grows up working in his father's shop. One day he puts down his tools and walks out of his father's shop. He starts preaching on street corners and in the nearby countryside, walking from place to place, preaching all the while, even though he is not an ordained minister. He never gets farther than an area perhaps 100 miles wide at the most. He does this for three years. Then he is arrested, tried and convicted. There is no court of appeal, so he is executed at age 33 along with two common thieves. Those in charge of his execution roll dice to see who gets his clothing -- the only possessions he has. His family cannot afford a burial place for him so he is interred in a borrowed tomb. End of story? No, this uneducated, property-less young man has, for 2,000 years, had a greater effect on the world than all the rulers, kings, emperors; all the conquerors, generals and admirals, all the scholars, scientists and philosophers who have ever lived -- all of them put together. How do we explain that -- unless He really was what He said He was?

When I was in eighth grade we read Greek mythology in the English Language Arts class taught by Mrs. Ravas, and I noticed how tales of the Trojans and Odysseus and his return to Ithaca were not unlike biblical stories of the Philistines and of Jews returning to Zion from their Babylonian exile. But I also noticed a significant difference, for nobody in 1984-85 was praying to Zeus or testifying that Poseidon rescued them when they got caught in rip currents.

Whereas the Greek gods played dice with people, Jesus, the manifestation of the Hebrew God, sought to deliver them from evil. Belief in Zeus drove people to fear the wrath of his thunderbolts, while belief in the Hebrew God drove them to care for the downtrodden.

Though belief in the Greek gods long ago went extinct, belief in the Hebrew God spread from tiny Judea and went all the way around the world eons before the invention of anything resembling mass media.

In a religious sense, Holy Week, the period from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday, conveys more vivid images and more acute feelings than any other time of year. It, more than any other succint period of time, links the ancient past to the modern present and makes the former not only obviously relevant, but close enough to touch.

In your mind's eye, picture Jesus entering Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. He was a common man riding a donkey, not an aristocrat riding a horse, yet people exulted his arrival and spread palm fronds in front of him. Hence, Palm Sunday.

Flip to a nighttime several days later and envision the same Jesus praying by moonlight in the Garden of Gethsemane, anguished over the death He knows is at hand. Flip immediately forward on that same night, to the moment when Judas betrays Him in exchange for thirty pieces of silver, identifying Him to the Roman soldiers who place Him under arrest.

Skip forward to the following day, when He appears before Pontius Pilate for trial. Suddenly, many of the people who had praised Him when He entered the city are now calling for Him to be executed by crucifixion, one of the most brutal means of death ever devised by the minds of our "civilized" species.

Given a choice between freeing Jesus or freeing the rioter Barabbus, the mob chooses Barabbus. Pilate confirms Jesus's death sentence after symbolically washing his own hands and declaring that Jesus's fate is the will of the people, not of him personally.

Move forward from there, probably just one day forward, and you see the final stages of what has come to be known as The Passion. You see Jesus forced to walk through the city streets while crowds jeer, carrying the heavy cross to which he is soon to be nailed.

He carries that cross to Golgotha, where it gets laid on the ground and He gets tied to it. Then, nails get hammered through his wrists and feet and the cross is erected with him hanging upon it in what would appear the most helpless and pathetic of positions.

Two other crosses, one on each side of His, are also erected, holding common thieves whose names will quickly be forgotten in the mists of time.

Jesus's mother, Mary, is present for the crucifixion and watches in agony. So too does the enigmatic Mary Magdalene.

But it is likely that none of His disciples were present, for of the four gospels, only one (John) mentions the presence of a disciple and it gives no name. The Gospel of Luke says some of them watched from a distance, but it too gives not a single name. Meanwhile, the gospels of Matthew and Mark make no mention whatsoever of disciples even viewing the crucifixion.

Death by crucifixion came slow and torturously, and usually resulted not from bleeding per se, but from suffocation as the lungs and heart stopped working due to the purge of blood.

At 3:00 in the afternoon, Jesus died and an earthquake rent the area around Jerusalem, tearing in half the veil which separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of Solomon's temple. Death by suffocation while bleeding on a cross would seem to be a defeat -- but the Bible describes it as a victory, and the tearing of the veil represents the ultimate message of Jesus's ministry; namely, that every single person may communicate directly with God rather than being separated from Him and being forced to use rabbis as intermediaries. Hence, Good Friday.

The crucifixion was long but took place all on one day, though we don't know if it was a Friday... Then there was a second day, which in our current observation of Holy Week is a Saturday... Then there was a third day, which in our current observation is Easter Sunday. This is of course the day that Jesus was resurrected, when He rose from the dead and exited the tomb borrowed from Joseph of Arimathea, when His divinity was made undeniable to those who were witnesses.

Side note: If you think that dyeing Easter eggs is a modern secularization of the holiday and is meant to separate children from its real meaning, you are incorrect. The giving of eggs to celebrate Easter originated early in the Christian era, in that expanse of land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that was then known as Mesopotamia and where you will now find the nations of Iraq and Kuwait. In those early days the eggs were stained with whatever red coloring was available, in memory of the blood shed by Jesus on the cross.

But back to my main point: Holy Week, with its climax on Easter Sunday, is the most goosebump-rippling week on the calendar.

I am the grandson of a preacher man, and Granddaddy gave marathon sermons at sprint speeds, the kind of which Lyle Lovett apparently has some knowledge. Granddaddy was a white man who grew up in Jim Crow North Carolina, but I think he had a bit of black preacher in him and I always wanted to see him and Sherman Hemsley get down together.

Baptists are thought of as stuffy prudes who oppose premarital sex because it might lead to dancing, but Granddaddy was a Baptist and there was freewheeling singin' and dancin' and pulpit-smashin' in the church whenever he hit his groove -- which, unfortunately for those of us who wanted to eat lunch, was every Sunday starting at 11:00 a.m. with the possibility that it might continue past 1:00 p.m.

Where was I? Oh yeah, right. The Holy Week that climaxes with Easter is the most vivid and palpable of all Christian observances.

Granddaddy did vivid and palpable, but he also knew when to suppress his personality and let somebody else hold the baton, and one of my clearest early church memories is from an Easter sunrise service at which he stepped aside.

I think it was so far back that Jimmy Carter was president and I had yet to reach double digits. The sermon was delivered outdoors by George Walters, who then went by Brother George, and it was delivered with a blast of fervent optimism that I still think about every year when Easter draws near.

I have no idea what Brother George said -- remember, I was in single digits -- but I remember the glint in his eye and certainty in his voice like it was yesterday. I still remember exactly how the early sunlight looked over the oaks in Oldsmar, Florida, and how it shined off the sweat on his forehead and how he smiled as he ministered.

Today I am 47 years old, and struggling internally over whether I know how to raise my daughter who is in puberty and my son who likes to manipulate... yet I still remember the feel of that sunrise sermon like it was yesterday, and I would not remember it if it was not divinely inspired.

Though I don't recall the words of that sermon, I do recall its authenticity and the gut knowledge which powered it, the gut knowledge which communicated that God is real and Easter is His biggest, most artful tap on our shoulders -- the tap which lets us know He is here in the now, not far away in the yesterday.

As this weekend unfurls we should open our hearts, appreciate our loved ones, observe the beauty of the world around us, and let ourselves smile.

We tend to worry about life in this broken world, but we shouldn't, because the worry causes us to ignore our blessings.


Note: This post was originally published last year, and the only change I made this year was to update my age.

Almost in the rearview, Part Three

For the throngs of people who have have been awaiting the third volume of my thoughts about the not-yet-ended 2017-18 NHL regular season, here we go! You can go here for part one and here for part two if you are crazy enough to want to read 'em.

Ageism!

Well, not really, but I still have a pet peeve when it comes to words used by hockey commentators. For the last few years we've been hearing over and over about the NHL's "youth movement," and I have to ask: Is there really a movement afoot? Doesn't that word suggest a deliberate, large-scale, almost systematic shift toward something and away from something else?

In Pittsburgh, the Penguins are on a roll and are one of the favorites to (again) win the Stanley Cup, and their three biggest stars are all 30-plus... Up on the prairie, the Jets are serious Cup contenders and among their major contributors are 31-year-old captain Blake Wheeler and 32-year-old defenseman Dustin Byfuglien, with their big-time trade-deadline acquisition being 32-year-old Paul Stastny... Out West, the Kings are enjoying a surprising resurgence due largely to the play of Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, and Jonathan Quick, who are 30, 33, and 32, respectively. 

Alexander Ovechkin is approaching his 33rd birthday and leads the league in goals. Patrice Bergeron's 33rd birthday is even nearer than Ovechkin's, and he has had such a stellar season that he stands a strong chance of winning his second straight Selke (and third in four years).

Zdeno Chara is 41 and remains the top defenseman on a team that is among the top three or four in the league, and he just signed a contract extension. Matt Cullen is 41 and has churned out 21 points for Minnesota this year. Roberto Luongo is 39 and almost solely responsible for the Florida Panthers being in the playoff race. Pekka Rinne is 35 and turning in a Vezina-caliber campaign.

Meanwhile, Patrick Marleau, Chris Kunitz, Mike Smith, Justin Williams, Brent Burns, Joe Pavelski, Brian Boyle, Dion Phaneuf, and Tuukka Rask are still impact performers at the respective ages of 38, 38, 36, 36, 33, 33, 33, 32, and 31.

Does this sound like the NHL is a league whose teams are putting their graybeards out to pasture just so they can bring in youth? Nope. Yet media people constantly drone about the league undergoing a "youth movement," and they prattle about guys in their late 20's as if they are over the hill. Not long ago I read a piece in which a writer (I don't recall which) referred to a very good player (I also don't recall which) who is either 31 or 32, and he called the player "old as hell" in the context of suggesting that it wouldn't make sense for a team to sign him to much of a contract when his expires at season's end. This kind of drivel drives me nuts.


What gives?
So why do we keep hearing about a youth movement? I think the answer is obvious: The last few draft classes have featured a phenomenal explosion of young players who were already NHL-ready when drafted, and they have made an impact on the ice without first having to spend several years getting groomed in the farm system that is the major juniors, AHL, ECHL, and/or NCAA.

For the Penguins' Matt Murray, this is only his third season in the league and his first two ended with him winning the Stanley Freakin' Cup as a starting freakin' goaltender.

Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel were the top two picks of the 2015 draft. Both started their pro careers that fall at the age of 18, and have since played so well that they are considered the faces and saviors of their franchises. Many people believe McDavid is already the best player on the planet, and some people in Edmonton consider him a worthy heir apparent to Wayne Gretzky, and the fact that he just reached the 100-point mark for the second season in a row means those people aren't being irrational!

Yet neither McDavid nor Eichel was rookie of the year for the 2015-16 season, since Artemi Panarin got that title and deserved it. And he has actually improved his game over the two years since, banking 71 points this campaign while leading Columbus back to playoff contention.

Meanwhile, the Maple Leafs took Auston Matthews first in the 2016 draft and he started his career by scoring four goals on opening night when he was 19 years old, instantly becoming the toast of hockey chauvinist Toronto even though he hails from hockey neophyte Scottsdale, Arizona. Today Matthews is one of the best and most celebrated players in the league, yet consider this: When you combine last season and this season together, Patrik Laine, who won't turn 20 until next month, has scored more goals than anyone in the NHL; Laine has in fact scored more goals as a teen than Wayne Gretzky did, and they both started at 18.

Then we have this year's rookie class, which is so insanely deep that more than ten players have belonged in the conversation for rookie of the year, and each of them has made an indispensable impact on his team.

It's not that general managers have said "hey, let's make our rosters younger because only whippersnappers can play this game," it's that an unprecedented number of young hockey players are so good they can't be kept off of rosters and stopped from generating points... but that does not mean older players suck, and it certainly doesn't mean that productive veterans can be kept off of rosters and stopped from making an impact either.

What we have here is meritocracy with a glut of talent at both ends of the age spectrum. And in the middle of the age spectrum as well. And that, mes amies, is good for the game.


Speaking of which...
...I don't think it's a coincidence that this glut of talent is appearing at the precise point in time that hockey is being played in more places than ever before.

I already said that Auston Matthews hails from Arizona. But on top of that, today's NHL includes well-regarded players from Florida, Alabama, Texas, and Southern California. And the St. Louis Area has become such a hotbed of blue-chippers that it now gets mentioned in the same breath as American hockey's traditional spawning grounds in Minnesota and Massachusetts.

Europe's "big five" hockey nations (Russia, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia) have been producing NHL stars for decades, but in recent years many other European nations, including all the Germanic ones and especially Switzerland, have also been producing them. Roman Josi, captain of the Stanley Cup favorite Nashville Predators, is Swiss, as is Nico Hischier, the New Jersey Devils' high-scoring rookie who was picked #1 overall in last June's draft.

This season the NHL welcomed its first Aussie (Nathan Walker) and he potted his first goal on opening night.

Hockey has recently gained popularity in East Asia, and will surely keep doing so with this year's Winter Olympics having been staged in skating-rich South Korea and the 2022 Winter Olympics slated for China.

This influx of talent from regions hitherto unthought of is only the first wave of something that will be much bigger in the not-too-distant future.

When my Tampa Bay Lightning played their first game in 1992, youth hockey here in the Tampa Bay Area was practically non-existent. By the time the Bolts won their first Stanley Cup 12 years later, youth leagues had sprung up and ice rinks had sprouted. Today, 13 years after that, youth leagues are everywhere, our schools have hockey teams, and it is much more common to see kids outside playing street hockey than it is to see them playing catch with a baseball. A newly opened rink 15 minutes from my house is so capacious and state-of-the-art that it served as the home of the U.S. women's hockey team in the five months they trained leading up to the Olympics.

The quality of play in these parts is such that one of our local schools (Tampa Jesuit) advanced all the way to the Elite Eight of the USA Hockey High School National Championship Tournament this past weekend. We are now subject to recruiting wars, seeing as how a 12-year-old friend of my daughter's has been invited by a school in Connecticut to move up there to play high school hockey when the time comes.

The first generation of Tampa Bay prospects to grow up in this hockey-cultivating environment has not yet reached adulthood, but will soon, and the same is true for other "non-traditional markets" that have entered the NHL fold since the 1990's: Miami-Dade, Raleigh, Nashville, Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, Columbus, and San Jose-San Fran-Oakland, to say nothing of other populated areas in their respective states that have grown to like the game as a result of having a nearby team to root for.

Just think of what this portends for pro hockey's future talent pool, especially when you consider that Huntsville, AL has already seen one of its native sons make it to the league despite it having only a fraction of the population and hockey infrastructure that NHL markets have to offer.

'Tis a fait accompli that the NHL will soon award a franchise to Seattle, bringing its total number of clubs to 32. As you might be able to tell, I am so bullish about the game's growth of high-end talent that I have literally no concerns at all that expansion might dilute the talent pool.

In fact, I expect the talent influx to continue burgeoning so much that it would not be crazy to think about expanding again several years after Seattle comes on board. I don't know how many years I'm talking about -- 8, 12, 15, whatever -- but I have no doubt we'll find plenty of worthy players whenever the time comes.

Can we find enough worthy officials to accommodate expansion? Unfortunately, that's a quite different story and I don't feel like getting into it right now.

I guess lots of this post wasn't actually, technically, about the 2017-18 season. Oh well. When my brain starts turning, sometimes it goes wherever it wants. Until next time, take care!

Spring Equinox

Here in the Eastern Time Zone, the vernal equinox occurred this morning at 6:28 -- so here are some thoughts about spring, on its first day:

I love how it is often warm and rarely humid.

I love that bright, shimmering shade of green that new leaves give to old trees.

I love how wildflowers turn ordinary roadsides into vivid profusions of color and life.

I love going swimming with my kids again, and seeing how Parker runs through the outdoors (see above!).

I love sitting outside in the afternoon and drinking a margarita beneath a cloudless blue sky.

I love spring training baseball.

And finally, I am riveted by the most intense pursuit in all of sports: the NHL playoffs.

St. Patty's Day

On this day, I might as well re-publish what I wrote in 2014: 

As a child growing up in the U.S., you are told that St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland (true) and that he drove the snakes out of Ireland (false). You are also told that wearing green is the main point of the holiday that bears his name, with failure to do so resulting in you getting pinched.

As you grow up you see the snakes story for the crock it is, and based on your observations (and eventually on your experiences) you come to believe that the main point of St. Patrick's Day is pounding sipping Guinness before and after stuffing yourself with dining on shepherd's pie.

In many ways, St. Patrick's Day is one oddity of a holiday. It celebrates a genuine Catholic saint, but few of us know anything about him other than the fact that people celebrate him by getting drunk every March 17th... And most of us who celebrate him in the U.S. are not Catholic, instead identifying ourselves as Protestant or even agnostic... And although the holiday is specifically tied to an island with a population smaller than New York City's, it is celebrated around the entire friggin' globe.

Jaded, fortysomething Americans such as myself like to say (while consuming a pint of Murphy's Stout and ordering a round of green Bud Light) that St. Patrick's Day is an American construct gussied up in Irish drag. We like to say that it has no real ties to religion, that it goes unobserved in "the old country," and that it is nothing more than an excuse for our alcoholic countrymen to get falling down drunk and chalk it up as "tradition." But we are wrong -- wrong! -- because the Vatican made it an official holiday way back in the 1600's. Even the gluttony/drunkenness thing has some churchy basis when you consider that on March 17th the Vatican lifts the Lenten restrictions on drinking alcohol and eating.

Perhaps the diaspora of Irish people explains part of St. Patrick's Day's wide appeal, since the sheer size and extent of their dispersal makes the scattering of Jews from the Holy Land seem trifling.

Long ago I remember hearing that there were 4 million people living in Ireland and 44 million Irish people living in the United States... Huge percentages of the populations in Canada's Atlantic provinces, especially Newfoundland and Labrador, are made up of people from Irish stock... An estimated one million people of Irish ancestry reside in Argentina... Ireland accounts for the second largest ancestry group in Australia... etc. etc.

When you consider the outsize influence Ireland's diaspora has had on the world, you really start to appreciate the role Irish genealogy plays in our affairs. We know the Beatles as an English band, but all of them except Ringo trace their ancestry to Ireland, not Liverpool... Oscar Wilde made his mark as London's biggest playwright, but was born in Dublin... John Wayne came from Irish stock and so did Maureen O'Hara, the smoking-hot redhead who often starred alongside him and is still alive and kicking at the age of 93.

In the decisive decade of the Cold War, America's president was Ronald Reagan and Canada's prime minister was Brian Mulroney. Both were Irish by blood, and together they helped hasten the end of the Soviet Union. In the following decade, Irish-by-blood Tony Blair became the most influential British Prime Minister of the post-Thatcher era.

In the sports world, seemingly white-as-can-be boxing champ Jack Dempsey was an American of Irish descent -- and so was seemingly black-as-can-be boxing champ Muhammad Ali, whose great-grandfather was born in County Clare, on Ireland's west coast, before moving to America.

Still, genealogy and diaspora can't completely explain the global reach of St. Patrick's Day. Not when Japan (yes, Japan!) celebrates it not just on March 17th but all month long. Not when Russia's notoriously xenophobic government plays a part in staging an annual St. Patrick's Day parade in Moscow. And not when prickly French Montreal also hosts a parade.

Some things just can't be explained. And it's often better that way.


Update: Maureen O'Hara has since passed away.

Almost in the rearview, Part Two

Like I said in my March 12th post, I think that enough of the NHL regular season has passed that I can go ahead and start commenting about it as if it was already over. Especially when you consider that patience is a virtue of which I am not in possession. So like David Coverdale once sang when he fronted Whitesnake: Here I go again!


Ovie
It's no secret that Alexander Ovechkin is a sniper who can pile up goals. Unfortunately, due to Washington's playoff struggles over the years many people fail to realize and/or appreciate just how great a scorer he is. Unlike with most people who are called "great," that word truly does apply where Ovechkin is concerned.

In the outdoor Stadium Series game between Washington and Toronto on March 3rd, he notched his 40th goal of the season by one-timing a Tom Wilson pass into the net behind Frederik Andersen, making him only the sixth person in NHL history to have nine seasons of 40+ goals. Then, three nights ago against Winnipeg, he potted the 600th of his career and became only the 20th player in NHL history to reach that milestone.

Making Ovechkin's accomplishment even more impressive are the facts that his entire career has been during the era of the best league-wide goaltending the NHL has ever known, and that he summited this peak in only 990 games (only three other players have made it to 600 goals in fewer than 1,000 games, and their names happen to be Gretzky and Lemieux and Hull).

Ovechkin leads the league in goals this season, and if he doesn't relinquish the lead this will be the seventh time he has won the scoring title. On top of which, he is an 11-time All-Star. On top of which, he has thrice won the Pearson/Lindsay Award as the league's "most outstanding player" and thrice won the Hart Trophy as its player "judged most valuable to his team."

Since he is 32 and having this spectacular a season (already besting his final numbers from last year) it is more than fair to assume that he has lots of gas left in his tank -- which means his already glittering numbers are likely to become much shinier in the coming years.

And for those who see the lack of championship banners in Capitol One Arena's rafters and want to use that as a reason to claim Ovechkin doesn't deliver in the playoffs, think about this: His average points per playoff game over the course of his career is .928, significantly better than Mike Modano's .830 and very significantly better than Teemu Selanne's .677.

'Tis time for the naysayers to shut up and give the man his due.


Geno
And while we are on the topic of thirtysomething Russia-born superstars, can we talk about Evgeni Malkin? He has won the Ross, Hart, Pearson/Lindsay, Calder, and Conn Smythe -- to say nothing of those three Stanley Cups -- yet the fact that he's played his entire career on the same roster as Sidney Crosby means that he never quite escapes Crosby's shadow and seldom gets recognized as the world-beater he is.

This season is no different. Malkin started slow -- which is not unexpected when you consider that he's "on the wrong side of 30" and hasn't had a full off-season since 2015, thanks to back-to-back Stanley Cups and an intervening World Cup -- but ever since the calendar flipped to January 1st he has been on a vision-blurring tear, cranking out points at a clip of 1.7 per game and climbing all the way to within two goals of Ovechkin for the top spot in the goals race (42 to 40) and two points of Nikita Kucherov for the top spot in the total points race (91 to 89).

On top of that, his defensive game has been as solid as an iron door, with his line often getting sent out against opponents' top lines -- not simply because it can match them where speed and shooting are concerned, but because it can actually shut them down. Consider that in a recent game against the Stars, Malkin & Co. were matched against Dallas's uber talented Seguin-Benn-Radulov line and basically neutered it, forcing it to finish the night at minus-3 with its only goal coming on a 5-on-3 power play.

Not coincidentally, the Penguins' fortunes have risen astronomically during the same period that Malkin has surged. Prior to January 1st they were treading water and on the fringe of the playoff picture, despite being the defending champs; but today they are tied for first place in the Metropolitan Division and looking very capable of winning a third consecutive Cup, which is something even the Gretzky-Messier Oilers could not accomplish.

As with Ovie, 'tis time to give Geno his full due.


Resetting for real
That the New York Rangers won't be winning the Stanley Cup this year is not a shock. That they decided to tear the whole house down and start anew kinda is... and that they were candid about it is downright refreshing.

Let's start by saying that the Rangers have not had a bad season. On February 8th they not only had a winning record but were within two wins of a playoff spot, in a season that still had two months left to play. Yet it was on that day that they sent a letter to season ticket holders which read thus: "Today, we want to talk to you about the future... As we approach the trade deadline later this month and into the summer, we will be focused on adding young, competitive players that combine speed, skill and character. This may mean we lose some familiar faces, guys we all care about and respect... Our promise to you is that our plans will be guided by our singular commitment: ensuring that we are building the foundation for our next Stanley Cup contender." (emphasis mine)

And man, did they mean it. The day before the trade deadline they swapped out Rick Nash (to the hated Boston Bruins, no less) and on the deadline they dealt their best defenseman (Ryan McDonagh) and second-leading scorer (J.T. Miller) to Tampa Bay, with the meat of their return being prospects and upcoming draft picks.

Here's the thing: The Rangers' goal is not merely to "make the playoffs" or "be competitive," but to win the Stanley Cup. They took a strong stab at it this decade, making sure the best goaltender of his generation is a Ranger For Life, fielding a good team in front of him, reaching the Cup Finals in 2014 and returning to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2015. But they came up short, and then their roster started to age and its salary cap ramifications started to ramify, and then it became clear that their team, as constructed in anno Domini 2018, was simply not capable of winning it all.

So rather than tinkering fruitlessly around the edges and trying to put a Band-Aid here over a Band-Aid there, the organization decided not to delay the inevitable but to go ahead and blow it up right now and start over. The sooner you throw out the old crops and plant new ones, the sooner the harvest will come, right?

Rangers fans might not enjoy sitting through a few down years, but they have to appreciate that the organization told it to them like it is, and they have to appreciate that it aims to win it all. By being up front with the fans instead of insulting their intelligence like some franchise owners do (hello Mr. Melnyk!) the Rangers are sure to keep their season ticket holders loyal and engaged when their win totals sag.

Maybe the rebuild won't work, but the status quo definitely wasn't going to work, so props to the Rangers for taking action instead of whistling Dixie. Maybe some other franchises (hello Montreal!) will learn from their example.


And I have other things to comment on, but I'll save them for the next installment. Until then, have a good one.

Almost in the rearview, Part One

The NHL's 2017-18 regular season is not yet over, and there some playoff spots that might not get clinched until its final day. But come on, man, depending on what team you are talking about, the season is anywhere from 81 to 85 percent done. It is clear who is elite and who is not, who has put together a good run and who has screwed things up, etc. Plus, I am not patient when I want to write about something and think I can bang it out fast.

So I am going to jump the gun and start recapping the regular season right now, fully admitting that whatever I write today might not be the same if I were to wait a couple weeks (though it probably would be, except for updating the stats).

Today's post is about who should win the NHL's individual awards, which are always based solely on the regular season and are voted upon before the playoffs even commence. Here I go:

Hart Trophy:  Nathan MacKinnon, COL

Contrary to popular belief, the Hart does not go to the league's best player, but to whoever is "judged most valuable to his team." It should go to Nathan MacKinnon this time around, because coming into this season the Colorado Avalanche were widely considered to be one of the league's worst teams yet if the playoffs were to start today the Avs would be in them, and he would be far and away the main reason why. MacKinnon has 81 points in 60 games played, which works out to a 1.35 points per game pace that is reported to be the 11th best in the NHL since the introduction of the salary cap.

I wish I could give the Hart to Nikita Kucherov or Andrei Vasilievskiy since they both play for my Tampa Bay Lightning. However, the Lightning are bursting at the seems with world-beating talent and the Avs simply are not. Based on that "most valuable to his team" definition, I gotta give this one to MacKinnon.

Ted Lindsay Award:  Nikita Kucherov, TBL
Now here we go. It is the Ted Lindsay Award, formerly known as the Lester B. Pearson Award, that gets awarded to the league's "most outstanding player," and it should go to Kucherov. A strong case can also be made for Vasilievskiy -- and for Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin and Anze Kopitar and Patrik Laine -- but if I had a vote I would give it to the 24-year-old winger from Maykop, Russia. Kuch leads the league with 88 points (34, 54) in 64 games played and has been in the lead since Game One. He mind-melts opposing goalies and defensemen not only with deception, but with a supersonic release and lethal passing. The hockey gods simply don't make 'em any better.

Vezina Trophy:  Andrei Vasilievskiy, TBL
It's a four-man race between Tampa Bay's Vasilievskiy, Anaheim's John Gibson, Toronto's Frederik Andersen, and last year's winner, Sergei Bobrosvsky of Columbus. You can make an equally strong case for each of those guys, and whichever of them takes home the hardware will deserve it, but I give my nod to Vasilievskiy -- not because he plays for my team, but because I have seen him play so much that I know he is the most valuable player on a club that is overflowing with names like Kucherov, Stamkos, Hedman, and Point.

Though the Lighting get outshot in most games and surrender 30+ shots on net with alarming regularity, Vasilievskiy's goaltending is so stellar that they have the best goal differential in the league and also the best record. He leads all NHL netminders in both shutouts and victories, and is just 0.009 away from the top in save percentage. Damn good for a 23-year-old who is in his first year as an NHL starter.


Norris Trophy:  Drew Doughty, LAK
Flip a coin. When it comes to who should get the trophy for the NHL's best all-around defenseman, it's a flat out tie between LA's Drew Doughty and Tampa Bay's Victor Hedman. Both men are workhorses who log monster ice time (26+ minutes per game) and are always asked to defend their opponents' best players. Hedman's offensive game is better than Doughty's and Doughty's defensive game is a little better than Hedman's, but on that last point, the difference is so small it almost vanishes.

My heart wants Hedman to win it and my head can make a strong case why he should, but my head can also make a strong case why Doughty should. I will give my nod to Doughty partly to protect against any built-in homerism in my brain, but also because Doughty blocks more shots and because Tampa Bay surrenders noticeably more odd-man rushes and high-danger scoring chances than Los Angeles; although Hedman can't be on the ice every shift, the fact that he is the putative leader of Tampa Bay's defensive unit has to count for something when breaking a tie.


Selke Trophy:  Patrice Bergeron, BOS
This one absolutely belongs to Bergeron. As always this decade, Anze Kopitar has also made a strong case for himself -- they are two best defensive-minded forwards of their generation -- but Bergeron has been otherworldly in 2017-18, so much so that him missing a month to injury late in the campaign shouldn't make any difference in the balloting. Not only has Bergeron been the best defensive-minded forward this season, his full two-way game is arguably the best there is among forwards as well.

With his 33rd birthday awaiting him this summer, this native of L'Ancienne-Lorette, Quebec is a major, major reason why the Boston Bruins are full-on Cup contenders despite everyone thinking they were also-rans before the season began. After the curtain goes down on the NHL Awards Show in June, he should be going home with his fifth Frank J. Selke Trophy (and second in a row, and third in four years).


Calder Trophy:  Mathew Barzal, NYI
The NHL has been blessed with outstanding rookie classes for the past few years, and this year's ranks as the deepest I can remember in all of my years of watching hockey. The number of guys in their first full season who have put together a strong enough campaign to belong in the conversation for rookie of the year is literally in double-digits.

However, as we steamrolled deeper into the second half of the season it became clear that the three best were Brock Boeser, the golden-maned Minnesotan who plays for Vancouver; Charlie McAvoy, the Long Island native who plays on the Bruins' top defense pairing; and Mathew Barzal, the British Columbia native who plays for the Islanders... then the injury bug bit the first two, with a "non-structural" lower back fracture sidelining Boeser for the duration and a knee sprain putting McAvoy on the shelf for what is expected to be four weeks... and since Barzal was already building arguably the strongest case for winning the Calder, those injuries have served to render him a shoo-in.

Thanks to Barzal's sickeningly high number of assists (51 and counting) he leads all rookies in total points, 14 ahead of Boeser even though he is unlikely to catch up to the latter's still rookie-leading 29 goals. Yes, Boeser's shot is that good, but Barzal plays center, where passing is more integral that it is on the wing, and Barzal already had a decent lead on him in the total points race when he went down.


Jack Adams Award:  Gerard Gallant, VGK
Let's see. The Vegas Golden Knights are in their first year as a franchise, and while the expansion draft rules did permit them to get a few players who were known to be solid and one who counted as a star, their roster still reads like a typical expansion roster built of castoffs and bottom-six forwards and lower-rung defensemen. And shortly after the season started, their one star (goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury) went down with a long-term injury after which a succession of their back-up goalies also went down with injuries, to the point where they were playing their fifth-stringer between the pipes.

And yet, from the opening puck drop through the present the Golden Knights have consistently been one of the league's best teams. As of today, they have the NHL's fourth best record and are in first place in the Pacific Division with a comfortable 12-point cushion between them and second place San Jose. If the playoffs were to start right now, they would be the #2 seed in the Western Conference.

So, yeah, the Jack Adams Award for coach of the year belongs to Gerard Gallant. No one else should even be considered.


Masterton Trophy:  Steven Stamkos, TBL
Technically, the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy goes to the "player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to ice hockey." In practice, it usually serves as a "comeback player of the year" award to someone who overcomes injury or some other personal trauma. And this year's recipient should be Tampa Bay centerman Steven Stamkos, who returned from the latest of three serious medical issues that have caused him to miss significant portions of his prime.

The first came during the 2013-14 campaign, when this tibia fracture forced Stamkos out for a three-month period that was notable because the three-month recovery was shorter than doctors expected. Then came 2015-16, when a blood-clotting vascular condition forced him to miss the post-season due to blood-thinning medication that was required after corrective surgery. And then came last season, which saw him return from the surgery and thinners and start lighting the world on fire with 20 points in the first 17 games -- only to suffer a torn right knee lateral meniscus that sidelined him for the remainder of the season.

All of which brings us to this season. Stamkos has not only made it back from the torn meniscus, but has played brilliantly with 79 points in 69 games played. His 52 assists are already a career high and there are still 13 games left (knock on wood) before season's end. Even without his prior history, Stamkos's return in 2017-18 from the injury in 2016-17 would be worthy of the Masterton... but it's a slam dunk when you factor in the cumulative effect of those earlier issues as well.


Lady Byng Trophy:  Vladislav Namestnikov, NYR
To hell with worrying about being accused of homerism. I already feel like I might have done Victor Hedman a disservice by giving my non-existent Norris vote to Drew Doughty. I am not gonna make myself feel like that again when it comes to the Lady Byng, which goes to the player who most exhibits "outstanding sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability."

Give this one to Vladislav Namestnikov and don't look back. He plays in New York now, but that's only because the Lightning traded him to the Rangers two weeks ago. My farewell tribute to him pretty much sums up why he deserves the Lady Byng, even though that was not what I was thinking about when I penned it. I don't blame you of you don't want to read that tribute, but consider this passage from it: "...the thing that stands out most about Namestnikov is the person, not the stats, for he is unfailingly polite and humble despite thriving in the ego-driven Type-A world that is professional sports. If your daughter has to date somebody, he is the kind of male you want her to date..."


And there are a few other individual awards out there, but frankly, I don't feel like opining about them, so I'll just go ahead and sign off. Take care.