Why Devils have better NHL title shot than Rangers, Islanders

The inconvenient truth for local hockey fans is that the best team in the area starts its season on Thursday night, and no, we are not talking about the Rangers.

While the Blueshirts are starting the Peter Laviolette era in Buffalo and the Islanders are waiting until Saturday(!) to begin their season, the Devils will start the season against the Red Wings at the Prudential Center, looking to improve on a 112-point 2022-23 campaign that accounted for the franchise’s best ever regular season.

We are used to ignoring the Devils, who have become ninth on a list of area pro teams that often gets shortened to eight. That is not without reason — before last season, they had made the playoffs just once since the 2012 Stanley Cup Final, finished above .500 just three times and failed to win a postseason series. But it can’t continue.

The Rangers have a pair of top-two picks they are hoping will break out this season in Alexis Lafreniere and Kaapo Kakko. The Devils have a pair of No. 1 picks who could win the Hart (MVP) and Selke Trophies (best defensive forward) this year in Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier.

If not for one Connor Bedard in Chicago, Luke Hughes would be a popular Calder Trophy (rookie of the year) pick as well.

The Islanders are trying to hang onto a core whose best season together was two years ago. The Devils are still in the early days of a core whose achievements could include a Stanley Cup title as soon as this year.

The Rangers fired their coach after last season and the Islanders did so the year before. Devils fans called for Lindy Ruff’s head, then apologized. He was signed to a contract extension on Wednesday, the team announced, and is set to pass Ken Hitchcock for fourth on the all-time wins list this season.

The other local teams have real playoff aspirations this season. The Rangers could do a little more than merely making the postseason. But remember, it was the first-round playoff loss to the Devils that set the tone for Laviolette’s eventual hiring and everything to come this season in the first place.

No one expected the Devils to prevail in that series, just as no one expected them to come from nowhere last season, defying their own rebuild timeline.

They proved, instead, to be perfectly adept for a league that is spinning toward valuing the kind of speed and skill that Hughes possesses in droves.

General manager Tom Fitzgerald, it turned out, knew what he was doing in adding John Marino last offseason and Dougie Hamilton the year before, bolstering the defense into one of the league’s best. He went on to trade for Timo Meier at the deadline and deal for Tyler Toffoli this offseason, adding more scoring prowess to an already stacked top six.

Add in that Ondrej Palat is healthy, that Dawson Mercer is primed for a breakout season and that the brass seems to think Akira Schmid could be an answer in nets and this gets pretty scary pretty fast.

The Rangers’ ceiling might be high, but there is a lot of faith being placed in Lafreniere, who did not reciprocate with a good preseason. Whether or not the scars left over from last spring’s failure to overcome the Devils proves too much is a question that can only be answered in time.

The Islanders have a physicality and edge to them that the Devils do not — a problem Fitzgerald should look to address before the playoffs. But offensively, the Devils can skate circles around them.

Hockey and basketball seasons starting is a good salve for New York’s misery unto itself.

But the best chance to end the Big 4 title drought that’s gripped the city for over a decade lies across the George Washington Bridge.

Today’s back page

The Tyrod Taylor show

There was a school of thought during Giants training camp last season that at least they had a serviceable backup in Tyrod Taylor to turn to if Daniel Jones fell apart.

This is probably not the scenario in which anyone envisioned that school of thought to be tested.

Nothing has been officially declared, but Taylor is looking likely to start at quarterback on Sunday after Jones suffered a neck injury that knocked him out of last week’s game against the Dolphins.

If he does start, he will do so behind an offensive line that is both banged up — Andrew Thomas and John Michael Schmitz are both injured and may be out — and badly struggling. Jones was sacked 28 times through five weeks, over half his total in 16 games last season.

Oh, and the Giants are playing Buffalo which … at least has lost to one New York quarterback who looked overmatched this year?

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Giants were 14-point underdogs with the Bills as -900 favorites on the moneyline — an implied probability of victory of 90 percent.

It can always get worse. But it’s getting pretty difficult to see the light right now.

Liberty go down 0-2: Numbers to know

The showdown of WNBA superteams has been less than super. The Liberty suffered another one-sided loss to the defending champion Aces on Wednesday night in Game 2 of the Finals, 104-76. It was over almost as soon as it started and academic by the third quarter.

Here are some numbers to know with the Liberty having been forced to the brink:

3️⃣8️⃣ Points in the first quarter for the Aces. It was 19-2 after four minutes and 38-19 at the horn.

6️⃣ The Liberty’s deficit late in the second quarter after they had whittled the score to 50-44.

3️⃣1️⃣ Combined points for the Liberty’s backcourt trio of Betnijah Laney (12 points, 4-of-15 shooting), Sabrina Ionescu (10 points, 2-of-10) and Courtney Vandersloot (nine points, 3-of-9). The Aces’ guard trio of Jackie Young, Kelsey Plum and Chelsea Gray combined for 61, and Gray added a game-high 11 assists, many of the highlight variety.

9️⃣ Consecutive double-doubles in this postseason for Jonquel Jones. The Liberty center had a heroic 19 points and 10 rebounds at halftime … and just three points and zero rebounds thereafter.

1️⃣7️⃣ Previous best-of-5 playoff series in WNBA history in which a team has faced an 0-2 deficit. Those teams are 0-17, including 0-8 in the Finals.

The series shifts to Barclays Center for Game 3 on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, ABC).

— Jonathan Lehman

Maccabi Ra’anana visits Brooklyn

The Nets have their second preseason game on Thursday, an occasion that matters little on the basketball calendar, but bears watching for other reasons.

The team plays host to Maccabi Ra’anana, a second-division club based out of Ra’anana, Israel, which will return home after a three-game preseason tour against NBA teams to a different country than the one they left.

Sporting events in Israel have been postponed in the wake of terrorist attacks over the weekend by Hamas. FIBA also postponed international matches involving Israeli teams, and UEFA postponed soccer matches in the country as well, including the national team’s scheduled qualifier for Euro 2024 against Switzerland on Thursday.

The Nets have not commented on the situation unfolding in the Middle East, though the NBA and NBPA issued a joint statement over the weekend mourning the dead and condemning the acts of terrorism.

The attacks and subsequent war will however be an unfortunate backdrop to both this game and the rest of Maccabi Ra’anana’s tour, which includes games in Cleveland and Minnesota next week.

MLB scoreboard

Phillies 10, Braves 2: Bryce Harper hit two bombs then taunted the Braves as the Phillies took a 2-1 series lead at raucous Citizens Bank Park.

Astros 3, Twins 2: The Astros reached an astounding seventh consecutive ALCS, ensuring it will be a Texas team in the World Series. As Justin Verlander put it, “We f–king grinded. I wasn’t even f–king here.”

Diamondbacks 4, Dodgers 2: The six-seed Snakes slither on. The Dodgers head into a lonely winter of trying to sign Shohei Ohtani after Lance Lynn allowed four solo homers to seal an improbable sweep.