Rangers-Bruins Observations

I had the Rangers-Bruins game on in the background while I did some unpacking today. I can't claim that I watched the game too closely, so I don't have a lot to say about it, specifically (Boston 3, New York 1 is the salient detail), but there are a few things I'd like to mention about the teams involved.


Rangers

Are the Rangers the Sharks of the East? (The tremendous majority of the hockey media would probably ask "Are the Sharks the Rangers of the West?", but we all have our perspectives.) They are a team that appears to be underachieving when one considers their level of talent, possesses a calm, laconic, underproducing captain who has been heavily criticized, induces frustration amongst their fans due to their apparent inability to bring any consistent intensity to the rink, has achieved what success they have on the strength of decent defense and strong goaltending (which has flagged somewhat lately)... That's quite a list of similarities.


Bruins

The Bruins are the team that infamously started their season on a Pacific Division swing then returned to the Eastern Time Zone, where they have remained and will continue to remain for the rest of the regular season. Thus, the Bruins make exactly one cross-country road trip all year.

Not only would radical scheduling reform (a subject I plan to post on in the future) bring the league's marquee players to more fans every year, but it would just be a lot more fair. It's ridiculous that the Bruins are allowed to get away with a single long trip in a season when the western teams are routinely crossing the continent.


Milbury

Today's game was broadcast nationally in the United States by NBC. NBC has apparently hired Mike Milbury to be a studio analyst for them this season. This means that Mike Milbury is frequently asked to comment upon player personnel issues, such as X's contract or whether team A should trade player Y.

This seems to me to be a bit like engaging Gary Bettman to offer commentary on the subject of avoiding a work stoppage in one's professional sports league. Milbury was a famous flop as an NHL general manager for the New York Islanders.

(Additionally, during the second intermission of today's game, Milbury erroneously stated that Evgeni Nabokov has started every game this year for San Jose. Sometimes one wonders if NHL observers on the East Coast actually pay any attention at all to what's going on out west...)