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New York Times
12 minutes ago
- New York Times
Burning Rangers questions for 2025-26: Should Gavrikov and Fox play together?
No matter the coach, Adam Fox's defensive partner remained consistent through his first six NHL seasons with the New York Rangers. Whether David Quinn, Gerard Gallant or Peter Laviolette was behind the bench, Fox almost always played alongside Ryan Lindgren, his friend dating back to their days at the U.S. National Team Development Program. Advertisement According to Natural Stat Trick, the Lindgren-Fox pair skated at least 600 five-on-five minutes together in every season since Fox entered the league in 2019-20. Fox won the Norris Trophy as the NHL's best defenseman with Lindgren by his side in 2020-21, and the Rangers reached two Eastern Conference finals with them as partners. All the while, though, New York did not commit to Lindgren long-term, and a difficult individual start to the 2024-25 season contributed to general manager Chris Drury trading him to the Colorado Avalanche at the March deadline. Now, with Lindgren in Seattle on a four-year free-agent contract, Fox needs a new partner. Deciding who to play with Fox on the Rangers' top pairing will be among the biggest decisions for new coach Mike Sullivan heading into fall. Drury turned to free agency to provide a compelling option, signing Vladislav Gavrikov to a seven-year deal worth $7 million in average annual value. The 6-f00t-3 Gavrikov was one of the league's best shutdown defensemen last season with the Kings. 'When you really watch him closely — just his foot positioning, the way he positions himself between the puck and the goal — he's just always in the right position,' said one Western Conference-based NHL scout who frequently watched Gavrikov in 2024-25. 'You have to play through him. … He just neutralizes you. He's just so smart about it. He makes it look easy.' On paper, slotting Gavrikov on the right-handed Fox's left side is the obvious move — the best possible pair that the Rangers could make. 'More than anything, he's a safety valve that lets Fox have more risk in his game,' the same scout said. Another NHL scout, based in the Eastern Conference, similarly saw potential benefits in putting the offensively gifted Fox with a strong, defensively minded blueliner. Advertisement 'I could definitely see them being used as a pair together,' the scout said. 'Gavrikov is a bigger guy, really good at breaking up plays, good stick. Fox is way more of that new school offensive puck-mover. Their playing styles are different and they're built completely differently physically. Maybe the differences can complement each other.' Fox played at least 100 minutes at five-on-five with three partners in 2024-25, according to Natural Stat Trick: Lindgren (611:31), K'Andre Miller (314:46) and Carson Soucy (146:38). In total he commanded over 50 percent of the five-on-five expected goal share, per the website, though just barely with Lindgren (50.02 percent). With the Miller-Fox or Soucy-Fox pairings on the ice, New York had more than 60 percent of the expected goal share. Fox's counting stats took a dip in 2024-25, with 61 points compared to 70-plus in each of the previous three seasons, primarily because the Rangers' power play struggled. But his underlying numbers were still elite. The Kings similarly enjoyed at least 50 percent of the expected goals share when any pairing with Gavrikov was on the ice last season (minimum 15 minutes played). If Gavrikov plays at the high level he did in 2024-25, there's reason to believe he and Fox could instantly become one of the NHL's best pairs. 'I wouldn't be surprised if that's what you see in training camp or preseason,' said a Western Conference executive. 'It gives you a chance to put your best two defensemen on the ice at the same time for 20-24 minutes every night, which is always a great option.' Gavrikov and Fox have both shown they can carry a pairing on their own, which could lead to Sullivan splitting them up, at least for part of games. The coach could play someone like Braden Schneider — a right shot who played on the left early last season — or Soucy with Fox for long stretches of the game, then put Gavrikov and Fox together for shifts in key situations. Advertisement 'If you're not a pair (the whole game), then you are in the last four minutes of a period, five minutes of a period,' the Western Conference executive said. 'You make your adjustments. With TV timeouts and team timeouts, you have options to keep them on the ice together for an extended period of time.' Sullivan's decision on Fox's partner will have a trickle-down effect on the rest of the lineup. Fox and K'Andre Miller were strong partners for the Rangers in 2024-25, but Laviolette frequently split them up so the rest of the lineup had more balance. If Sullivan stacks the top pair with Gavrikov-Fox, then two of the following players would need to make up the second pairing: Will Borgen, Schneider, Soucy, Urho Vaakanainen and Scott Morrow. None of them have ever averaged more than 18 minutes a game in a full season. One Eastern Conference executive noted that New York has traded away Lindgren, Miller and Jacob Trouba, all of whom averaged 20 minutes at least once in their Rangers career. That's a lot of minutes to replace. 'I don't know how just the one signing (in Gavrikov) is going to make them back to contending for the division,' he said. 'That's their challenge.' The Eastern Conference executive views Schneider, who is 23 and coming off labrum surgery, as a top-four defenseman, but sees Borgen as more of a No. 5 or 6. (He noted, though, that sometimes players can find chemistry with another defenseman and rise higher in the lineup than they'd otherwise be slotted.) The Eastern-based scout liked Borgen's play after New York acquired him in the Kaapo Kakko deal in Dec. 2024, viewing him as a legitimate top-four option. But the scout added that in his estimation, the Rangers currently have 'closer to a top three' than a top four. 'I could also see that leading to them possibly breaking up Fox and Gavrikov if you wanted to balance it out a little bit more,' he said. Advertisement The roster, of course, is not finished. The Rangers are close to the salary cap right now, but if they stay under without using long-term injured reserve they can accrue space before the deadline. Then they could try to trade for another defenseman. That could come at the expense of adding to the forward group, which also could use bolstering. (We'll get to that in a future story for this series.) 'Do they have to add someone (at defense)?' the Western scout said. 'Maybe. But I don't mind their D.' But the right combinations could also just take time to figure out. Pairings sometimes take time to jell. 'That's not one of those (things) you can analyze purely through analytics or pure through the eye test or pure through statistics or anything,' the Eastern Conference executive said. 'It's, 'Do guys read and how well do they read off one another? Do they compliment one another?' And that's art to me.' (Photos of Vladislav Gavrikov and Adam Fox: Alex Gallardo and Pamela Smith / AP Photo) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
New York Times
12 minutes ago
- New York Times
As Sidney Crosby turns 38, could he follow in Tom Brady's footsteps?
PITTSBURGH — I have always found it delightfully ironic that Tom Brady, who ruined so many promising winters in Pittsburgh, also made them better. As Sidney Crosby's concussion was becoming career-threatening in 2011, it was Brady who reached out to Crosby and offered medical advice and contacts to help in the recovery process. But other than being two of the greatest athletes of all time, Crosby and Brady don't seem to have all that much in common. Or do they? Crosby turns 38 today, which is hard to believe. He has been a member of the Penguins organization for more than half of his life (20 years and counting). When a great hockey player hits this age, you know the end is near — like Bob Dylan once said, 'It's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there.' But is it? Realistically, sure. But this is Crosby we're talking about. Jim Rutherford, his former general manager, once told me, 'He's not going to age like other players. Do you know why? Because he isn't like other players.' Rutherford said that in 2019 and he was right. Let's take a look at the numbers for a moment. This is Crosby's points-per-game average in each season during his 30s: Age 30, 2017-18 season: 1.09 Age 31, 2018-19 season: 1.27 Age 32, 2019-20 season: 1.15 Age 33, 2020-21 season: 1.13 Age 34, 2021-22 season: 1.22 Age 35, 2022-23 season: 1.13 Age 36, 2023-24 season: 1.15 Age 37, 2024-25 season: 1.14 I don't know about you, but I don't see any regression in those totals. If you have a truly astute hockey eye and study Crosby thoroughly, perhaps you see the slight changes in his game. He doesn't explode through with neutral zone with quite the suddenness of his youth, for instance. But to be honest, that's about the only thing in his game that looks any different than it did a decade ago, and even that might not be accurate. It could simply be that the rest of the league has gotten faster in the past decade and his body is doing exactly what it always has done. All of which brings us back to athletes' careers enduring much longer than they once did in general, and Brady specifically. Peak Brady in 2007 might have had more arm strength than the 43-year-old Brady who won the Super Bowl to conclude the 2020 season for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. As I recall, 43-year-old Brady would have the occasional off game, something that never happened to 30-year-old Brady. Yet he was still among the best, even at that age, and still able to engineer another championship even after so many had written him off. Is it inconceivable to imagine Crosby doing something similar? Oh, it won't happen this season. Or the one after, I imagine. Crosby is playing for a rebuilding team, something Brady never had to do. Crosby, however, isn't showing any signs of slowing down. Surrounded by one of the NHL's worst rosters last season, he still put up nearly 100 points. While Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust are very much above-average NHL players, let's not act like either of his linemates is a superstar. Crosby wasn't getting cheap points because of them. He was putting up all of those points because he was Crosby. Kyle Dubas has done a good job of acquiring assets for his rebuilding Penguins during the past 18 months. Finally, they have a thriving minor-league system, one that is going to produce one NHL player after another in coming seasons. There is one problem, though: Where is the star power going to come from? That's always the biggest problem for rebuilding teams that aren't lucky enough to win the draft lottery. If the ping pong ball bounces the right way next spring and the Penguins snatch Gavin McKenna, then the rebuild will have gone from 0 to 100 MPH in a heartbeat and everything changes. But the odds are — sorry — that this won't happen. The truth is, Stanley Cup teams need superstars. You don't win a Cup without the likes of Aleksander Barkov, or Jack Eichel, or Nikita Kucherov. Hockey might be the ultimate team game, but you better have star power or you won't last long in the playoffs. The Penguins have one superstar capable — even at the grand old age of 38 — of carrying a team through the grind that is the Stanley Cup playoffs, if surrounded by teammates who are capable of keeping up with him. The common assumption these days is that by the time the Penguins build a truly good team, Crosby will have walked off into the sunset. (Or, if you live anywhere else but Pittsburgh, you think he'll be wearing an Avalanche or Canadiens jersey by then). We are basing this on history and on math. History and math are two fine teachers, so I'm not disputing the potential that Crosby is near the end and we'll see a sharp decline in his play sooner rather than later. We saw it in Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky at this age. We've seen it in others. Perhaps all of this, however, is selling Crosby short. He will never catch Gretzky's numbers (no one will) and he'll never showcase Lemieux's talent (no one will), but he also has other attributes that exceed those two. They didn't have Crosby's drive. (No one does.) I don't think they had his obsession with winning, either, and that is what keeps him chugging along. I asked Crosby last season if he was going to take a break following the 4 Nations Face-Off championship game. He was exhausted and wasn't 100 percent, the Penguins' season was going nowhere: it seemed reasonable. He just shook his head and responded quietly, 'Nah. When you get older, you start to feel it in your hands if you take time off. I can't do that.' As he ages, he works even harder to maintain this level. He does it because he takes tremendous pride in being the Penguins' captain, yes. He does it because he wants to win one more gold medal as captain of Team Canada in February. But he does it for another reason, too. He's hopeful Dubas pushes the right buttons, this rebuild happens faster than anticipated and a new era of Penguins arrives in the playoff picture again faster than anyone expects. If that happens, Crosby will be waiting to dominate in the springtime, like he's done so many times before. And maybe, just maybe, he'll still be Crosby. Perhaps it's nothing more than a birthday wish. But Crosby might also be capable of willing such a thing to happen. The clock is surely ticking, but it ticks a little more slowly for him, and maybe it won't be dark for a while. He isn't like the others, after all. (Photo of Sidney Crosby and Tom Brady: Justin Berl and Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
New York Times
12 minutes ago
- New York Times
Celebrini for Bedard? Sigh. Must be summer silly season: Lazerus NHL mailbag
The entire hockey world is kicking back with a cold drink at a quaint cottage by a lake right about now. I'm in the pickup line for my daughter's marching band practice. So much for Gary Bettman's beloved parity. Anyway, on to Part 2 of my summer mailbag. Space (and my editors' patience) is limited, so I did my best to keep the answers concise so I could get to as many of your complaints — er, questions — as possible. It seems the consensus among fans, media, and the rest of the league is that the Blackhawks are bound for yet another lottery pick. I know the players believe they can be more successful than that, but I'm wondering what you've heard as far as the front office's internal expectations, if anything. Does Kyle Davidson's brain trust believe they can surprise people and be at least competitive, if not a playoff team? — Tom R Call me a cynic, but I think the Blackhawks brass would be very happy either way. Despite fan frustration and bored pundits like me screaming for them to do something, the Blackhawks have positioned themselves in a way that makes this a no-lose season. Either the young players take a massive step toward something special (and it'll have to be massive to get them out of 31st or 32nd place), or they're as bad as the public expects and have a great shot at drafting Gavin McKenna. Either fits the plan just fine. Advertisement After the Blackhawks finished the 2023-2024 season with 52 points, I thought they should have had 70 points in the 2024-2025 season. They didn't and ended up with only 61 points. How many points this season should the Blackhawks have to be considered a successful season? — Joshua B Uh, I don't know, 75? Doesn't matter. The Blackhawks brass doesn't care about their points total this year, so you shouldn't, either. If Connor Bedard scores 35 goals and Frank Nazar posts 50-plus points and Sam Rinzel looks like he looked at the end of the season and Artyom Levshunov reins himself in without stifling his creativity and Kevin Korchinski settles into a permanent role and Oliver Moore does, too, then that's all that matters. If they don't, well … Can you put the Crosby contract method in Connor Bedard's head by asking him repeatedly (like a child on a road trip) about it? Nine-point-eight for the next 20 years is almost 200 million. Sounds fair to me. — Gregory E. Good luck with that. In 20 years, $200 million might buy you a gallon of gas. Or, at the rate we're going, guzzolene. The 1901 project gets scrapped. The White Sox have been sold and relocated. The Bulls have a new standalone arena while the Bears win back-to-back Super Bowls in Arlington Heights. Danny Wirtz purchases then gets approval to demo the United Center to build a new hockey wonderland in its place. He leans on you to build a new hockey oasis. You have the creative mind. You have the travel experience for what does and does not work. You are also a parent trying to entertain your kid. From food, to the outside entertainment, to transportation, to the pregame video and anthem singer, to the goal song, to the press-box design and so on. Give us your dystopian Blackhawks Arena proposal for fans, staff, players, and reporters to create the most magical and over the top experience possible. — Grant M Honestly? Just win. The food tastes better, the music sounds sweeter, the seats feel more comfortable, the insane prices seem more palatable and the kids become fans faster when the team is good. Nobody cares anymore that the Florida Panthers' soulless arena is in an endless parking lot across from a mall, do they? Did the Blackhawks make a strategic mistake by signing Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews to identical long-term contracts? Did it tie up too much money in two players and prohibit them from building the type of team that Kane/Toews had around them before their large contracts? — Barry K No, they didn't make a mistake. Yes, it certainly made things difficult, and it's true all three Stanley Cup wins came before those contracts kicked in. But the cap was supposed to keep rising forever, and they had no alternative. With their contracts coming due at the same time, the team couldn't elevate one over the other, nor did one deserve to be elevated over the other. And they were 25-26 years old, in their absolute primes (Toews, at that point, was viewed by many as the second-best player on the planet) and in the midst of the greatest run in franchise history. They earned every cent of those contracts. Had the Blackhawks known the cap was going to flatten toward the end of those deals, they certainly would have rethought the price tag. But hindsight is always 20/20. Advertisement I was always curious about the awful Phillip Danault trade. Was that all Stan Bowman and was there an internal backlash over it? — Vince L It was a horrible trade. We knew it right away. The worst one he made, really, even worse than the Artemi Panarin one. But what would you give to be in a situation in which the Blackhawks are making potentially reckless win-now trades like that at the deadline again? For the first time in my life as a Mets fan, I can tell you, it kind of rules. What shifts are you seeing in engagement since you guys both do X/Twitter and Bluesky? What do you see from the creator sides? What should we be doing to help you with articles and tweets? — Anonymous Click on links. Read stories to the end. Share them if you're so inclined. It's really that simple. That said, since my dad, I've only used Twitter (ugh, X) for story links and movie reviews. And I miss it a lot less than I thought I would. We'll see if I have the self-control to stay away when hockey season begins. (Narrator: He won't.) It's a truly awful place these days, and while I have very thick skin, there are only so many times you can have someone tweet you a zoomed-in photo of your nose before you start losing interest. Bluesky is nice and pleasant and there's surprisingly good engagement over there from a population starving for sports coverage, but it'll never replace Twitter because it'll never have the real-time news that Twitter's sheer scale creates. I've come to look at Twitter as a necessary evil. My Tweetdeck is constantly spinning like a slot machine. My Blue Deck is not. And unfortunately, I doubt it ever will. Why is the San Jose Sharks' rebuild viewed so much more favorably than the Hawks' rebuild? The Sharks forwards might look better, but the Hawks have the advantage in better defenders that are closer to being full-time NHLers. — Kyle H It's vibes. That's all. The Sharks are a year behind the Blackhawks in their teardown, so their fans aren't as miserable yet. Also, don't discount the general animus many other fan bases have toward the Blackhawks (some of it earned, let's be honest), the inevitable resentment of Bedard because of the hype that was entirely out of his control, and the fact that Chicago fans were spoiled in the 2010s, leading to unmeetable expectations. Both teams are in the same boat, rowing down the same river. Both rebuilds likely will be judged against each other in the long run, but how fun would it be if they became the next two Western powers for another decade or so? Connor Bedard for Macklin Celebrini: Who says no? — Jacob B The Blackhawks. And the Sharks. Y'all are exhausting. Advertisement Lukas Reichel for Yegor Chinakhov: Who says no? — Rowen B I would. But I'm starting to think I'm basically Tom Hanks in 'Cast Away' out here on Reichel Island. With all the losing and all the high picks, the Hawks have a lot of young guys. So far I haven't seen anything from them that gives me a 'that guy's gonna be a superstar' vibe. I thought that might be Bedard but he's having more trouble adjusting than I hoped he would. Who, if anyone, in the pipeline gives you that kind of vibe? I need someone to hang my hopes on. — Bryan H Bedard will be a superstar. I'm long past having doubts about that. Dude just turned 20 a couple of weeks ago and has 128 points in 150 games playing mostly with bottom-sixers. Come on. Believe Nathan MacKinnon when he talks. But if you're looking for that je ne sais quoi that gave Kane a megastar aura even before his performance fully backed it up, it's Nazar. He has a confidence, a swagger, an infectious personality that doesn't come around very often in this milquetoast sport. And based on how he closed the season, then went off at Worlds, I think he might be the one you're looking for. The kid's got it. Would you consider adjusting your definition of a dynasty if a league were to function in such a way that dynasties became dramatically less impressive, even just temporarily? Similarly, would you consider adjusting your definition if it seemed like dynasties could become a thing of the past entirely? Basically, I suppose I'm reopening the dynasty debate by asking you what it would take to make you change your definition. — Ally A Sigh. Why can't we just come up with new terms? Dynasties do not yield power for a year or two here or there while they're on top. A dynasty is three straight championships or more. The end. Sorry, Edmonton. Sorry, New England. Sorry, Chicago. Have you ever had any sort of confrontation or animosity from a player (or coach/exec) over something you've written? — Dan B Certainly. It's rarely been anything but respectful disagreement, though. We're all grown-ups in there, for the most part. I once saw a player shove a reporter (not me!) up against a wall in the locker room, but that was more than 20 years ago — another beat, another lifetime. Besides, these days, it's more likely to happen over an off-the-cuff tweet than a well-thought-out story. That actually happened a couple times this past season (again, not me!). I'm sure you all want details, but what gets F-bombed in the locker room stays in the locker room. What other sports media do you regularly read/watch/listen to (besides Scott Powers' pieces)? — Todd E Scott who? None, really, other than actual game broadcasts. Most people use sports as their escape, but when sports are your job, you seek other outlets. At least, I do. For me, it's TV and movies. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my four most-listened-to podcasts (hundreds and hundreds of hours' worth) are all pop-culture-related — 'House of R,' 'The Ringer-Verse,' 'The Big Picture' and 'The Watch.' I'm a huge nerd, is what I'm saying. I love what I love, and I love listening to people enjoy (and trenchantly critique) the things I love. Advertisement I read Hawks articles every day, even the stupid clickbait trade proposals. I listen to four different podcasts regularly. I've got a running spreadsheet of prospects on which I happily changed Nick Lardis' height to 6-foot. Last week, I scoured payrolls for high-salary injured guys that could get us to the cap floor in '26-'27. All this for a team that is clearly a minimum of four years away from being competitive. What the truck is wrong with me and do you have suggestions for other ways to occupy my time for the rest of the decade? — Stretch A I do not. Please keep subscribing. Maniacal fans like you are the lifeblood of this place, and Scott and I very much enjoy being employed. My son just graduated with a master's in creative writing. He can clearly write. But that does not get him a job. Assuming he won't write the next Harry Potter phenomenon, what is the job landscape for writing? The newspaper industry seems to be on life support. Where do you see the next generation of writers writing? — Warren C Most students have been told by every teacher and journalist they see to run screaming from this industry, as fast and as far as they possibly can. I wholeheartedly disagree. Everything is writing these days. Journalism is writing. Filmmaking is writing. Video-game creation is writing. Advertising is writing. Public relations is writing. Even science is writing, especially as the competition ratchets up for what little grant money remains. Being able to tell a compelling story as a creative writer or being able to communicate clearly as a technical writer will help you in nearly every walk of life (short of having an actually useful skill like a trade). As for journalism? There's never been more good journalism than there is now. Unfortunately, there's also never been more imitation journalism and poor journalism, and an increasingly media-illiterate populace is rapidly losing the ability to discern the difference. But there's never been a greater need for good journalism than there is now. Work at a legacy paper. Work for an alt-weekly. Work for a website. Start a Substack. Create a deeply reported and well-written podcast. Good reporting, good journalism and, yes, good writing will find an audience. I have to believe that. And in this age of state-run media and worthless brain-rot AI, we need it more than ever. (Photo of Connor Bedard: Michael Reaves / Getty Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
