As 2022 quickly nears a close, it’s time to look back on the best moments that the calendar year brought in New York sports.
It was surprisingly a very successful year overall in the Big Apple, despite no pro team winning a championship. The Yankees and Mets averaged 100 wins between the two, each making the playoffs and each making big free agent splashes this winter, setting up what should be another successful summer for both baseball squads.
On the gridiron, the Giants and Jets have been two of the biggest surprises of the season, with both teams still in the hunt for a playoff spot.
On the hardwood, the Knicks and Nets are both in playoff spots currently, with Brooklyn reasserting itself as one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference. On the ice, the Rangers came two wins shy of a Stanley Cup berth earlier this year, and now, all three New York area teams are looking primed to make the postseason in 2023.
So, with so many teams and so many moments to choose from, we cut it down to one moment for each New York team to bring you the top 10 moments of 2022.
Giants: Daboll goes for two in Big Blue introduction
Brian Daboll needed less than one full game to show Giants fans that their new head coach, and the team’s new regime, was not going to sit back and wait for a long-awaited turnaround.
In his first game as head coach, Daboll called on the offense to go for the 2-point conversion with just over a minute to go in the team’s season opener against the Titans in Tennessee, rather than taking the extra point to tie the game.
That’s right. A first-year head coach, in his first ever game holding such a title, went for two to take the lead in the season opener against the team that finished first in their conference the year before.
And it worked! A shovel pass to Saquon Barkley gave New York a 21-20 win, its first season-opening win in six years.
Jets: Improbable comeback over Browns in Week 2
Gang Green seemed destined for a fourth straight season starting the year 0-2 as the trailed the Browns by 13 with 1:55 left in the fourth quarter after Nick Chubb punched in his third touchdown of the game.
But the Jets stormed back for 14 unanswered points to grab a stunning 31-30 victory after Joe Flacco hit Corey Davis for a 66-yard touchdown, then New York recovered the ensuing onside kick, and completed the comeback with Flacco leading a game-winning drive capped off by a 15-yard touchdown strike to Garrett Wilson with 22 seconds left in the game.
Yankees: Judge’s 62nd home run
This one is a no-brainer. Aaron Judge, in the greatest contract year the game has ever seen, broke one of the most iconic records of the most iconic sports franchise, surpassing Roger Maris with his 62nd home run of the season in Texas.
Judge didn’t get the ball back, but he did get a $360 million contract from the Yankees for his efforts.
Mets: Unreal ninth-inning comeback over Phillies
There were plenty of great moments for the Mets in 2022, from Edwin Diaz’s viral trumpets entrance to a combined no-hitter and Eduardo Escobar hitting for the cycle, but were any, at least in the moment, more thrilling than the team’s comeback win over the Phillies in May?
Down by six in the ninth inning, the Mets went to work on the Philly bullpen, starting with a two-run home run by Francisco Lindor. Mark Canha drove in the next run with an infield single, the fifth hit of the inning, which brought the tying run to the plate in pinch hitter J.D. Davis, who doubled down the left field line to make it 7-5.
Brandon Nimmo was the next hero of the rally with a two-run single to tie the game with two outs, and Starling Marte finished the absurd barrage with a double to the warning track in left center to drive in Nimmo.
Knicks: signing Jalen Brunson
There wasn’t much to look back on from the back half of the 2021-22 season for the Knicks, but over the summer, the team made the free agency splash that they had desperately needed for the past 20 years: a reliable point guard.
Jalen Brunson has been exactly that for the Knicks, and his four-year deal seems like a bargain up to this point given what he has provided for New York since signing. The lost second-round pick as a result of tampering in their pursuit of Brunson? Well worth it.
Nets: Kyrie Irving’s buzzer beater
Tied at 116 apiece in Toronto, the Nets made a last-minute audible on their inbounds play with 3.7 seconds left on the clock, electing to get the ball to Kyrie Irving instead of Kevin Durant. The result? Irving buried the franchise’s first game-winning buzzer-beater in five years, sinking a stepback 3-pointer as the horn sounded to give Brooklyn a 119-116 win.
The victory continued a hot streak for the Nets that still hasn’t stopped, as the team is once again looking like a true contender in the Eastern Conference.
Rangers: Advance to Eastern Conference Final with game seven victory
The odds seemed stacked against the Blueshirts heading into a game seven against the Hurricanes in Raleigh, where the Canes hadn’t lost a home game all postseason. But in game seven, New York went to work against the team that was tops in the NHL in goal prevention in the regular season, running out to a 4-0 lead and finishing with a 6-2 victory to punch their ticket to the conference final.
Of all the New York teams, none had a more extended playoff run than the Rangers in 2022.
Devils: Two goals in seven seconds to stun Oilers
New Jersey’s 13-game winning streak had been one of the stories of the NHL season this year, and the team’s most thrilling win from that historic streak came in Edmonton on Nov. 3.
Trailing 3-2 with just over three minutes to go in the third period, Ryan Graves got just enough on a shot from between the circles while falling to the ice to trickle past the goal line and tie the game. On the ensuing faceoff at center ice, John Marino sent a stretch pass to a breaking Jesper Bratt, who buried a wrist shot off the far post and in, the team’s second goal in seven seconds, clinching the team’s fifth straight win and easily their most thrilling win of the season.
Islanders: Ilya Sorokin’s jaw-dropping save at MSG
The Rangers aren’t the only team in New York with stellar goaltending, and Ilya Sorokin reminded the NHL world of that truth back in March.
With no score in the early minutes of the first period at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers got a golden opportunity to strike first went Frank Vatrano sent a pass across to Artemi Panarin, who was staring at a wide open net. But Sorokin, nearly out of the crease in an effort to cut off a shot attempt by Vatrano, lunged to his right and somehow stopped Panarin’s shot with his stick, keeping the game scoreless.
The save was later voted to be the Save of the Year by NHL fans over the summer.
Liberty: Late playoff comeback stuns defending champs
The New York Liberty were expected to be an easy out in the first round of the 2022 playoffs when they met the defending champion Chicago Sky. But in game one, a Liberty team that ended the regular season four games under .500 erased a six-point deficit with 3:31 left in the game by ending the series opener on a 13-0 run.
The Liberty went on to lose the last two games, but the series opener put a brief shock into the defending champs.
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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