Kaplan: Rangers’ rebound, latest on Blackhawks and more around the NHL
On Dec. 3, the New York Rangers were nearing an abyss. Things came to a pressure point during the home game against the Chicago Blackhawks, one of the worst teams in the league. En route to another loss, captain Jacob Trouba had enough. The defenseman laid out two massive hits, got into two fights, and as he was escorted off the ice for a five-minute roughing major on the latter, threw his helmet into the boards. Along the way, he appeared to yell at his teammates on the bench: “Wake the f— up!”
Did they ever.
Since then, New York has rattled off seven straight wins and is starting to look like the team that made it to the Eastern Conference Final last year. Coach Gerard Gallant admitted to our broadcast crew before Sunday’s rematch against the Blackhawks (a 7-1 Rangers win) that his team suffered from a hangover to start the season. Because of what they achieved last season, they believed things would come easy to start this year. Instead, they had to work for it. His players agree.
“We weren’t playing good hockey. We were in a little bit of a lull. We had expectations that we were just supposed to win games because of last year,” Adam Fox told me on Sunday. “[Trouba] brought energy. Obviously he did what he had to do to get us going. Some emotion is what we needed to respond pretty well.”
Added Vincent Trocheck: “Whenever your captain shows that much emotion, and he goes out of his way to make a hit or get in a fight to get the guys going, it’s a message sent to our team that something’s not right. After that game, we had a talk, and everything we talked about has kicked in.”
During the second intermission of Sunday’s game, Rangers assistant Gord Murphy told me he liked that his team was “finding a way” — something that wasn’t a guarantee for them a few weeks ago. “Our players are in a good place,” Murphy said.
After the game, I asked Trocheck to describe the confidence level of the Rangers right now.
“It’s higher than it was,” Trocheck said. “I think it was pretty low at one point. But we’ve done a lot recently, and worked at doing everything the right way so that we can be more predictable on the ice. And our confidence is starting to build more and more.”
A SIDE STORY brewed in that Dec 3 Blackhawks game: Blackhawks forward Andreas Athanasiou, the recipient of a massive Trouba hit, questioned the captain’s role on the team calling him “an $8 million player with zero goals.”
“It didn’t really bother me,” Trouba told me before Sundays game, with a laugh. But he clearly remembered the moment. After scoring his first goal of the season a night earlier — on an empty net — Trouba doubled his total with a goal in the 7-1 blowout win against Chicago. Athanasiou was also on the ice, and Trouba immediately made eye contact with him, and appeared to mouth: “Do you want the puck?”
The rebuild in Chicago
After being between the benches for two Chicago Blackhawks games this past week, it’s been tough to see the team in this way. They’ve picked up just three points since Nov. 14 (1-14-1 record) getting outscored 72-30 in that span. For context, the next closest teams in that span are Philadelphia and Arizona with 11 points.
This is all part of the Chicago front office’s grand plan — conduct a rebuild in earnest, leverage this season for future sustained success. But none of it has been easy on the players or coaching staff, who take pride in putting in a good effort. You can see the frustration on Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews nearly every shift. Kane has the lowest shooting percentage of his career; it’s sub 4 percent, and his career average is 11.5. And after scoring seven goals in his first 11 games, Toews has just three in the 18 since. While they’re frustrated, they’re still committed to the team.
Coach Luke Richardson shared a great story about Toews making two mistakes in a game against the Oilers last month. Toews asked Richardson to show those clips in the video session with the team. Richardson didn’t, but let the players know the captain had asked to, setting an example for accountability. The Blackhawks are expecting Kane and Toews to come to them sometime in the new year letting them know which direction they’d like to go at the trade deadline. Neither player is rushing into a decision, and it’s not guaranteed they will be traded.
GENERAL MANAGER KYLE DAVIDSON told me on Friday that he hasn’t had any specific trade discussions on any of his players yet. The trade market has been slow this season. As one GM told me at the Board of Governors meetings, “It’s impossible to get a trade done right now. Nobody can get anything done.” Things are expected to pick up after the holiday freeze. Aside from Kane and Toews, Davidson has told his GM peers that all of his UFAs will be available. But while the Blackhawks are looking to accumulate as many picks and prospects as possible — and ideally spread them over the next few draft classes — Davidson says he isn’t just trading players for the sake of trading players. In other words, he’s not giving away players for sixth-round picks just to say he did it.
ONE OF THE BLACKHAWKS players I believe has been generating value is defenseman Jarred Tinordi, who was an important waiver claim by Chicago in October. If he’s healthy at the deadline, he would be a solid sixth or seventh defenseman pick up for a contender. But it was tough to see Tinordi leave the ice on Sunday leaking blood after taking a puck to the face. He was placed on IR with a facial fracture.
Tinrodi took a skate blade to the face in a Dec. 9 game against the Jets, and received between 50-100 stitches (the team doctor said he lost count). Tinordi had been wearing a protective cage in his games since, and Sunday was the first time he took it off. Brutal break.
Richardson and Davidson were both effusive about Tinordi when I asked about him before Sunday’s game, explaining how his role had grown. At age 30, this was the most regular role Tinordi has had in the NHL. He’s spent his career on six different NHL teams, bouncing up and down between the NHL and AHL, and takes pride in being a sound, physical defenseman, but also a leader. His maturity makes him a beloved teammate. (When he went down on Sunday, the Rangers, one of his former teams, showed a great level of concern as well). In the Friday game against Minnesota, goalie Petr Mrazek was disappointed by the second goal he let in, which trickled past him. At the TV timeout, it was Tinordi who came to chat with Mrazek, hyping him back up.
Wild find their game
BILL GUERIN HAS demonstrated, in his short time so far as GM of the Minnesota Wild, that he has a pulse for what his team needs. It began with his decision to buy out Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, knowing the locker room needed to turn over to new voices. It continued last year bringing in Marc-Andre Fleury, one of the most popular players in the NHL.
This year’s addition of Ryan Reaves can’t be understated. Reaves had his first signature moment last week, a massive open ice hit on Detroit’s Filip Hronek which sparked Minnesota to victory. His impact goes further than that. “Everybody says we got bigger and more firmness because of him, but I think his presence is more than physicality,” coach Dean Evason said. “He’s not going to run people every game. He’s very calm on the bench. He’s very mature. His work ethic — he’s ripped up — sets an example and he’s just a really good teammate. I think that’s more the impact.”
Evason said before Wild power plays, Reaves gets absolutely jacked up, screaming “Let’s go power play, pow pow!” before kicking the bench in front of him — fully aware he’s not going to go out there. Reaves is just pumped for the team, period. “Sure it’s nice to have a guy who can beat the heck out of anybody he wants at any time, it makes everyone a little firmer,” Evason said. “But he’s a great teammate, and he also can play. If Ryan can’t play the game, he’s not going to be on our hockey club just to fight.”
THE WILD HAVE had to do some soul searching early, but seem to have found their stride. Since Nov 27, they lead the league with 18 points, going 9-2-0. Last season, the Wild had a top five offense, scoring 3.72 goals per game. Evason can’t quite describe it. “Last year we scored at will, it was crazy,” he said. “Guys were having career years, pucks were going in all over the place. And it didn’t this year.” This season, Minnesota is more middle of the pack at 3.13 goals per game. And it was especially troubling early. “It was hard to score, it’s still hard to score for us,” Evason said. “But our realization that this is who we are. And our realization that we need to defend first has really helped us become a better club.”
Update on defending champs
While the injury bug hit the defending champion Colorado Avalanche hard, they’re finding ways to stay afloat in the competitive Central Division until they get to full strength. Kudos to Mikko Rantanen, who has scored six goals in the six games since Nathan MacKinnon has been out, which is almost half of Colorado’s goal total (13) in that time.
With so many new faces rotating in, coach Jared Bednar has had to make adjustments, adding in more video sessions, both for the group and individual players. “I’m definitely coaching different,” Bednar said. “We changed a few things, play a little safer, going back to teaching conceptual things like protecting the middle of the ice.” Those changes have showed up mostly in the neutral zone, as well as forecheck.
WHILE THERE WAS some excitement when Gabriel Landeskog got on the ice two weeks ago, it wasn’t much of an update. The captain, recovering from knee surgery, went out on his own just to give it a twirl. Landeskog is still looking at a mid to late January return, hoping to get back before the All Star break. Losing MacKinnon to an upper body injury in early January was a huge blow — especially pronounced on the power play. The injury, described to me as a new one for MacKinnon, is one that just needs time to heal. The team said four weeks, but nobody would be surprised if he got back sooner. MacKinnon has a history of coming back a bit sooner than expectations.
Keep an eye on the Avalanche at the deadline. Everyone in the league knows Colorado is in the market for a center, and have the ability to make a splash. Should either Kane or Toews decide to waive their no movement clause, Colorado would be on their shortlist.
What direction in St. Louis?
It’s hard to know what to make of the St. Louis Blues right now. They’re a veteran team built to win now, and GM Doug Armstrong feels like he successfully staved off a rebuild thanks to the smart drafting (and long-term signings) of Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas. And yet, the Blues can’t consistently find their game, putting them currently outside of the playoff picture.
When I covered a game in St Louis on Dec. 11, the most-used word by players and coaches was frustration. “They’re all frustrated. We’re frustrated. There’s a lot of frustration because we’re used to winning,” coach Craig Berube said. “We’re going through it right now, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel. All we need to do is string together a few wins here, and get those wins by playing the right way, and we can be right back in it.”
ARMSTRONG TOLD ME his staff has two plans in place for what direction they could go in at the trade deadline, though he wouldn’t commit to a timetable for when he would make that decision. Two veterans become free agents this summer: Vladimir Tarasenko and captain Ryan O’Reilly. Since Tarasenko has a no trade clause, St Louis has had a hard time moving him. That’s shaping up to be an offseason divorce. Meanwhile, front office executives on teams have told me they believe O’Reilly could be available. Also, keep an eye on Josh Leivo as a sneaky depth pickup at the deadline, should St Louis unload.
THE BLUES BRASS didn’t shy away from answering questions about Jordan Binnington, who was making more noise for his antics — picking fights on the ice, bumping other players — rather than his play. Berube said it was a case of the goalie channeling his frustration by trying to do too much. He was trying to solve all of the team’s problems, and lost mental focus along the way. Berube gave Binnington a few days off, and told him to focus only on his position. “It’s hard because he’s a highly competitive guy, and you talk about frustration — nobody is more frustrated than him in the room, nobody,” Berube said.
Armstrong was also involved. “That’s not a good look for a goaltender to do that,” Armstrong said. “Those antics may have had an effect early, it doesn’t have an effect anymore. I think it’s run its course.”
Rocky road in Philly
Kevin Hayes‘ healthy scratch didn’t sit well with players across the NHL. It was a classic John Tortorella moment, and let’s remember that Tortorella and Hayes have a relationship that dates back to their days with the New York Rangers. But it’s extremely rare to see a team’s leading scorer scratched for performance reasons. “I hate the precedent that sets,” one veteran player texted me. “He’s embarrassing a guy who works his ass off and is actually contributing, just to prove a point.” It feels like this could be the beginning of the end of Hayes’ tenure in Philadelphia.
TORTORELLA HAS BEEN talking about building a process of playing the right way, but it’s been a frustrating season in Philly. The latest blow is that veteran Cam Atkinson will miss the season with neck surgery. More change is on the way. At the deadline, they’ll shop a few of their players, hoping a market materializes for James van Riemsdyk. But there could be bigger structural changes too. Over the last several months, there have been too many mixed messages, too many changes of course. Philadelphia wants to be on a more consistent path and the franchise will figure out how to commit to that.
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Kristen Shilton, ESPN NHL reporter
There are division rivals a team can’t wait to face. Others, not so much.
Take the Washington Capitals for instance, who’ve already seen enough of their Metropolitan Division rivals in New Jersey.
“Thankfully, we’re done with the New Jersey Devils this year,” Capitals’ coach Spencer Carbery joked in late December. “They’ve got a great team. We had some good battles against them. They’ve got a real good team, a well-rounded hockey team.”
Theirs was an evenly matched series in the end — with New Jersey the overall victor at 2-1-0 — but Carbery’s relief in being free of the Devils (for this regular season, at least) is testament to how strong their rivals up I-95 have been this season. Washington is leading the Metro after all, but the Devils are hot on their heels battling for second place.
New Jersey is coming off a brutal 2023-24 campaign that produced a 38-39-5 record, and missed playoff berth for the 10th time in 12 seasons. One year prior, the Devils had been the league’s Cinderella story, surging through their season (at 52-22-8) to make a powerful playoff push, and advancing past another major Metro rival — the New York Rangers — in the first round before falling to the Carolina Hurricanes in the second.
The Devils’ abysmal follow-up to that feat led to layers of fallout within the organization — including coach Lindy Ruff’s firing — while raising red flags about the club’s readiness to be true contenders. GM Tom Fitzgerald had tinkered long enough; when would we start seeing consistent results?
Well, we’re about to find out. New Jersey sits fourth in the Eastern Conference at 25-15-4, and is firmly on track towards the playoffs as the season’s season half approaches. But will the Devils stay on course, and are they built to last? Other teams have been through setbacks and eventually flourished. There’s a blueprint out there to go from zero to (postseason) hero.
What would that look like for New Jersey? And which past success stories could they use as a roadmap to reach such status?
The great ones, it seems, all start with good bones.
PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE. Perseverance is, too.
The Colorado Avalanche needed both to become a behemoth.
Let’s go back to 2016-17. Colorado finished last in the league that season, with a 22-56-4 record while allowing the most goals against and scoring the fewest. It was the worst season on record for the Avalanche since they moved to Denver in 1995, and the second worst season in franchise history overall.
So how did Colorado go from hot mess to making seven consecutive playoff appearances and winning a Cup in 2022? Glad you asked.
It started with establishing a strong core and building from there. Colorado was rooted to Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Gabriel Landeskog and Erik Johnson. Then GM Joe Sakic added critical pieces to the group like Cale Makar, Samuel Girard, Bowen Byram and Devon Toews. The Avalanche’s nucleus rounded carefully into form.
Then there was picking the right coach. When Patrick Roy abruptly resigned in 2016, Sakic tapped rookie NHL head coach Jared Bednar as successor. And yes, Bednar’s first go-around ended with the Avs as bottom-dwellers. But since then, he has soundly stabilized Colorado from behind the bench.
Then it was about key trades and free agent signings. Sakic brought on Nazem Kadri, Andre Burakovsky, Artturi Lehkonen, Valeri Nichushkin, Toews and others — including a No. 1 netminder in Darcy Kuemper to backstop Colorado on their eventual Cup-winning run.
All in all, it took years for Colorado to peak. But the climb was clearly worth the cresting views. And the Devils are attempting to follow a similar blueprint.
The Devils have a solidified core, with headliners Jack Hughes (already in his fifth NHL season), Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec.
Fitzgerald has expanded the Devils with other key skaters — he signed Dougie Hamilton in 2021 and continued bolstering the blue line with free agents Brett Pesce and Brendon Dillon this offseason. The offense got a boost from Fitzgerald signing two-time Cup champion Ondrej Palat and trading for Timo Meier. His best work was trading for goaltender Jacob Markstrom from the Calgary Flames in July, finally giving his team the consistent goaltending it lacked in recent years.
The GM is confident after letting go of Ruff — and his interim replacement Travis Green — that he’s invested in the right coach with Sheldon Keefe. The Devils hired Keefe just days after he was fired by the Toronto Maple Leafs in May after four seasons there. New Jersey is only the second NHL head coaching gig for Keefe, but the transition to New Jersey has been fairly smooth — and generally well-received, based on early returns.
Piece by piece, Fitzgerald — like Sakic — has tried creating a roster to stand the test of time, where players align in a coach’s system designed to take New Jersey over the top.
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Jacob Markstrom makes a brilliant save for the Devils
Jacob Markstrom makes a nice save in the third period for the Devils.
It’s not easy. Health has been an issue for New Jersey; last season, Hughes was limited to 62 games, while Hamilton was out for all but 20 (after he posted 74 points in 82 games the year prior), Meier was sidelined for 13 games and Hischier was gone for 11. Injury absences are among the inevitabilities that every team must simply endure. Much like a few growing pains.
Colorado found that out, too. Once they were back in the postseason field, the Avalanche failed to get past the second round for four consecutive years before the Cup victory. New Jersey might need the same postseason learning experiences — something most of the roster doesn’t have yet — to be properly seasoned for a Cup Final run.
Because scaling that mountain requires a steady ascent, and Keefe believes his approach will provide New Jersey will the correct footing.
“Our vision is to win the Stanley Cup, and that’s very clear,” Keefe said during his introductory press conference. “To win the Stanley Cup, you have to make the playoffs, and it’s about establishing a process we’ll adhere to on a daily basis and ultimately see the sustained, high performance that will lead us to have an opportunity to compete for the Stanley Cup.”
Barring a second-half collapse, the Devils are on their way to seeing spring hockey return to The Rock. But how well positioned is New Jersey to make the most of what opportunity awaits when they arrive?
FITZGERALD HASN’T LOOKED FAR for inspiration in retooling the Devils.
His goal was to recreate New Jersey in its own image, with a strong offensive skill set that would also have fans “reminiscing of the past Devils teams of being heavy [and] harder to play against.”
He’s referencing, of course, that star-driven golden age of New Jersey hockey which included three Cup wins from 1995-2003. Whether Fitzgerald is crafting a club with such capability will be reflected in — and determined by — New Jersey’s postseason performance.
The biggest overhaul Fitzgerald had to make on this quest to contend was in the crease. Last season, the Devils churned through five different goaltending options and never landed on a suitable starter. Fitzgerald eventually traded would-be No.1 Vitek Vanecek (and his .890 save percentage) to San Jose and brought in Jake Allen to finish out the campaign. The Devils finished with the fifth-worst goals-against average (3.43) in the league.
The GM was aggressive in patching that particular hole when he acquired Markstrom from Calgary for a 2025 first-round pick and defenseman Kevin Bahl. That move projected to shore the team up where they most needed support — and Markstrom has delivered in fine form. The veteran is tied for the second-most wins among goalies (20-8-3) with a .911 save percentage and 2.20 goals-against average. And Allen is proving to be a fine backup (.901 SV%, 2.76 GAA).
That tandem gives the Devils peace of mind in goal that they haven’t enjoyed of late. However, the goalies can’t be all that makes New Jersey a tough out like Fitzgerald wants them to be. And the Devils’ recent skid is a prime example of what happens when the team’s offense dries up — and defensive details take a hit.
The Devils have been focused on grooming Hughes and Nemec to carry their back end. Hamilton, Pesce and Dillon are meant to be guiding that process. Markstrom should provide ample confidence that what does get through has a good chance to staying out. That’s the way Fitzgerald drew it up, anyway.
“The fun part is building around the edges, building the complementary guys you need,” Fitzgerald said. “Now you’re putting together a contender, and you’re checking off all the different boxes that contenders have. The last thing I was worried about (entering free agency) was the offense on this team. It was everything else that we needed to build up and check boxes, and we’ve done that.”
The Devils haven’t been immune to setbacks, though. On a six-game stretch from December into January the Devils were a woeful 1-4-1, getting outscored 19-11. There’s been blame to go around — the top skaters (especially Hischier) have slowed at 5-on-5, the Devils’ bottom six isn’t producing at all and outside of the Jonas Siegenthaler-Jonathan Kovacevic pairing, there wasn’t complete defensive buy-in. Markstrom did an admirable job holding the Devils in just about every game, which is further proof of his difference-making ability. But again, he can’t do it alone.
And therein lies the Big Question for New Jersey: When their offense goes cold, is there enough juice defensively to keep them in contention? It’s a problem Keefe is intimately familiar with from his time in Toronto. When the Maple Leafs’ so-called Core Four (Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares) didn’t make it on the scoresheet, Toronto was generally headed for another L (particularly in the postseason). Is New Jersey doomed for the same fate?
“It’s hard to predict what the playoff Devils can look like,” one Eastern Conference executive said. “Can you compare this team to the one two years ago? Maybe. But they’ve arguably changed for the better since then. It does feel a bit like Toronto, though. Regular season success won’t matter if New Jersey can’t turn Hughes and those guys into playoff performers.”
WHAT ELSE CAN Fitzgerald do to ensure New Jersey’s best outcomes are still ahead? Turn his attention fully towards the trade deadline — where the Devils can’t be complacent in their approach.
The team would benefit from boosting its center depth, and a source confirmed the Devils’ interest in Montreal Canadiens‘ pivot Jake Evans as a potential target. Evans is having a career-best season in Montreal, with 10 goals and 23 points in 41 games, and he’d be an ideal addition to New Jersey’s third or fourth line. The Devils might also look at bringing in pending UFAs like Brock Nelson or Yanni Gourde as low-risk, bottom-six depth options.
The Devils could explore some insurance for their back end too, what with the club’s injury history there (Hughes and Pesce have already been sidelined by ailments this season). Cody Ceci — another pending UFA — is an intriguing veteran option with playoff experience.
Any changes would have to complement what Fitzgerald has done to date. The hard work of building New Jersey up is already done. It just hasn’t manifested in playoff success — potentially until now.
Colorado showed how to go from worst to first. New Jersey’s trajectory to this stage — let’s call it base camp — has mirrored the Avalanche’s past journey in multiple ways.
The NHL is a results-driven league, though. The Devils haven’t anything to show for themselves yet. But it feels like the door has been cracked on New Jersey’s time to contend, and usher in the franchise’s next winning era.
Are they ready for it? Let the (real) games begin.
CHICAGO — The Chicago Cubs and free agent Colin Rea have agreed to a one-year, $5 million contract, reuniting the right-hander with manager Craig Counsell, a source told ESPN’s Jesse Rogers on Friday.
The 34-year-old Rea made one appearance with Milwaukee in 2021 and then pitched in Japan during the 2022 season before returning to the Brewers. He went 12-6 with a 4.29 ERA over 27 starts and five relief appearances for the NL Central champions last year.
Counsell managed Milwaukee for nine years before he was hired by Chicago in November 2023.
Rea gives Counsell and Chicago another versatile arm for their pitching staff. The Cubs have Justin Steele, Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon and Matthew Boyd for their rotation, but Rea could push Javier Assad for the fifth spot or work out of the bullpen.
Rea became a free agent when Milwaukee declined its $5.5 million club option on his contract in November. The Iowa native was paid a $1 million buyout.
Rea was selected by San Diego in the 12th round of the 2011 amateur draft out of Indiana State. He made his big league debut with the Padres in 2015.
He pitched for the Cubs during the 2020 season, going 1-1 with a 5.79 ERA in nine appearances, including two starts.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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