How Sweep It Is

It took them two periods to do it, but the New York Rangers finally woke up and took care of business Sunday night in Washington. They broke a 2-2 tie in the third period with a pair of power play goals - the latter an empty-netter - and put the Capitals out of their misery. The 4-0 series sweep - their first since 2007 - gives the Blueshirts a chance to rest up and prepare for their next opponent, which barring the unthinkable, will be the Carolina Hurricanes.

This was a mismatch from the start. In the four games, the Caps led for a grand total of 3:21, while the Rangers led for 139:08. Ten different players scored for New York, including Vincent Trocheck, whose three goals led the team. Mika Zibanejad, who at times during the regular season was seen on milk cartons because he was all but invisible, had a goal and six assists to lead all scorers. And while Hart Trophy candidate Artemi Panarin only scored twice, both goals were game-winners.

This was a balanced and surgical dispatching. Credit Head Coach Peter Laviolette for making sure his players didn't fall into the Capitals trap. I'm sure the Rangers would've preferred a more up-tempo style of play against what was clearly an inferior team; they resisted. The result was a fairly methodical, if sometimes "boring" series that lacked the excitement of some of the series we've seen in the Western Conference.

The point was to win and win quickly, not necessarily decisively. As Larry Brooks adroitly observed, the Rangers showed a "workmanlike approach" in dealing with Washington. Despite the closeness of some of the final scores, I never once thought the Caps were going to win one, let alone four games in this series.

The detractors will try to diminish what the Rangers did here. Let them. Anyone who has watched this team play over the last few years knows full well that they have historically struggled against underachievers like the Caps. Trust me, this series had six games written all over it, which is why I initially had them winning in six. That they swept is a major accomplishment. Those who disagree will have to deal with it. That's a polite way of saying "fuck off!"

Now the real playoffs begin. The Hurricanes will be a far more formidable opponent for the Rangers than the Capitals. They can skate, they can score and they can defend. This series will likely go the distance, which is why having a few days off and the home ice advantage in a potential game seven might very well prove to be decisive. Two years ago, the Blueshirts needed a full seven games to defeat both the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Hurricanes. The wear and tear of two long and brutal series eventually caught up with them against the Tampa Bay Lightning. That won't be the case here. If the Rangers don't win, it won't be from lack of rest.

While I'll wait until just before the start of the next round to write my formal preview, there is one thing that I think needs to be said: Matt Rempe has likely played his final game in the playoffs. Look, I like the kid; he kind of reminds me of Ed Hospodar. But let's face it: he's an unfinished product that against a team as skilled as the Hurricanes will prove to be a defensive liability. So bad was his play away from the puck that Laviolette limited him to just over five minutes of ice time the last two games of the Caps series. Plus there's a bullseye on his back. The interference penalty he took in game three was a borderline call that almost everybody who saw it deemed a hockey play. It's obvious the NHL has him in their crosshairs. Why give the refs an excuse to put you a man down? You think the Canes are going to go 2-17 on the power play? Neither do I.

So who will take Rempe's place? The logical choice is Filip Chytil. The center was medically cleared to play two weeks ago and has been practicing with the team ever since. If Laviolette believes his conditioning is up to snuff, there's no reason not to insert him in the lineup where he can either center the third line or play LW on it. If it's the former, that would mean Alex Wennberg drops down to the fourth line where he could center a line of Barclay Goodrow and Jimmy Vesey. That would give the Rangers arguably their best checking line since, dare I say it, 1994. It would also give them the scoring depth they are going to need to advance deep into the postseason.

But, thankfully, that decision won't have to be made for at least a few more days. For now, the Rangers can sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labor. They've earned it.

Two Close for Comfort

Two up, two down, two to go. 

Seems like I wrote those words before. Know what? I did. Last year, in fact, after the New York Rangers took a 2-0 lead over the New Jersey Devils in their best of seven series. And then the roof fell in as the Blueshirts dropped four of the last five games. Season over and out.

If you're a fan of this team, you can be forgiven for experiencing a sense of déjà vu. Because, quite frankly, we've seen this movie before, and it never ends well. 

Now, before I go any further, one thing needs be cleared up: the Washington Capitals are NOT the Devils. New Jersey was one of the best teams in the NHL last season; the Caps barely qualified for the postseason and had one of the worst regular-season goal differentials for a team qualifying for the playoffs in league history.

Which makes last night's 4-3 win at the Garden something to be concerned about. Yes, the Rangers defended their home ice; and, yes, the Capitals needed to come out with a much better effort than they showed in game one. But no one who objectively watched that game could come away thinking the Rangers dominated play. Apart from stretches in the first and second periods, the Caps more than held their own with the Presidents' Trophy winners. New York was pinned in its own zone for the last three minutes of the third period, desperately clinging to a one-goal lead that had been a two-goal lead before the home team stupidly took a too-many men on the ice penalty that Washington cashed in on. Overall, the Caps went 2-5 with the man advantage after going 0-4 in game one. As I wrote in my playoff preview, since the All-Star Break, Washington has the number one power play in the league at 28.9 percent. It would behoove the Rangers to do their best to stay out of the penalty box the rest of this series.

Look, do I think history will repeat itself? No, I don't. The Capitals simply don't have the talent to keep up with a Rangers team that is clearly deeper and more skilled. Through two games, eight different Rangers have scored a goal, including the big guns: Vincent Trocheck, Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider.

And to be fair, when you look at how the other first-round matchups are going, it's not like any team, save for one, has a stranglehold over its opponent. In fact, the Vancouver Canucks, Winnipeg Jets, Dallas Stars and Boston Bruins have all lost the home ice advantage in their respective series. It wouldn't surprise me if at least one of those teams wound up getting booted.

My concern isn't with this round, it's with the next. Because if a team like the Caps can make the Rangers work that hard, just imagine what the Carolina Hurricanes are going to do to them. Did you see how they handled the Islanders the other night in Raleigh? The Canes made the Isles look like an AHL team, outshooting them 17-1 in the 3rd period. Between the two teams, it's Carolina that has a better shot of sweeping its opponent than the Rangers. If the Blueshirts believe they're going to take four out of seven from that team playing like they did against the Caps, they have another thing coming.

Thirty years ago, another Rangers team made quick work of a Capitals team that was a huge underdog. That team went on to win the Stanley Cup. Will this Rangers team follow in that team's footsteps?

Only time will tell.

7th Heaven

Okay, they did it. They came back from the dead.  They came ALL the way back. Trailing 3-1 in the series and trailing 1-0 with less than two minutes to go in game 5, the Rangers found a way to pull it out and force a game 6 and then a game 7.

They kept fighting and fighting and just wouldn't go away. Consider this, at no point in this series did the Rangers lead in games until the very end. They even trailed in game 7, thanks to a poor start and a goal by Mark Messier wannabe Alex Ovechkin. But they came back and willed their way to an overtime win - their 10 straight at home in an elimination game - and in so doing, became the first team in NHL history to win a series after training 3-1 in two consecutive years.

As for the Caps, they lost for the 5th time after holding a 3-1 series lead. No doubt they will spend the offseason pondering what went wrong. They were just 1:41 away from advancing to their first conference final since 1997. But they just couldn't put that final nail in the Rangers' coffin. This one will hurt a long time.

So how did the Rangers pull it off? How did they manage to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat? Karma? Destiny? Resilience? Talent? Luck? How about all of the above?

Let's face it, they hardly played like the team that won the Presidents' Trophy. They were sporadic at best and never quite got their speed game going. Part of that was due to an excellent game plan by Capitals' coach Barry Trotz. The rest? Well, as I mentioned in two earlier pieces, this Rangers' team, while good, never dominated their opponents the way you'd expect a Cup contender to. Of their 53 wins, only 18 were decided by more than two goals. Only the Anaheim Ducks faired worse among playoff teams.

Winning the majority of your games by one or two goals may seem like the perfect strategy for a long playoff run, but it's also playing with fire. Many of those regular season games might just as easily have gone the other way. Consider this: each of the Rangers four overtime wins could've been losses, in which case they'd be playing golf now instead of preparing to host the Tampa Bay Lightning Saturday. How's that for luck?

But I'd be doing them a huge disservice if I didn't acknowledge that for all their fortuitousness, this bunch of Rangers has a boat-load of character. They've shown it all season long. Some how, some way, they manage to win games lesser teams would've lost. This may not be the most talented group of players to don the Rangers' logo, but they are the most resilient I've seen since - dare I say it? - 1994. To paraphrase a line from the Godfather 3, Just when you thought they were out, they pull themselves back in.

But while they are resilient, they are hardly cocky. Unlike the Caps, who shot their mouths off after losing game 6, the Rangers kept a low profile and concentrated on the game at hand. This singular focus, I believe, is the reason they never panicked once throughout this series. Even when the Caps were surging late in game 6 and early in the overtime in game 7, they kept their composure.  They bent, but they never broke.

And now they have reached the conference finals for the second season in a row. They are eight victories away from winning their first Stanley Cup in 21 years. Only Tampa and either the Ducks or Chicago Blackhawks stand in their way. The series against the Lightning should be a breath of fresh air for a team that was bounced around like a basketball by Washington. Both teams ostensibly employ the same system: an uptempo speed game. The Lightning are more front loaded than the Rangers, but the Blueshirts are deeper and have a huge edge in goal. Funny, I remember saying that about the Caps and look what almost happened.

The Rangers are halfway home; halfway towards realizing the goal they set for themselves the night they lost in overtime to the L.A. Kings in game 5 of the Finals last June. They're talented, determined, resilient, focused and, yes, lucky. But then find me a championship team that didn't have a little bit of luck going for it? Maybe this time destiny will shine on them. Maybe this time they get to be the bride instead of the bride's maid.

This much I can tell you: if they're in overtime in game 7 of the Finals, I wouldn't bet against them.

A Stay of Execution?

I'll admit it. I thought it was over. Admit it. You thought it was over too.

After Curtis Glencross converted his own rebound past Henrik Lundqvist with 9:06 remaining to give the Caps a 1 nothing lead, the Blueshirts were looking like toast.

The Presidents Trophy winners were less than ten minutes away from bowing out in the second round of the playoffs with their skates between their legs.

And then...

With less than two minutes remaining in their season, Derek Stepan, who had his best game of the playoffs - perhaps the whole damn season - gained the Caps zone, pulled up and fed a perfect pass to Chris Kreider who one-timed a shot passed Braden Holtby, who is having the series of his life.

And just like that, tie game. The Garden erupted with joy as the Rangers forced overtime. And in the extra session, it was Stepan to the rescue again, setting up the winning goal by Ryan McDonagh off a feed from Jesper Fast.

Game over. Rangers win. They live to fight another day.

In a game which saw the Blueshirts dictate the pace early and pepper Holtby with 11 of the game's first 13 shots, it was poetic justice that the two goals they managed to score were the result of deflections. Pretty? No. Effective? Yes.

Now the scene shifts back to Washington where the Caps will be under pressure to close out the series or face a game seven at the Garden, where the Rangers are now a perfect 9 and 0 in elimination games. In their history the Capitals have blown 3-1 series leads four times. That burden will be weighing heavily on them Sunday. Talk about a turn of events. The Caps were this close to moving on. Now they've given their opponents something they haven't had since game two of this series: momentum. 

The odds are still against the Rangers prevailing. Despite the emotional win, they are hardly out of the woods. Let's not forget they were 1:41 away from being shutout for the second time in three games. For all their resilience, they're still way too cute with the puck. Several times last night, they found themselves in ideal scoring situations and elected to pass rather than shoot. Kreider, who scored the tying goal, looked like Mother Teresa with the puck. I got it, no you take it. They won game five, but if they plan on winning games six and seven, they're going to have to bury the few opportunities they are afforded.

For now, though, they're alive. There WILL be a game six Sunday night. The season continues. Maybe the hockey gods will smile on them and they will go on to win the Cup, or maybe last night was just a temporary stay of execution. 

We'll know soon enough.

Do or Die for Rangers?

Going into Wednesday's game-four match with the Capitals, the prevailing sentiment among some hockey experts is that while it is important for the Rangers to tie the series, it is not, as of yet, a life or death situation. The Rangers, they argue, are the league's best team and have shown their resilience throughout the season many times. If any team can come back from a 3-1 series deficit, it is certainly them. After all, they came back from a 3-1 deficit against the Penguins last year and Pittsburgh that year was a considerably better team than this year's Washington team.  While such thinking is laudable, it is dangerous and I'll explain why.

Yes, the Rangers came back from a 3-1 deficit last year against the Penguins, but, contrary to the above statement, Pittsburgh was a flawed and vulnerable team that year. After winning the first game, the Blueshirts lost a tough game two in Pittsburgh, then returned home and stunk out the Garden in games three and four. Once they had regained their footing following the death of Marty St. Louis' mother, the Rangers ran off three straight wins en route to an improbable finals appearance.

This year's Capitals team is a much more complete team, both offensively and defensively, than last year's Penguins team. While they don't have the speed of the Rangers, they have done an outstanding job of taking away the middle of the ice, forcing the Blueshirts to the outside. Unlike last year's Rangers team that turned on the jets in game five, this year's team has played only one really poor period of hockey in the entire tournament. Every game has been highly contested and decided by one goal. The Rangers aren't in a 2-1 hole because of the way they've played, so much as the way their opponent has played. Expecting another come from behind miracle is wishful thinking to say the least.

And then there is the nagging question: Is this year's Rangers' team really better than last year's. On paper and certainly in the win/loss column, the answer appears to be yes. But a careful look at how they've played this season reveals something quite interesting. The Rangers won an inordinate amount of their games by one goal. One could make the argument that they've been in playoff mode for most of the season. While that certainly can strengthen a team and force them to be more focused, it can also be quite draining both physically and emotionally. Having to stave off elimination three consecutive times would be a daunting task for any team, especially one as driven and extended as this year's Rangers team.

And finally, while 27 teams have come back from 3-1 deficits to win their series, only six of them went on to win the Stanley Cup. More alarming is the fact that only eight organizations have come from behind more than once, with Vancouver accomplishing the feat three times.  Prior to last season's comeback, the Rangers had never managed it once. It's worth noting they fell to the Kings in the finals that year. If you're a betting man, you can't like the odds of a successful championship run in such a scenario.

If I'm the Rangers, I treat tomorrow's match like it's game seven. I'd pull out all the stops, crash the net and throw all caution to the wind. They must win by hook or crook. They can't head back to the Garden trailing 3-1, not if they plan on hoisting the Cup in June.

Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe they go down 3-1, come back and go all the way. They did win the Presidents' trophy, after all. And they're playing a team that has made it past the second round of the playoffs only twice in its entire history and has on four occasions blown 3-1 series leads. But if they plan on winning this series and prevailing in the next two, they're going to have to step it up and want it more. This year's playoff teams, as I pointed out in an earlier piece, are considerably better than last year's teams. Several of those teams have a legitimate chance of going all the way.

The Capitals are one of them.

Rangers Face Tough Challenges In Pursuit of Cup

53 wins, 113 points, both franchise bests. The New York Rangers go into the 2015 post season as a clear-cut favorite to win the Stanley Cup. They are healthy and they have won 6 of their last 7 games.  What could go wrong?

Well, at the risk of being called a Debbie Downer, there are three legitimate obstacles standing in the way of the Blueshirts' quest to secure their first championship in 21 years. I'll list them in no particular order.

1. A crowded field. As I pointed out in my last posting, while the Rangers have had a helluva regular season and are most definitely the NHL's favorite son, they are by no means an only child. The Montreal Canadiens, Tampa Bay Lightning and Washington Capitals are all genuine contenders to get to the finals. The Canadiens' Carey Price, injured in last year's conference final, is healthy and a legitimate Vezina Trophy candidate. If the Rangers meet them - a strong likelihood should they advance to the third round - Price could go toe to toe with Henrik Lundqvist. If the series goes seven, the Habs are certainly capable of winning at the Garden. Translation? The Rangers are hardly a lock to make it back to the finals.

2. A woeful power play. If there is an Achilles heel to this team, it is their power play, or rather lack of one. The Rangers' power play finished an anemic 16.7 percent, tied for 21st in the NHL. In their last game against New Jersey, the Devils, borrowing a page out of the Broadstreet Bullies' era - handed the Rangers seven power play opportunities. They converted just one. That simply isn't good enough for a team looking to hoist the Cup. The Capitals, by contrast, boast the number one power play in the league. In what promises to be a low-scoring post season, special teams will play a crucial role. If opposing teams know they can take liberties with the Rangers without paying the price, this could be a very short playoff run. The only saving grace here is that the Canadiens' power play is just as woeful.

3. The Presidents' Trophy curse.  Since the trophy was first awarded in 1986, only eight teams that have won it have gone on to win the Cup. Eleven failed to even make it to the conference finals. More ominous was that Alain Vigneault coached two of those failed trophy winners in Vancouver. One of them a first round exit to the L.A. Kings in 2012; the other a thrilling seven game loss to the Boston Bruins in the 2011 finals. Speaking of the Bruins, they were last year's Presidents' Trophy winner, and they lost in the second round to the Canadiens. In fact, of the last six Cup winners, only one, the Chicago Blackhawks, sported the league's best record. And that was during a lockout-shortened season. Being number one isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

But while the Rangers do have some challenges, it's only fair to say that, all things being equal, I would much rather be in their skates than anybody else's. There's a reason why they won the Presidents' Trophy. They were clearly the best team this season. Despite losing their number one goalie, and arguably the NHL's best net minder, the Rangers not only didn't miss a beat, they went into fifth gear. They are the league's fastest and deepest team and they have the three best defense pairings of any playoff team. Since mid December, they have been in a league of their own. After enduring the likes of John Tortorella for five seasons, this team has a quiet confidence that Tortorella's never had. Alain Vigneault has gotten these players to buy into his system and the results speak for themselves.

So round one begins Thursday against the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Blueshirts should have little trouble getting past them. The Pens have been dreadful down the stretch and are missing half their defense due to injuries. And Marc Andre Fleury will be no match for Henrik Lundqvist in goal. It will be crucial for the Rangers to not get extended deep in this round. Five games should suffice.

After that, the Caps or the hated Islanders await. That series should go at least six games. Buckle your seat belts, kids. We're in for quite a ride.