I know everyone is going to be focused on the benching/poor play of Marian Gaborik tonight. I know people are going to be lauding the great play of the Devils. But truth be told, to me the Rangers just looked like a tired team. A team that had played the maximum amount of games till this point (and going forward till this series is over), and a team that needed a few days off. The Rangers looked tired. I know Torts wants us all to believe that this isn’t a tired team, but I’m not buying it. The sheer amount, and style of hockey the Rangers play makes it nigh impossible to be fresh. Devils looked just a step quicker for most of the game and the Rangers couldn’t get their legs going except for a 10-15 minute stretch in the 2nd, mostly due to the play of Chris Kreider. Outside of that, the Rangers just looked like they had an empty tank.

Because of that, I’m going the team a pass tonight. I know nobody wants to hear it. I know everyone is going to be irate, jumping off of cliffs, blah blah blah. Personally, I saw a team with zero left in the tank, and only lose by 1 goal thanks to 2 deflection goals. Rangers *could* have won this one tonight, despite driving on fumes.

Forget about it. Rest up. Come back on Saturday with a more Ranger like effort.

That’s all. Nothing more to be said guys. Go do something fun with your family, and believe in this team. We’ve won every series after losing game 2. This is no different. I’m not worried, neither you should be.

The Rangers probably played one of their weaker games this playoffs for the bulk of this game. They still won, and they still deserved to win. Why? Because they were willing to pay the price. To sacrifice their bodies to cover their mistakes. To do whatever it took to keep the puck out. No matter the cost, they were going to give it everything to win the game. Mentally, they were all over the place. Poor reads, poor decision making, poor passes, but the effort level was there.

I don’t think it was a result of the Devils play either. Their forecheck is nothing the Rangers are unfamiliar with, nor is it something that should scare the hell out of them. It is what it is. The big difference tonight was the Rangers mentally. They weren’t sharp. But, like I said before, they were willing to pay the price to win games.

So, despite playing a so-so game, the Rangers came out with a 3-0 win, that probably should have been 4-0 if not for a miraculous save by Uncle Daddy on Marc Staal. Why? Because the Rangers are not the Flyers, and the Devils are not that Capitals. I said it before this series started. This is a good matchup for the Rangers compared to those 2 teams. The Devils system is going to give the Rangers some chances to put some goals in. Their holes are highly exploitable. Start with the goaltending. Sure, Brodeur made 1 incredible save. He also made an excellent stop on MDZ earlier in the game when he came way out. But he also misplayed 2 pucks due to the Rangers pressure, and both of the goals he gave up were fairly soft. Girardis shot wasn’t exactly a bomb. I’m not sure if he was screened on the shot, he didn’t seem to act like he was, he just wasn’t in the position to make the stop if the shot was to the far post, which it was. The Kreider goal…a wrister from above the top of the circles? You have to stop that shot. Kreider has a wicked had shot with a Gaborik-esque release, but still, a goalie this deep in the playoffs needs to stop that shot. Brodeur didn’t come up with the saves they needed, Henrik did, and we’re sitting pretty up 1-0.

It wasn’t all roses though. The Rangers played a stupid game at times, their passes up the middle, personified by Girardis boneheaded turnover leading to almost 2 full minutes of pressure by the Devils killed them frequently. As did their inability to clear pucks up high and off the boards. The Devils deserve some credit there, but the Rangers have gameplanned those types of plays, they should know exactly where the relief valve is. Usually it’s the high slot with your center, if he’s taken away, and the boards are taken away, you should eat the puck and try to win a board battle. Rangers tried to force pucks through people all night, and it didn’t work. Their penalty kill, while good at times, seemed to, again, lose people in the high slot. Same place where Ovechkin scored in game 6. Devils didn’t make the Rangers pay, but you could see those plays open up for several seconds, then close back down. Rangers need to be more cognizant of that.

Henrik Lundqvist was brilliant tonight. His agility was a thing to behold on the trio of saves he had on Zach Parise, as well as going side to side to flat out rob Kovalchuk. Henrik Lundqvist is not Clemmenson. Henrik Lundqvist is not Theodore. Henrik Lundqvist is not Bryzgalov. Henrik Lundqvist is the best goalie in the world right now. That’s a difference maker folks.

It doesn’t hurt to have a guy like Ryan McDonagh back there either. How many other defenseman with his size and strength can catch Zach Parise and Ilya Kovalchuk on breakaways when Dan Girardi makes horrendous reads?

OK, That’s all for now. See you all on Wednesday!

I hate them. But, they are a very good team. I picked them to beat the Flyers, despite how much is sickened me. I picked them to beat the Panthers, which also sickened me but was obviously the easiest series to pick in the NHL, despite how close it ended up being. The Devils play a very good aggressive forechecking game. They are the Easts version of the Los Angeles Kings. They get 2 guys in deep, 1 hard on the guy with the puck, 1 hard on the primary outlet pass, and they hang the center near the secondary outlet pass. They force you to make great plays to get out of your zone. They are a very good team. But, we can beat them. Not only that, I’d say this is the first series where I would say we SHOULD beat them. This isn’t going to be a series I think will be a tossup and if things go our way we should walk away with a 7 game series win. I told you before the Senators series and before the Washington series that those series were bad matchups for us. It’s not about how the team finishes, how good they are, etc. It’s about how you match up against them. We don’t match up against the Capitals, or the Senators. I think we match up very favorably to the Devils. Let’s examine the different aspects.

1) Offensively/Defensively

Unquestionably the Devils have had the better offense this post season. But, how much of this is them, and how much of this is facing teams that don’t know what the word Defense really is? Florida allowed 24 more goals than they scored. They were the epitome of outscoring your mistakes. They had some good forwards, but let’s face it. They advanced in a weak division, and lucked out that the Caps were under turmoil when Boudreau was there, and were without Backstrom and Green for huge chunks of this season. The Panthers were the easiest out in the playoffs, and it took the Devils 7 very close games to oust them. Then you have the Flyers. What do you need to know about the Flyers? They gave up 4.33 Goals per Game in the first round. The ONLY reason they advanced was because Marc Andre Fleury had the single worst playoff by a goaltender that I have ever seen. MAF was probably worse than having a shooter tutor in net. The Flyers got nothing from Bryzgalov…I mean hell, their winning goal against him in the elimination game of their series, he pretty much shot into his own net. Tried to clear the puck, shot it off of Clarksons stick, and it’s in the back of his net. Bryzgalov was awful, and the D in front of him wasn’t much better. They couldn’t do anything. Despite all that, the Flyers, who were hemmed in their own zone for much of the series, didn’t really get blown out by the Devils, they simply couldn’t outscore their mistakes. So, are the Devils really an offensive juggernaut? They certainly do put a singular emphasis on the importance of controlling the game offensively. Or is their offensive success a function of the opponents they faced? This is almost exactly the same as the Rangers lack of offense. They couldn’t score to save their lives this postseason. The Penguins scored 26 goals in the first round of the playoffs, a total of 6 games. The Rangers have scored 29 goals in 14 playoff games. Think about that folks. But, how much of that is who they played against? The Rangers played an Ottawa team that controlled the puck and transitioned to offense off of a heavy neutral zone pressure game. They had the puck, and we didn’t. Furthermore, you have to say that Craig Anderson played a brilliant series. Say all you want about Holtby, but Anderson played 10 times better than Holtby did based on the sheer volume of spectacular saves that he made. Outside of 1 game against the Panthers (Overtime game they won) Uncle Daddy has not had a great playoff. He’s been steady, but far from spectacular. Holtby and Anderson have vastly outplayed the Devils opposition. Furthermore the very nature of the Rangers game, defense first, naturally pulls the scores down, particularly when the opposition tries to play the same way, like what happened against the Caps. Games are going to be low scoring affairs when neither team allows any shots and always protects against odd man rushes. On paper it looks like the Devils have a huge advantage, but in reality I’m not sure I buy the disparity being so ginormous. In the Regular season the Devils outscored the Rangers for the season by a grand total of 2 goals. Head to head, final scores, not counting shootouts add up to Rangers 14, Devils 11. 14 goals in 6 games for the Rangers, but only 11 in 6 for the Devils. Devils offense wasn’t so dominating.

2) Specialty Teams. HUGE advantage for the Devils. The Devils had one of the most dominating Penalty Kills in the history of the game this year, and also had a much better power play than the Rangers. Outside of a few disastrous games against the Panthers, more of the same has continued in these playoffs. If the Rangers are in the box significantly more than the Devils, I think you’re going to see a very bad outcome for the boys in blue. Rangers HAVE to play this series at even strength.

3) Coaching. Rangers get the edge here. Love Torts, he’s a winner, and he’s got the 4th youngest team in the NHL playing as a higher seed against the second oldest team in the NHL. Torts has this team believing, and has been here and done that. Deboer hasn’t proven a thing yet.

4) The X Factor. For the Devils, the X Factor is Clarkson. If the Rangers can control him, keep him from being an impact in this series by both his agitation and his goal scoring, they should roll. If they can’t this could be a very bad series for us. Secondly they have to keep Brodeur from impacting the game with his puck handling. Soft dump ins to the corners or hard and high dump ins to get the opposite side winger the puck. Uncle Daddy may be the most overrated goalie in history, but he’s definitely the best puck handling goalie I have ever seen in my life. For the Rangers, once again the 2 x-factors will be Carl Hagelin and Chris Kreider. The Rangers are going to need to get in hard after the Devils defenseman. That’s their weak points. Force those turnovers, and skate in hard on them. The Devils system gives you odd man chances throughout the game, the Rangers are going to need to finish on them.

The Prediction. I don’t want to get cocky and predict the Rangers in 5 or something, but that wouldn’t surprise me. Don’t get me wrong, I respect the hell out of the Devils, I just think we match up fairly favorably against them. I think Kovalchuk will keep this series close with his ability to score goals top corner. Rangers, again, in 7.

Before this series started, my prediction was, should the Caps decide to play the Rangers style of game the Rangers would take it in a close 7 game series. True to form, it was back and forth, 1 goal type games, that the Rangers were able to pull out. Granted, tonight probably should have been a 3-1 win with the Rangers inexplicably having a goal called off, but nonetheless, the Rangers are moving on to play the Devils. Wow. What a difference a few days make aye?

You have to give a TON of credit to John Tortorella. Let’s face it. This is a team that has overachieved by epic proportions all season long, and here they find themselves in the Eastern Conference Finals, 4 wins away from a Stanley Cup appearance. Home ice in this one big time as they will likely have more fans in NJ than the Devils do, and a raucous Madison Square Garden. Should be awesome.

Getting back to the game at hand though, a few things stood out to me tonight. First and foremost, the top line continued it’s strong play, as the Hagelin-Richards-Gabby trio once again combined for a huge goal, and they generated chances all night. Both Gabby and Hagelin got assists on Del Zottos goal, and both Del Zotto and Hagelin got assists on Richards goal. Big time play by our top line…now if only we could get our other lines going.

Henrik Lundqvist, the first star of the game, and probably the MVP of the series (either Henrik or Richards…tough to single one out over the other) was once again brilliant in a do or die game. They had a stat earlier that when the Rangers have faced elimination (3 times so far) Henrik Lundqvists numbers are 3-0, an incredible 1.33 GAA and .948 save percentage. Holy Crap.

It should also be noted that Marc Staal….is back. Not sorta back. He’s 100% back. He played a dominating series in this one. He blew right past Girardi and McDonagh on our depth chart and reclaimed his spot as the Rangers top defenseman. Isn’t it an awesome problem to have when you have to argue with Ranger fans over which of your young stud defenseman is really the best, a 27 year old Girardi, a 25 year old Staal, or a 22 year old McDonagh…not to mention the game winner scored by a 21 year old Michael Del Zotto who has played like a top pair defenseman all season long. Man, what a defense that is.

This team has shown a hell of a lot of guts. Two of the three worst possible matchups for us in the first 2 rounds, and we picked up 2 gutsy wins. Another hard fought series awaits them. Preview coming sometime tomorrow. Night all!

In what was the most important game of the season till this point, the Rangers laid a colossal egg in Washington tonight. This was, unquestionably, the worst game the Rangers have played in these playoffs, and probably one of the worst games they’ve played all season long. Don’t let the 2-1 final score fool you. This was a 7-1 shellacking held in check by some outright brilliant goaltending by Henrik Lundqvist.

Henrik alone stands without blame. Everyone else, from Coach John Tortorella who made some very questionable lineup changes heading into this game, to Marian Gaborik who easily played his worst game of the series (playoffs?). This was an epic fail in a game the Rangers could have sealed the deal.

Instead, we have a club heading home to play the Caps where the Caps have played us very strong, and in do or die type games they tend to rise to the occasion on the road. This was not how we wanted to draw this up. Heading into this series I picked Rangers in 7 if the series was played tight checking, and that’s still what I think, but this could easily head the other way if the Rangers don’t show up with some frikkin heart on Saturday.

Let’s first start with Torts. I’m not placing the entire blame on him, nor should anyone. But I do question the line combinations. After the first line, the next 3 looked very head scratching to say the least. I get what he was trying to do with the Anisimov – Boyle – Callahan trio. Shut down Ovechkin. But Stepan with Prust and Fedotenko? Mitchell with Rupp and Kreider? Those 2 lines make zero sense at all. Personally, for game 7 I want to see this lineup.

Hagelin – Richards – Gaborik
Kreider – Stepan – Callahan
Anisimov – Boyle – Fedotenko
Leftovers

Let the 3rd line shut down AO, and play those other 2 lines against their checkers. Kreider needs to see more ice time in this game. He was good in the limited minutes he saw in game 6.

Derek Stepan needs to play with skill players. Putting him with guys like Prust and Feds is just plain stupid. You’re minimizing his talents by putting him with no thumb players. Stepan needs to play with Kreider. Period.

Ryan Callahan, however, has played some pretty mediocre hockey these playoffs, and in this series in particular. In short, he hasn’t been a difference maker. He hasn’t been the guy to go out and take over the game with a dominating shift of him throwing his body around and causing turnovers. Hell, look at Brad Richards miracle goal….Ryan Callahan actually quit on that play before Richards scored. Go watch the replay, Cally takes a little bump and just pulls back and does nothing. That’s not the Ryan Callahan I’m used to seeing. I’m used to seeing a guy who throws his little frame around like it’s a helluva lot bigger. One has to wonder if the captain is injured. I recall him blocking a shot, maybe it was late last series? Since then he hasn’t looked the same. The captain needs to show us something here on Saturday folks. Can’t have him be a spectator the way he’s been for much of this series.

OK, that’s all for now, I’m mad, you’re mad, we’re all mad. Let’s just decompress. We live to play another day. Win or lose, I am still incredibly proud of what this team has been able to accomplish this year. 1 more game to play…win it, and we move to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Usually I have the full game highlights at the top, today I am going to put them at the bottom, so if you’re looking for them, just scroll down a bit. Why did I pick this particular highlight to put up there? It’s simple. Go ahead and watch the clip, but pay particular attention right at the 1:46 mark till about the 1:51 mark. Go ahead, I’ll wait for you down below.

Ok, did you see it? Did you see Brandon Prusts reaction to the Rangers scoring that goal? If you missed it, go ahead and watch the video again. And again. And again. One more time? Why do I want you to see that reaction? Because if you didn’t go absolutely shit-bonkers like Prust did right there, then you aren’t a Ranger fan.

Personally, I went berserk. Anyone within a 22 square mile radius of my house probably thought some insane person was going around screaming at the top of their lungs. Oh, and when Staal scored his goal? It was just as loud.

This was a tremendous comeback by the Rangers tonight. The stuff of legend quite frankly. The kind of win you talk about when you’re in your 70′s sitting on the front porch reminiscing about the good old days while making sure the neighborhood kids stay off your lawn. One of those wins that will make you smile for no apparent reason at random intervals in your life. This was 100 times more incredible than the triple overtime marathon the Rangers won earlier in the series. Why? Because the Caps were 6.6 seconds away from going up 3 games to 2 by winning a game they were BADLY outplayed in. Think about it. They were about to steal a win they had no business deserving. If you add the blocked shots category to the shots on goal and to the missed shots, the totals go like this. Rangers 78 attempted shots on goal, Capitals 35. More than a 2-1 ratio. The Rangers had some good quality chances, and they gave up some good quality chances, but the shot numbers tells you the most important part of the story. The Rangers controlled the puck. They dictated most of this game. The goals they gave up, were probably ones that Henrik should have had, particularly the Carlson goal which it looked like he flat out missed, again, just like he did with the Ovechkin goal last game.

This was a game we deserved to win.

Winning it the way we did though, has to put a dagger in the hearts of the Capitals. I don’t care how much mental fortitude you have, to lose a game like you did tonight, that’s going to kill a team. Can they come back from this? I suppose, but to me, if they do, it will be because the Rangers allowed them to. The Rangers can take this series in Washington by coming out with all cylinders firing, and controlling the play the way they did to start this game. They do that, and we’ll be heading to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Just win baby.

1. The Refs miss a slash on Brian Boyle where his stick is broken on a slash.
2. The Refs shortly thereafter call Carl Hagelin for THE EXACT SAME PLAY.
3. The Refs do not call the blatant trip on Ryan Callahan 2 seconds before the Caps score the winning goal.
4. The Refs do not call the obvious delay of game call on Mike Knuble.

1-2-3-4, tough to overcome that.

I don’t want to say the refs were 100% the reason we lost, but they sure as hell played a major part in it. You could, of course, look to the soft goal that Henrik gave up to Alex Ovechkin, or to Chris Kreiders horrendous turnovers to set that goal up. You could point to some soft board play by Anisimov leading to Backstroms goal. You could point to a lot of things. The combination of them all led to the loss. But, here’s the thing guys. It took the Caps a gift goal by a rookie and our superstar goalie flat out missing a shot he stops 9,999 times out of 10,000, AND a gift goal by some truly incompetent reffing to give them a win. Competent reffing and Henrik having that puck, we leave up 3-1.

Don’t hang your heads, the Rangers played well enough to win this one.

Marian Gaborik continues to put up points, scoring another goal today, giving him 2 goals and 3 assists in the 4 game series, which is another positive to look at heading to MSG on Monday. But, here’s the long and the short of it guys. Much like last time, the Rangers are heading home with completely control of their destiny. They hold serve at home, and they win. This is why you play your balls off all season, to get home ice. Make it count. Win the games you should. This is a winnable series.

Regarding the Ovechkin hit on Girardi, here’s my take on it. It was a high hit. He did jump. But, there was no injury on the play, and like it or not, that plays a huge factor on supplemental discipline. As bad as the hit was, I kinda feel like AO could have made it a lot worse. He got a penalty, I’m pretty much OK with that. I don’t really thing anything more is necessary.

OK, that’s all for now, I got a busy day tomorrow to deal with.

I am so beyond exhausted right now, so I can’t even imagine how the players actually feel. The Rangers tonight won one of the greatest games I have ever witnessed in my life. You want physicality? It had it. You want phenomenal goaltending? It had it. You want blood, guts, and laying everything out there on the ice? It had it.

No goats tonight, only heroes.

So let’s talk about the obvious person. Marian Gaborik. I’ve been a staunch defender of Gabbys since we signed him. I thought he’s played really hard in the playoffs thus far, but tonight, during regulation, I thought he looked completely lost at times. Just not “on it”. But, as the game went deeper, Gabby seemed to snap out of it and turned into a dominating force out there. Set up Mike Rupp for what should have been the game winner. Hit a post on what should have been a game winner, and then actually did win the game on a beautiful pass from Brad Richards to end the marathon affair. I hope this is the start of something big for Gabby, who hasn’t had the kind of statistical output you’d like to see from your superstar winger, but has tried awfully hard to be a difference maker. Hell, even on the goal against, he was back in perfect defensive position on a pinch. Right now you have 2 goals and 5 assists from gabby in 10 games. He can be better statistically, you can hope that this let’s him get the rifle loaded a little more often instead of trying to overpass, on the flip side, you could also say it’s now a goal and 3 assists in his last 3 games, so he’s been heating up the entire series.

Brad Richards had a wonderful game himself, though he did take another bad penalty that almost cost the team when they were up a man. Richards was able to set up the winning goal, but the real brilliance of the play happened a little earlier when he was able to regain control of the puck when he temporarily lost it, allowing him to attempt a shot, and set the sequence of events up. Great job by Richards, he’s certainly elevated his play in the playoffs.

Henrik Lundqvist was also brilliant as always. When you are as amazing a goalie as Henrik is, you’ll always find something people want to nitpick about his game. Oh, he can’t stop pucks up on the glove side. Oh, he can’t win in the playoffs. Oh, he can’t win overtime games. Blah blah blah. It’s all ridiculous of course, but whatever, let people say the stupid crap that they do. Those of us who watch Henrik night in and night out know that rarely is it his fault that this team loses a game, particularly in overtime. With that said, Henrik was magnificent tonight, stopping 45 of 46 shots, including several odd man rushes that had to have coach Tortorella pulling his hair out.

Finally, Ryan McDonagh. The kid that we got for the soon to be ex-Montreal Canadien, played almost almost 50% of the game tonight. A game that went into triple overtime. How insane is that? The kid who is playing in his first full NHL season just put up the most minutes by a Ranger defenseman in god know how long (seriously, anyone know the record? Is this it?). All I can say is, thank god the Montreal Canadiens GM was a frikkin moron. McDonagh was all-world tonight, blocking shots, skating back hard to offset the forecheckers, and constantly matched up against the powerful Caps forwards he stood tall. Of course, Girardi, Staal and Del Zotto were also spectacular, playing a tremendous amount of time and getting involved in all facets of the game. Remember folks, McDonagh, Girardi, Staal, and Del Zotto are all under 28 years old. How scary is that?

Well, it’s nearly 4 am, and I’m writing about a game that went to almost the very end of the DVR recording I set up. Time to get my ass into bed. See you all on Saturday!

If the Rangers play the rest of the series like they did tonight, they will win barring some catastrophically bad luck. The Rangers outplayed the Caps big time, and while I have mentioned in the past that the Caps are good enough to be outplayed and still win, this really wasn’t the case tonight. The Rangers kicked a puck into their own net, hit 2 posts, got a call against on a BRUTAL dive by John Carlson, and lost by 1 goal.

It literally took all the luck in the world for them to lose this game. Hey, it happens people. The Caps hit 4 posts the other game, we hit 2 tonight, we probably deserve to be at 1-1 anyway. With that said, the Rangers definitely elevated their play, controlling the puck for long stretches, having tons of good looks at the net, and getting solid play from their top 2 lines. They deserved much better than they got.

Penalties were a problem, but I felt, as has been the common theme in the playoffs, the reffing was atrocious. Sometimes it’s atrocious against us, sometimes it’s atrocious for us, and sometimes it’s just atrocious. Tonight, it was atrocious against us. Hey, thems the breaks.

I don’t really have all that much to add. Marian Gaborik set up a gorgeous goal with a superb pass, though some fans insist on berating his play, which to me is just the height of stupidity. Players like Gaborik don’t control the play end to end. They dart in and out and quick strike. You don’t see them for long stretches then all of a sudden they appear and score a quick goal or set up a beautiful play. He was fine tonight. Gabby is not the problem. Stupid play by Henrik Lundqvist and Stu Bickel were really the 2 biggest problems.

Henrik will be better, and Stu…well, he’s not a big part of the team as it is playing as much as I do for the Rangers in these playoffs, so the likelyhood of him costing us another goal is slim.

Guys, don’t panic. Don’t throw the remotes at your TV, just chillax. This was a game you should be able to look at and say, you know what? We played an outstanding game, we deserved to win, but we just didn’t get any luck. Deal, and move on. Remember, the Rangers were 2-1 on the road in Ottawa, and only 2 teams in the entire NHL had more road wins than us (by 1). We’ll be fine.

What did I say during my series preview? The Caps would be fools to try to beat the Rangers at our own game. They are far more explosive offensively than us, at least in terms of raw talent, and for them to sit back and try to out forecheck and outdefend us would be foolish. Sure, they *COULD* win a 7 game series against us like that, but, they would almost assuredly manhandle us if they opened things up against us and run and gunned us right out of the playoffs. Instead the Caps sat back, let the Rangers pound them with some hit, let the Rangers wear their D down with hits, let the Rangers manhandle their D below the hashmarks, and the Rangers came out with a 3-1 win.

Sure, the Caps hit 4 goal posts. So what? How many times against them in the playoffs did WE hit a ton of goalposts and have nothing to show for it? Those pucks gotta go in the net, not almost in the net.

Does this win make me now supremely confident about our chances? No, we still don’t match up well against this team at all in terms of the players skill sets, however, if the Caps continue to try to force this series into a low scoring affair, they will give the Rangers every opportunity to steal wins here and there, and those wins can fairly quickly add up to 4. We’ve got 1 banked, now we just gotta win 3 of the next 6. Play .500 hockey from here on out, and the Rangers advance. Win game 2, and the odds become extremely tilted in our direction.

Remember, last time the Rangers didn’t have Richards, Kreider, Hagelin or Callahan when last these teams met. Sure, they could shut down Gaborik, as every team has done so far. But the Rangers have far more offensive weapons than they did, they will be able to put in 2ish goals a game, something they weren’t able to do last time around when the Caps also tried to out defend the Rangers in a playoff series. This isn’t last years Rangers team where the Caps could play a more defensive game and still manhandle us.

Speaking of Gaborik, I want to just make my stance on him crystal clear. I think he’s actually played quite well. He had the same amount of shots on goal as Ovechkin had in far fewer minutes. He’s the #1 reason Brad Richards was able to score as the Defense completely focused on him and let Richards do whatever the hell he wanted to before he scored. It’s also the same reason Richards was able to score on the 5 on 3 against the Sens, as the Sens defense focused completely on shutting down Gabby.

Gabby is the #1 focal point of the opposing teams. Shut down Gaborik. I don’t blame them either. Without Gaborik this team is far less formidable. But, they are still a good team. We have Kreider, Richards, Hagelin, Callahan, Stepan, etc. Hopefully we will get back Boyle and Dubinsky. This team has more weapons than the last time the Caps played us. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Gaborik neutralized completely in these playoffs, scoring here or there, but for the most part held in check. If he does, it’s going to be up to the rest of the team to pick up the slack. Remember, the more you focus on shutting down 1 guy, the more that opens up time and space for everyone else. Does Richards score his goal if the Caps D basically gives him the shot rather than leaving Gabby alone? Nope. The Rangers need to out secondary-score the opposition. I said this over on the HFBoards prior to the series. The key to this series will be how the Rangers 2nd line plays, NOT how well their first line plays.

Speaking of the second line, we do have to talk a little bit about Chris Kreider. The Boston kid who stepped right into the playoffs and right into the Rangers hearts was….again, the Rangers best forward on the ice. That’s 2 games in a row for those of you keeping count. The Hagelinesque skater who is built like a tank blasted a slapper through Holtby and secured the win, throwing in an assist on Richards goal to boot. Wow. How do you top this? The Caps are going to soon learn, if you focus completely on Gaborik, this kid is going to start torching you from the 2nd line. Don’t forget about Stepan either, perfect pass to lead Kreider for the goal too.

OK, I’m done, off to bed!