Big Blue Huddle

Quote from: EDjohnst1981 on Today at 07:41:37 AMI think that's fair analysis.

Thought the Garden was rocking last night.

Enjoyed the commentator too, he seemed to draw more interesting comments out of Farrero.

Great win. Now to steal one on the road.

7 to go.

The Panthers are an absolute bear of an opponent. I thought we played quite well last night, and yet we still barely won at home and easily could have lost.

The above is in no way a knock on our team. I am very pleased with how they played and obviously thrilled with the result. The point is just that we are facing as tough an adversary as you're going to find. But we knew that already.

Clearly, we are an easy out for them either.

Still think this is going to seven.

Quote from: MightyGiants on Today at 07:43:26 AMI suspect it's a bit flawed to just average up the team.  Projected starters should be weighed more heavily and there seems to be some positions were RAS is more important than others

Good point. The work could be more refined than the above. One could also look at the this over a much longer time period.

Still, I would say the result of that cursory observation is interesting enough to warrant further investigation.

For me, as an amateur observer, I will say that I am always happy to see a high RAS on an incoming player versus a low one, but I am not such a big fan of having a firm, hard rule of only drafting players with very high RASes. I feel like that narrows your scope in a draft.

Interesting that the Rams, whom I suspect any observant/unbiased fan would consider one of the smarter and more forward-thinking franchises in the league, are last in this.

Additionally the Ravens, Dolphins, 49ers, Texans, Bills, and Bengals, all of whom have been pretty successful recently, are in the 19th to 30th range.

Meanwhile the Colts (number one), Jets, Giants, Saints, and Falcons are all in the top 10.

At first glance at least, it's hard to see much of a positive correlation between average RAS score and team success.

The Athletic's take on the value of playing Rempe last night:


With Rangers fans rallying in support, Matt Rempe makes instant impact


NEW YORK, NY - MAY 24:
2h ago


NEW YORK — "REMPE! REMPE! REMPE!" chants rang around Madison Square Garden after his first shift Friday night.

In 54 seconds, Rempe got in Aleksander Barkov's face, smack-talked Ryan Lomberg and checked Nick Cousins and Brandon Montour. The loudest the Garden got in the first half of the game, besides Vincent Trocheck's game-opening goal, was when the ginormous Rempe took a faceoff against Kevin Stenlund.

For the record, the 6-foot-8, 21-year-old bruiser, is now 2-0 in the faceoff circle in his young playoff career.

"Like that faceoff win, eh?" Rempe said after making a positive, board-and-glass rattling impact in his more than 10 minutes of ice time during the New York Rangers' 2-1 overtime win over the Florida Panthers. "Snapped that thing back."

Rangers fans love Rempe, and for good reason. The Rangers are 15-2 this season at home with the strong-skating, hard-hitting heavyweight in the Broadway Blueshirts' lineup.

He was scratched in Game 1. The Rangers were alarmingly flat and taken out of that game by the Panthers' aggressive forecheck, so Peter Laviolette tapped No. 73 to provide a jolt of energy Friday night.

Rempe achieved that feat to help the Rangers even this best-of-seven Eastern Conference final at one victory apiece.

He played with pace, had nine hits, and was even entrusted with five third-period shifts and one quick 12-second one in overtime.

He almost couldn't believe it when Laviolette called his name with two minutes left in regulation. Remember, this was a man who was averaging less than 6 1/2 minutes a game in the first two rounds of the playoffs and during a double overtime win in Game 2 of the Carolina series didn't play a shift after the second period.

"When I heard Lavy call my name, I was like, to myself, 'Oh my God, let's go.' I was like, 'Oh Jiminy Crickets, let's go,'" Rempe said. "I just went out there, tried to buzz around and tried to do my job. I felt really good in the game, I felt good with the puck, I felt good in the D-zone, and in overtime, I got an O-zone shift. I was pretty excited about that one. It was just a blast."

And in the end, even though Rempe wasn't on the ice for the winner, his fourth-line linemate Barclay Goodrow got out there for a defensive-zone draw with Trocheck and Will Cuylle and ended up whistling a 38-footer to snap the Panthers' 11-game overtime winning streak dating to 2021. The goal also snapped Sergei Bobrovsky's personal, NHL-record-tying overtime win streak at 12 games.

"That was unbelievable," Rempe said. "Absolute snipe."

Now, to be fair, the Panthers didn't play like a team that was intimidated by Rempe's presence nor the Rangers' desire to improve on Game 1 and go toe to toe with them physically. After all, the Panthers out-chanced the Rangers during Rempe's 17 shifts.

The Panthers are a tough, nasty, hard-nosed team that can play any type of style, so if you want to ramp up the intensity, the Panthers are perfectly comfortable playing in that type of game and would welcome it when the series heads to South Florida beginning Sunday afternoon.

As Paul Maurice quipped during an ESPN interview in the first period when the Rangers predictably came out on fire offensively and physically, "Nobody's been arrested yet."

In other words, the Panthers just needed to weather it, stay the course and respond accordingly. They did when Carter Verhaeghe scored on the power play late in the first period. That would be the final goal between the two teams until Goodrow's winner, but this was an entertaining game full of end-to-end action, lots of scoring chances, big hits and great saves.

The Panthers especially did a great job killing off four power plays.

But throughout the spurts of action, you could sense the anticipation in the crowd for every one of Rempe's shifts. And because he was playing smart and clean, Laviolette kept giving him shifts.

Of course, part of it was because Rempe's other linemate, Jimmy Vesey, was lost in the second period to an upper-body injury after taking a big hit from Ryan Lomberg.

"That was tough Jimmy going down ... but I thought maybe I'd get more ice time," Rempe said. "If I did, I just wanted to make sure I was good, and make the most of it and be effective and not let the team down."

Laviolette felt Rempe was effective on the forecheck, getting pucks deep and keeping the puck in the offensive zone.

"I thought he came out and had a real impact, especially early on in the first period."

Rempe is a happy-go-lucky kid who's loving every minute of this start to his NHL career and especially becoming a fan favorite to such a passionate fan base. And because he never knows when that next shift will come, he goes out there every shift and tries to make the most of it.

There's no dipping his toe in. Not going through the motions or coasting on any of his shifts. He's certainly toned it down from the regular season when he seemingly wanted to fight anyone and everyone on every shift. He's doing his best to be disciplined and not put his team in a bind. And with that comes more and more trust from his coach.

"Got to play some more minutes, and it was so much fun. I had the time of my life out there," Rempe said. "I thought I was moving my feet really well, got in on the forecheck, made some hits out there and played real physical."

He called the ability to play a playoff game and be part of such a big victory an "honor."

Just imagine what it must have been like for him to hear his name reverberate around the world's most famous arena not only on his first shift but also after many others, including once in the third period when Dmitry Kulikov wiped him out one shift after Rempe did the same to his defense partner, Oliver Ekman-Larsson.

Rempe got up off the ice, brushed himself off and, instead of doing something stupid, he sped into the defensive zone and crushed Eetu Luostarinen.

"The fans here are by far the best," Rempe said. "I don't want to let them down. I love them so much. Like no matter what, they're chanting. I gotta go out there and I want to make them proud. I want to go out there and do something, do something every shift. How can you not have energy when they're chanting like that?"

Strands #83
"Sounds delicious!"
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Connections
Puzzle #349
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Big, big win. I thought they really responded tonight. Looked so much better than game one. Florida is supremely tough though. Really need to get one of two down there now. A holiday weekend Sunday matinee win would be massive.

Flott is skinny - no two ways about it. And given he has only gained 2-3 pounds in over two years now since the 2022 combine, it's reasonable to assume he's not going to get much bigger (maybe something like 180/182 is possible).

Being slight doesn't preclude him from being a respectable or even good player, but it is clearly not an advantage, either. We should keep in mind that it's not like we took this guy in the top 15 overall though. Mid third round is not typically where you find high-end starting corners. Maybe he's just a solid depth guy. If that's what he ends up being, I'd say that's not a bad outcome at all for a corner taken outside of the top 80 overall.

I definitely think Neal should at least be given a shot at guard if he fails again at tackle. There is no reason to let him go because he can't play tackle, only to see him be a respectable to good guard somewhere else. They did that with Flowers and it was a bit embarrassing. They also played Flowers at tackle, watching him fail miserably over and over, for far too long. They should have tried him at guard in the third year when it was continuing to not work at tackle. Both are lessons to draw on.

Quote from: jgrangers2 on May 24, 2024, 02:53:49 PMLooking like it might be:

20-93-72
10-16-13
50-91-96
73-21-26

Really not a fan of sitting Kakko but whatever

It's hard to argue with the record the team has had with Rempe in the lineup.

If one were to say it's a total coincidence, I can completely accept that line of reasoning, but what one cannot really do (given the results) is convincingly argue that he significantly hurts the team when he is in the lineup.

I also think it's interesting that people like Messier have publicly said he should play. I'm not sure there is any living person who knows a great deal more about the ingredients needed to win in the postseason than that guy.

Quote from: EDjohnst1981 on May 24, 2024, 02:19:32 PMYeah, I think it's almost certain he starts. Question is, who's dropped? Kakko?

I think it has to be, yes. And I'm ok with that. The guy has done nothing. I wouldn't mess around with the Wennberg/Cuylle/Roslovic line.

I'll be really surprised if they don't put the kid in tonight:

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/40210775/rangers-matt-rempe-awed-greats-calling-him

Quote from: AZGiantFan on May 24, 2024, 01:41:34 PMI'm not as down on Neal as some.  He had injury issues, was adjusting to moving to the right side, and had a terrible position coach.  That's a lot for a young man to overcome.

There isn't a soul here who doesn't want Neal to succeed (and I understand that you weren't saying otherwise). I think where fans might differ from one another is on the subject of how much rope to give him if he is bad early in the upcoming season.

If it were your decision, how long would you be willing to tolerate more bad play from him before making a change, knowing you have Eleumenor right there and that Eleumenor has already played RT at a demonstrably solid level for an NFL team over a meaningful sample size?

Quote from: AZGiantFan on May 24, 2024, 01:46:10 PMWould some of you rather that Jones was throwing without accuracy or velocity?  He's doing very well in the context he's in, which is the most you can hope for.  There will be plenty of time to be critical if he doesn't sustain it as the context gets more challenging.  No need to get a head start on criticizing him by dismissing what he's doing.

Simply making the observation that stuff like this (1) is churned out by every beat writer of every team in the league this time of year and (2) has been proven time and again to have no consistent correlation to anything that happens when the games actually matter is not "getting a head start on criticizing" anyone. It's just making a factually accurate observation.

Further, I didn't tell anyone else how to process this and other info like it. I was simply stating my own stance towards it. I don't see why that needs to be attacked or falsely framed as "getting a head start on criticizing" players. That was not my intention at all.

Quote from: MightyGiants on May 24, 2024, 07:06:23 AMJeff,


This is a fair position.  No one is expected to be swept up due to an OTA performance.   This is just news on how our starting QB is recovering.   I think for most fans this report would be good news.   Although @BluesCruz booing the news, shows there are a handful of fans actively rooting against our starting QB.

I think it's good news that he seems to be recovering well from his injury and his surgery. As I said, on a purely human level that's always good news about any decent person, regardless of how he plays in real games.