Good morning, Boneheads!
Gutsy team win. I know Shesterkin faced more shots than Quick, but I think Quick had to make much more difficult saves. Quick can also be a little dramatic. But I think it it wasn’t for him, this one wouldn’t be that close.
So, it looks like Panarin is getting back to where we want him to be. He was determined on many plays, including the game tying goal by Goodrow.
I keep repeating the same thing every time- two second rounders for Fox? And he was a third round selection? Geez..
Jacob Trouba has been their best overall D-man lately. Hard to even say that while they have Fox, but Trouba is an intimidating force on the backline, both defensively and in the O-zone at the moment. Again, this is what every team needs in the postseason to succeed.
I liked how Lafreniere responded to a potential drama in the SO. Under pressure to score or lose the game, right after Byfield, who was selected after him and scored a pretty goal. A lot of pressure. He looked cool and composed. And his goal was even more impressive.
Lastly, I was watching Quick last night, and it was painfully similar to what he did to our boys in 2014. Bad memories…Except I wonder what would have happened if they had Shesterkin playing against him…We will never know.
UPDATE(1/27): Click here to read Staple’s new article.
230 responses to “Rangers-3, Kings-2 (SO)”
Staples article surveys Hank’s backups over the years. Weekes was warned by guys who played against Hank in Sweden during one of the lockouts that Hank was probably going to be the No1 in NY when he came over. It’s pretty good and some funny stuff in there.
Nose picker article…
https://theathletic.com/3090665/2022/01/27/brandon-dubinsky-outspoken-as-ever-on-how-it-ended-with-john-tortorella-and-the-blue-jackets/
Wick- what did he say about Torts? I no longer subscribe to the athletic…
Craig
Here’s the main excerpt…it’s a bit long
On July 20, 2012, Dubinsky was part of the long-awaited trade that sent Nash to the Rangers for several players and picks. From the start of the trade talks, then-Blue Jackets GM Scott Howson insisted on Dubinsky in the deal.
“I was thrilled with the trade,” Dubinsky said. “I loved New York and I liked being on a winning team. So I didn’t like getting traded to the worst team in the league. But me and John Tortorella (then the Rangers’ coach) were a 💩 show during my last year in New York.
“It wasn’t a good year. We weren’t getting along. I didn’t agree with the decisions he was making for me, so for me, Columbus was a fresh start. I was energized and excited. I was back to playing the way I knew how to play.”
Dubinsky quickly entrenched himself as a team leader, playing higher in the lineup than he’d ever played before because the Blue Jackets were starved for top centers.
He played under coach Todd Richards his first four seasons in Columbus, but when the Blue Jackets started the 2015-16 season with seven consecutive losses, Richards was fired. Blue Jackets management felt as if the next coach needed to have a firmer hand.
Tortorella was hired by the Blue Jackets on Oct. 21, 2015. Dubinsky smirked and said all the right things, but he was privately crestfallen, he said.
“I always respected Todd,” Dubinsky said. “I wish, looking back, that other players would have respected the way he coached and treated them and allowed them to make mistakes. I wish they would have respected him by playing harder for him. His downfall was he wasn’t hard enough on guys.
“You should never take advantage of that. He was a nice guy and a good coach. I was obviously not the most-thrilled guy when they fired Richie.”
Aside from the occasional flare-up, Dubinsky said he and Tortorella were “mostly OK” until after the 2016-17 season, the season in which the Blue Jackets tied an NHL record with 17 consecutive wins and set a franchise record with 50 wins and 108 points.
With budding centers Pierre-Luc Dubois and Alexander Wennberg in the organization, Dubinsky said Tortorella made it clear to him after the 2016-17 season that he should expect a different role when he arrived for training camp in the fall. (He had his first wrist surgery about a month after the season.)
“It was pretty clear he was going to give some younger guys opportunities,” Dubinsky said. “I didn’t agree with it. I came into this league — I know it’s a different league now — but I started on the fourth line and played my way up. I played on the power play and penalty kill because I earned those minutes.
“I felt like he just took those minutes away and gave them to somebody else who hadn’t earned them yet. I didn’t agree with it. I didn’t agree with him and his coaching and obviously that doesn’t work for him. So that was the beginning of the end for him and me.”
Dubinsky went from averaging 15 goals and 44 points — not bad for a checking-line center who drew the toughest matchups and took more than his share of defensive-zone starts — to barely playing and producing. He had six goals in each of his last two seasons in Columbus.
There were injuries, sure, but there were also healthy scratches. He was stripped of his alternate captain’s ‘A’ in October. And there were other role reductions that Dubinsky found embarrassing, too.
Once he was among the Blue Jackets’ top weapons during 3-on-3 overtime. But in his final two seasons, Tortorella sent him out for the opening draw with orders to get off the ice immediately for another skater. Tortorella declined to comment for this story.
“Listen, I did what I was asked because that’s my job,” Dubinsky said. “I wasn’t happy with it. I also had a responsibility to my teammates. That’s how I looked at it. But I stopped looking at it like coming to the rink was something fun to do, and I started seeing it as a chore.
“All the things I loved about playing hockey and being in the NHL, it all went away. Everything just became harder. It’s not for anybody else’s business — fans, media, anybody — to know there’s something going on beneath the surface. That’s how I’ve always done things. I don’t air dirty laundry, so that’s how it was handled.”
Dubinsky said the relationship with Tortorella and management was already fractured, but it cracked further in January 2018 when the Blue Jackets made their first-ever road trip to Vegas and arrived a few days before the game.
Nobody had more fun on The Strip than Dubinsky. The club didn’t expect him to play in Vegas because he was still recovering from a fractured eye socket, but his return had been scheduled for two nights later in Arizona. Instead, after he broke multiple team rules, the club sent him home from the road trip ahead of the team.
“The relationship was already changed at that point,” Dubinsky said. “But it never helps when you make bad decisions. That’s not a moment in time that I’m proud of, but we all make mistakes.
“It’s not the mistakes you make, it’s what you learn from them. It’s certainly not my proudest moment, but it’s something I’ve learned from.”
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