Conference Semifinals: #1 New York Rangers vs. #7 Washington Capitals

[JKidd]

Records:
New York: 51-24-7 (109 points) Home: 27-12-2 Road: 24-12-5
Washington: 42-32-8 (92 points) Home: 26-11-4 Away: 16-21-4

How They Got Here:
Rangers eliminated the #8 seed Ottawa Senators, 4-3
Capitals eliminated the #2 seed Boston Bruins, 4-3

Head to Head:
Nov 25th: Rangers 6 / Capitals 3
Dec 28th: Capitals 4 / Rangers 1
Feb 12th: Rangers 3 / Capitals 2
Apr 7th: Capitals 4 / Rangers 1

Season series tied, 2-2

Fights:
None

Lineup:
Goaltending: Win New York
Scoring: Draw
Defense: Edge New York
Coaching: Edge New York
Grit: Edge New York

Schedule:
Sat April 28th in New York 3PM ET
Mon April 30th in New York 7:30PM ET
Wed, May 2nd in Washington 7:30PM ET
Sat, May 5th in Washington 12:30PM ET
*Mon, May 7th in New York 7:30PM ET
*Wed, May 9th in Washington
*Sat, May 12th in New York


Prediction:
Washington goes from one miracle to needing to pull off another miracle, while trying to bounce the same team they did last year. I am completely shocked by how everyone, star players included (except Ovechkin), has bought into Dale Hunter's defense first system. It worked against the Bruins, but the question now comes up, can it continue to work against the Rangers? I don't think so. I think the Rangers come out and find a way to break Washington's defense down, and light up the rookie while Lundqvist keeps the Rangers strong. One major question, does Marian Gaborik show up for this round? For the Capitals, they can't let him or Richards gain any confidence. I see this being another 7 game set for both teams, because the Rangers let teams linger and control play for long periods. But, in the end, I'll take those Rangers in 7 games.

[smashem]

Rags in 6.

[mikebflorida]

Sticking with Tortorella and Lundqvist. Opening series was tougher than it should have been but Ottawa played better than they should have too.

[bigjack]

The Rangers better get their acts together on faceoffs and the PP and where the hell is Gaborik with his one goal in 7 games. The Rangers defenseman finally hit the net for a couple of goals last night but they do a poor job of hitting the net with their shots.
I see another tight series because the Rangers don't score.

[Broons66]

Rags in 6. Be interesting to see if the Holtby magic can continue.

[Ciccarelli]

Voted the Caps.

The Rangers didn't score much against Ottawa and against the defensive minded Caps with a red-hot goalie it's going to be even more difficult.

Besides that the Caps have a successfull system and the players are believing in it after the win against the Bruins. Even Ovechkin is willing to play it now and gets better again.

Should be a close series again.

[thepolishkid88]

Rangers in 7. These two teams know each other pretty well and it should be a good series. Think the edge is the amount of hitting the Rangers will do and that aggresive tone seemed to be what knocked the Caps off the most. I don't understand why Boston didn't do that more, but that's a different story.

[bupz91]

I believe Holtby will Halak this series away from the Rangers, in 6.

[hockeybrain]

Green, Ovechkin - Washington has real superstars that the Rangers can not match. The key is Holtby. If he plays like he did against Bruins I take the Capitals. Ottawa should not have given the Rangers that much trouble. Either Ottawa is that good or the Rangers are really not as good as many think. Even the 7th game yesterday once the Rangers got a 2 goals lead they seemed to stop playing as hard. So, even though I root for the Rangers in this series I am predicting the Capitals. I hope I am wrong .

[canuck2]

I think the Caps will continue with the upsets. They beat the best team in hockey the Bruins. This should give them confidence.

[Cat Smasher]

If Ovechkin could only get 2 goals on Thomas, can't see him doing much better against Lundvist. However he won't have a Chara all over him. Rangers in 6.

[pesadillamal]

If the Rangers lose any game it will be game 1 but I'm calling a sweep here. Playing Washington will be a walk in the park compared to Ottawa.

[Isles4life]

I also think the Rangers matchup pretty well against a team like the Caps, despite the success Washington just had in the first round. Holtby has been great, but the Rangers just had to deal with Craig Anderson who played pretty well in his own right to keep the Sens in the series. And the Rangers managed to win with their biggest goal-scoring threat (Garborik) sleep-walking through the series.

The Capitals under Dale Hunter don't employ a run-and-gun offense, and if they're going to play that conservative, defensive-minded hockey, I'm not sure if they'll be able to generate enough offense to overcome an obstacle like Henrik Lundqvist in net. Of course, if Ovechkin, Semin, Backstrom, and company can catch fire and get hot, the Rangers could be in trouble. I think the Capitals beat the Bruins by playing their system, but I don't think that system will be good enough to beat the Rangers, they'll need more of a performance out of their top-level talent to have a real chance.

Rooting like hell for Washington, but I'll take the Rangers in 6.

[HordiBrusk29]

Rangers in six. Unlike the Bruins the Rangers have a lot more offensive firepower. That will be the difference in this series.

[srehm1]

Man, the Caps really surprised me. Not too flashy but very strong defensively and Holtby was very good. We all know what a hot golaie can do for a team in the playoffs. The rangers better be ready. The Bruins always seemed to be squeezed out to the perimeter and had trouble getting anything clean on Holtby. It was frustrating. Every shot was blocked or deflected it seemed. The Caps backchecked well, skated hard and every game was a nail biter. I was impressed by Jay Beagle. he was very good on faceoffs and always had good position. I cannot tell you how many times a Bruins center was tossed from the dot when facing him. He was a surprise.

The Caps are 100% committed to defense. Hunter was even sitting OV down for large stretches in the 3rd period against us. The Caps seemed very opportunistic, we would fire away on Holtby, 8,9,10 shots in a row and then one bad bounce or turnover and we would be suddenly down a goal. They were very patient allowing us to fire away at will and would cash in on mistakes.

This is a team that had to battle down the stretch to make the playoffs, so they were already playing a brand of desperate hockey to begin with. they were able to carry that over. they got the bounces and made their own luck at times against us. Every game was right down to the wire.

One thing to note about the series against Boston: The Caps played a straight up game. No BS. No extra curricular scrums or assorted shoving matches. The bruins thrive on emotion and playing with an edge. The caps took that away by simply not provoking us. there was literally no one on the caps trying to push the envelope or force the issue with us as far as toughness goes. Even Erskine was realtively quiet, settling for little shoving matches with Thornton. The caps did nothing to provoke us and Alzner completely defused the "cry baby" taunt by saying he wouldn't fight Lucic and that he was a great fighter. If that were Montreal or Vancouver, they would have talked smack and further fanned the flames. The Bruins love that sh!t. it only makes them better. the caps wanted no part of that and played a very straight up style of game, very defensive minded. i say this because if NY tries to push around the Caps, it will get them no where. they will not go for it and of course if push comes to shove, erskine is more than capable of handling anyone the rags have in the lineup, save Scott who has been a non factor in the playoffs and will most likely continue to be so because the caps aren't going to give them the kind of issues that would require his presence.

Hunter was foolish running to the media to decry the Bruins treatment of backstrom (who was supended for 1 game in the series). I really thought things were going to heat up but it never went any further. i honestly thought calls were made by shanny to get teams to cool it, which is perfect for a team like the caps, who only want to play that semi-trap system and not go over the edge. OV made some huge hits in the series, he and seidenberg had some great collisions.

This will be a good series. I'm taking the Caps in 7.