The Penguins defense hasn't been great this year, but they still don't have boat anchors like Girardi and Staal on it. The Penguins defense is miles ahead of the Rangers defense solely due to those 2 players being on the Rangers defense.
If you compare the two teams, I'm honestly not sure where the Rangers are better than the Penguins. The Penguins have the better center group, RW group and defense. The Rangers are better in net (although that can change if Murray continues his pace and Lundqvist sticks around a .915 save%) and at LW, but I think the Penguins skaters have a clear advantage on the Rangers. The Rangers don't have a game changer at forward, the Penguins have 3 of them. I don't think it would be a blowout (would probably be a really close series), but I don't see any way that the Penguins wouldn't be the clear favorites in that series. If Lundqvist returns to form, all bets are off because he can individually win a series himself.
I don't know how much of the Rangers you have watched or what you are going by with your assessment, but Staal and Girardi have not been close to our biggest problem. They've both been pretty good, Kevin Klein has been way more of a liability than either. He's been our only real problem on defense, and even he has started to play better recently.
We don't have the offensive difference makers that you guys have, but I would point out that I think we have more offensive depth. When everyone is healthy, we have 9 top 6 forwards, and 3 other third line forwards. I think our offense is pretty equal to yours because of that. I just checked the goals per game column, and you were leading us for first by .02 coming into today. Might be .03 or .04 after today because we only scored 1 goal against Chicago, but I think both offenses are pretty close when you add it all up. The Penguins and Rangers have two of the top 5 best offenses in the league.
On defense, I just don't agree with you. I think you are underrating Staal and Girardi. The rest of our defense has also done a good job. McDonagh's had a very good season, Skjei's been very good for a rookie, Holden's had a very good season. Klein's rounding into form. Not a great defense, but we're 6th best in GAA with a struggling goalie, so I think there's some misinformation out there about our defense. Your defense is 21st best in the league, so there's evidence that your defense has been struggling, although I wouldn't say thats convincing evidence that your defense will struggle in the playoffs. I don't think either defense is great, but they don't need to be. As long as they hold up, which I think both can, both teams should be able to play well. In goal, its all a guess. Lundqvist has struggled. If he gets back to his best, he's better than Murray. If he continues to struggle, you guys might even have an advantage.
I don't know if we would beat you guys, but I think it would be close this year. I also would rather not play you guys. You guys are the only team that I really don't want to play in the playoffs. Every other team I think we are better team. I'm not sure if we are better than Pittsburgh this year.
