Series Talk: Rangers/Craps (Game 1 is Sunday 4/21 @ 3pm ET)

[LaffyTaffy13]

Here. We. Go.

Click to read more...

 

[LOFIN]

Crazy how the East lined up 1-8 anyway

And Bettman got his divisional rivalries too!

 

[Machinehead]

I don't even expect to win the Cup.

It would be nice to have a lengthy run with good performances in it.

 

[Gardner McKay]

The Caps are a low-scoring team with a hot goalie. Low-scoring hockey dictates dice roll results. It won't be a cake walk.

True, but Wilson is good for a penalty a game. His stupidity alone should gift us 2-3 goals.

 

[SeanAveryTheGreatOne]

Anything less than a comfortable series win would be a disappointment.

Lol, I'll take what I can get. We have not won a comfortable series since sweeping the Thrashers. That was so long ago that team doesn't even exist anymore.

(Before anyone says it, the 4-1 Pittsburgh series where we won each game 2-1 was not comfortable)

 

[Machinehead]

True, but Wilson is good for a penalty a game. His stupidity alone should gift us 2-3 goals.

Yeah, his take rates are horrible.

He's also generally just not good the last couple of years.

 

[Machinehead]

Lol, I'll take what I can get. We have not won a comfortable series since sweeping the Thrashers. That was so long ago that team doesn't even exist anymore.

(Before anyone says it, the 4-1 Pittsburgh series where we won each game 2-1 was not comfortable)

Montreal in 2014 was not that competitive of a series.

 

[Gardner McKay]

Honestly, I can't remember the last time I was this excited for a first round. Not just because we won the Presidents trophy, but these matchups in the East are insane. The weaker version of the East, also known as the West, not surprisingly has less interesting matchups.

 

[Gardner McKay]

Montreal in 2014 was not that competitive of a series.

They were not competitive at all. People yell "omgz but Kreider killed price. Les Habs win easily with god king Carey in net". No they don't. They still get absolutely f***ing destroyed.

 

[NYR Viper]

The Caps have injuries on defense before the series starts. Get in on the defensemen, force plays and finish checks. The more they expose McIlrath and others the higher TOI Carlson will need to play.

 

[Machinehead]

They were not competitive at all. People yell "omgz but Kreider killed price. Les Habs win easily with god king Carey in net". No they don't. They still get absolutely f***ing destroyed.

It's not the length, it's the content of the games.

I agree with people who say the Pens series in 2015 kinda sucked. Four 2-1 wins and we only looked great in one of them.

In 2014, we outplayed Montreal in all six games. Tokarski went insane in game 3 and Hank was bad in game 5.

Even the 7 game series against Philly, we had like one bad game.

Meanwhile, we outplayed LA in each of the first three games and lost all three of them. They deserved to win the Cup but there's no way that series should have gone 5.

Series length is mostly a function of goalies having good and bad games.

 

[Savant]

Just do not want to see anyone trying to say how easy this is going to be.

Hockey is the sport with the most irrelevant regular season to the playoffs.

If this squad wants to differentiate itself from past Rangers teams, they need to take care of this series in 4-5 games instead of 6-7. We go from there.

Detroit would have been more fun, but I am just thankful people can't cry every time Kane farts on the ice now

 

[CasusBelli]

I don't even expect to win the Cup.

It would be nice to have a lengthy run with good performances in it.

Florida and Carolina worry me in the East. Vegas and Winnipeg worry me in the west. Those damn goalies that get hotter than Hansel against us.

 

[cheech70]

5 vs 5 gives advantage to Craps Trap. Rempe will cause PP for either side. Our PK could be more effective than 5 vs 5 offensively. Lets see how the refs call the game. Tell Rempe to wait to drop gloves and keep checks clean. I think disrupting the flow of the game works to our advantage. Craps want to clog up middle and dump and chase. Lets initiate havoc which is a must to go deep. Goodrow, Trouba Cuylee should be agitating every chance they get.

 

[Machinehead]

Things that will make this difficult:

-Old man Oshie kills us. I figure he'll be around a goal per game.
-Ovechkin will get a couple.
-Lindgren is a great goalie and will be a wall in at least one game.
-I feel like Trouba probably has one of his 3 GA stinkers.

Things in our favor:

-As much as we're questionable at even strength, they're worse.
-Adam Fox is the best defenseman in this series by a ridiculous margin. They don't have a Forsling or a McAvoy to at least be in the same galaxy. 34 year old Carlson ain't it.
-Playoff Igor.
-Their penalty kill isn't impressive. This series is a pretty gross mismatch on special teams.

Fox is the X-factor for us in this run. All of the defenseman within spitting distance of him are in the West. He's tits on a bull in the East, as Jim Cornette would say.

Slavin is no Fox, McAvoy is a bit worse at everything, Hedman is cooked, Carlson sucks ass at defense, Dobson is a boy next to a man, the Leafs lol. Forsling is probably the closest but Fox has a tier on him. It's a huge advantage against every opponent. Lavi, please play him a lot.

 

[McRanger92]

Do some people think playing Rempe will stop Wilson from Wilsoning?

Nothing stops Wilson from Wilsoning. Rempe allows us to answer back. Thats what people lose sight of with the dumb deterrence narrative.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

With Leonard the jump from the NCAA into the NHL playoffs is a large one. More often the guys who go from college to the NHL at end of season like Gauthier and Hutson jump to non playoff teams (or at least it seems to me). In any case there is much more at stake to jump onto an NHL playoff team. A mistake or two by the player for one could lead to his team's exit. When Kreider jumped on to the Rangers I think he got like 5 goals and 7 points in 17/18 (?) games. I think part of what led the Rangers to put him in were injury issues that cropped up right away. There were also games where he seemed completely lost. For instance which man to take on the back check and it might have cost us a game or two. Sometimes he'd be skating around 100 mph not understanding how the play was developing. Kind of showing off his speed without a purpose thing. The next season or two he was back and forth to the minors (and sometimes struggling in the AHL too) and it seemed that Torts had some issues with him. Well he had issues with Zucc too.

Leonard isn’t playing for them in the playoffs..

 

[McRanger92]

Caps are old and cannot score. Their Cup winning veterans will keep them from melting down but I feel like they emptied their tanks to get in. Charles Lindgren's career high in games played was 31 coming into this season and he's currently at 50 and counting. Rangers play their game and its over in 5, especially with how Panarin, Fox and Igor have played. And the physical element is not one sided against the Rangers. Trouba, Goodrow, Cuylle, Rempe need to stand up straight in this series. Set the tone for your team on home ice.

 

[kovazub94]

This is absurd lol Braun is a million times the player Mcilrath is and so is Mikkola

Yup, and this is NHL playoff level, not AHL with all due respect to that league

 

[HolyHagelin]

You mean playing 21 games before the Finals?

That's not true. We beat Montreal in 6.

Yeah someone already corrected me i reversed the rangers and the kings i guess, either way they (at the time) had each played more games than any previous finals participant

 

[RangersFan]

If they don't win this series tear it all down and trade everyone.

 

[Machinehead]

Caps are old and cannot score. Their Cup winning veterans will keep them from melting down but I feel like they emptied their tanks to get in. Charles Lindgren's career high in games played was 31 coming into this season and he's currently at 50 and counting. Rangers play their game and its over in 5, especially with how Panarin, Fox and Igor have played. And the physical element is not one sided against the Rangers. Trouba, Goodrow, Cuylle, Rempe need to stand up straight in this series. Set the tone for your team on home ice.

Charles

 

[EdJovanovski]

Why does everyone think Lindgren is such a good goalie? He has some of the worst rebound control in the league and stumbles trying to catch every puck with his arms into his chest and then drops the puck and it’s loose. I was rooting for the Caps to win last night as they’re who I wanted to play and I was shitting myself every time the Flyers got a shot on goal because of how shaky and awful he is. He also screwed me in fantasy many times this season. The guy wasn’t even a starter at the begging of this season or any point in his career. It’s hilarious people saying they have some great goalie with that guy when we have Shesterkin.

 

[Bacon Artemi Bravo]

Why does everyone think Lindgren is such a good goalie? He has some of the worst rebound control in the league and stumbles trying to catch every puck with his arms into his chest and then drops the puck and it’s loose. I was rooting for the Caps to win last night as they’re who I wanted to play and I was shitting myself every time the Flyers got a shot on goal because of how shaky and awful he is. He also screwed me in fantasy many times this season. The guy wasn’t even a starter at the begging of this season or any point in his career. It’s hilarious people saying they have some great goalie with that guy when we have Shesterkin.

Mostly because the Rangers play some of their worst hockey against really bad goaltenders lol

 

[Machinehead]

Why does everyone think Lindgren is such a good goalie? He has some of the worst rebound control in the league and stumbles trying to catch every puck with his arms into his chest and then drops the puck and it’s loose. I was rooting for the Caps to win last night as they’re who I wanted to play and I was shitting myself every time the Flyers got a shot on goal because of how shaky and awful he is. He also screwed me in fantasy many times this season. The guy wasn’t even a starter at the begging of this season or any point in his career. It’s hilarious people saying they have some great goalie with that guy when we have Shesterkin.

He's been a top 10 goalie this year.

 

[Kane One]

Maybe I missed it, but are there any preliminary schedules?