NIAGARA FALLS, NY: Happy Monday. Happy Indigenous Peoples Day to our American readers, and Happy Thanksgiving to our Canadian readers. That’s about three happys, and that’s enough. Let’s get into it. On the menu today: the Rangers weekly review, the WNBA playoffs, and the New York football state of mind.
Rangers Weekly Review
It was all good just a week ago. One of my favorite songs, and that’s how I feel right now. The Rangers had started this season 4-1, and this week they went to pay that high price. And their one loss in the middle of the week against the Capitals came when Igor Shesterkin went down.
Now the Rangers were a bit light in goal because career backup Jonas Korpisalo, who is this year’s backup, went down with an injury at the start of the week. So the Rangers called up their top goalie in Hartford, Dylan Garand, who had been doing a little bit of yo-yo, but was still young for a goalie at 26.
Shesterkin has been determined to have a season-long injury and is out. Korpisalo is going to be gone for 4 weeks. I don’t know what Mike Sullivan and Chris Drury are thinking, because in Garand’s first start last night, the Rangers won the game 6-2 against the Canucks.
I feel that the kid has been considered a top-six prospect for the franchise the last couple of years. He’s going to be given the chance to stake his claim, and I see the Rangers reviewing it after 2 weeks and seeing if the team can hold out till Shesterkin is healthy. But they will be working the waiver wire and trading block to find another top-class backup, like a Jonathan Quick or a Cam Talbot that they’ve had in the past.
I know I’ve touched on the WNBA a few times, but I have to touch on it now because the championship is set, period, and it will be a new team winning their first WNBA title.
There were some key upsets as the number one seed Minnesota Lynx were upset by the New York Liberty in the first round, best of three. And although I expected them to go out to the Lynx, I was really disappointed that they then got swept by the Atlanta Dream. But it’s not for lack of effort—you can’t be losing each game by five points or less. It’s just a thing in your account, the ability to get past the Lynx, and they didn’t have enough for the Dream.
The Dream’s superstar is Angel Reese, the current Defensive Player of the Year. Atlanta sweeping New York means they’ve yet to lose in the playoffs.
On the other side of the bracket, the Aces did away with the Fever of Indiana and star Caitlin Clark. The Aces then ran up against and got swept by the Golden State Valkyries, who are only in their second year of existence. The little irony is the former assistant coach for the Aces is the head coach of the Valkyries. So it appears the student is now the teacher.
So the final will have the Golden State Valkyries vs. the Atlanta Dream. Essentially these guys are almost WNBA 3.0 teams, so it’s good to see new markets in the final creating new fans.
The J-E-T-S are right where they should be for a second-year coach’s team. The first year they’re going to be a mess; the second year you want to see some fight and you want to see the coach’s influence. This team has proven to be nothing if not resilient.
After three bad losses in a row, including one against Green Bay they shouldn’t have lost and one against Chicago that came up short of being handled by Detroit, the Jets came home to take on the Cleveland Browns. These Browns, coached by Andrew Ward’s favorite football offensive coordinator, Todd Monken, were on a three-game winning streak and looking good, led by Deshaun Watson of all people at quarterback.
But the Jets managed in a rainy game to blow the lead late thanks to a fumble by special teams, and then due to a Cleveland special teams mishap they were able to tackle the punter and get the ball back and score a touchdown. And then the defense held out, and let me tell you, the defense had eight sacks yesterday. They were relentless, they were on the ball, they were causing turnovers, and it wasn’t beautiful, but when they needed to be clutch and shut down the Cleveland offense to win the game, the defense stood up to be counted. These are all positive signs for this team and this coach and give a glimmer of hope to Jets fans.
New York Giants
The Giants rule—that’s right, they drew with the Washington Commanders in a game nobody seemed to want to win. This game was kind of ugly with some really bad turnovers by both sides, but some really good plays by the Giants’ two MVP-caliber stars, Isaiah Likely and Malik Nabers. I just said I still don’t know how the same team Baltimore let Likely go over Mark Andrews, but I think that probably was a budget thing.
In the game, the Commanders are led by Jaylen—that’s spelled J-A-Y-L-E-N. I’m just being clear because early in the week there was a Jaylon (J-A-L-O-N), Daniels’ dad, who led Tampa Bay over the Cowboys. Come on, let’s laugh at the Cowboys. So anyway, Washington’s Jaylen Daniels and his receivers were doing devastating work. Daniels was spreading the ball around and scored two touchdowns this week.
But the key points in the game came on three things. The Giants kicker missing a game-winner, going two for four for the day. Then in overtime, after a bit of back and forth with nobody scoring, the Giants get a turnover, and then for some reason Cam Skattebo, at a moment when he should clearly be protecting the ball, didn’t, and with two minutes left in overtime, fumbles it. Washington gets the ball, somehow they lose track of the clock and call a busted play, Daniels dives, and they don’t have enough time to set up for the field goal. Game over. Really weird, and I will let the Giants’ man talk about it.
Buffalo Bills
Nothing to add to the Bills. They played the Rams today. We’ll see if they bounce back at home after losing to the Patriots, but it also will be interesting to see how they handle the Rams’ pass rush, which is starting to get rolling.
Come back tomorrow for The Big Aristotle.
