Menu

NHL Eastern Conference playoffs

Canadiens & Rangers Hold Serve In NHL Eastern Conference Playoffs

,

Last season, the New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens met in the NHL’s Eastern Conference Finals, with both making dark horse playoff runs. This time around, the Rangers and Canadiens are on a collision course for a rematch, each as division champions in the regular season. They both held serve in the first round of the playoffs, New York beating Pittsburgh in five games, while Montreal ousted Ottawa in six. Here’s how the favorites advanced…

NEW YORK BEATS PITTSBURGH IN 5

The Rangers defense has a good reputation, with its physical play and a great goaltender in Henrik Lundqvist. They backed it up in a showdown with the Penguins’ offensive stars, notably Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. New York’s defense allowed more than 30 shots on goal only once, that being Game 5 when the Pens were playing with desperation urgency. Lundqvist was in lockdown mode, delivering three successive 2-1 wins, two of the in overtime, to seal the series.
What’s most notable is how much the Rangers turned Crosby into a non-factor. Other than Game 2, when he scored two goals in Pittsburgh’s only win over the series, Crosby simply could not get shots off, being limited to one or two cracks at the net per game. As for Malkin, only in Game 5 did he consistently get his shots and he never made an impact on the series.
Defense defined this series, and while Pittsburgh’s D, along with goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, was better than they’ve been in recent postseasons, that’s still a style that decidedly favored New York. The Rangers have enough offense to win, with Derek Stepan, Rick Nash, Martin St. Louis and Derrick Brassard, whose three goals led the Rangers in this series. And they have the physical defense that can control games.

MONTREAL BEATS OTTAWA IN 6

There’s a very analytical, scientific explanation for why the Canadiens won this series–they have better hockey players than the Senators do. I hope I didn’t overcomplicate that too much.
Montreal won the skating battle in most every game of the series, averaging nearly 40 shots a game through the first five games. Moreover, the shots were consistently coming from their best players. P.K. Subban, a great offensive threat at defenseman, fired his lasers at the net. Max Pacioretty and Tomas Plekanec were consistently on the attack.
Ottawa made a goalie switch to Craig Anderson ,who held off the tide for a couple games, notably when he made 45 saves to win Game 5. But Montreal’s superior skating ability was too much to overcome.
The Canadiens have an elite goaltender in Carey Price, a candidate for the Vezina Trophy, as the NHL’s top goaltender. Price’s play was often so-so in this series, before he personally delivered the Game 6 win with 43 saves in a 2-0 win, the one game where his team lost the skating battle. He’ll need to be sharper moving forward.
New York will play the winner of the Washington-NY Islanders series, which will be settled in a Game 7 tonight (7:30, NBCSN). Montreal gets the winner of Detroit-Tampa Bay. The Red Wings go for a series clinch tonight in Game 6 (7, CNBC). A potential seventh game would be on Wednesday.

READ MORE NHL PLAYOFF COVERAGE
HOW ANAHEIM ADVANCED
HOW CALGARY & CHICAGO ADVANCED
HOW MINNESOTA ADVANCED

NHL 2nd Round Preview: Washington-NY Rangers

, , , , ,

The East’s #1 seed New York Rangers comes off their Game 7 survival against Ottawa to begin conference semi-final action against #7 seed Washington, off their own gut-wrenching seven-game series triumph over Boston. The Rangers-Caps series starts in Madison Square Garden on Saturday afternoon and TheSportsNotebook previews the battle of the East Coast’s two biggest media markets…

Braden Holtby is the biggest X-factor possible in the playoffs right now. The 22-year-old Caps goalie, with just five games played this season and third string on the depth chart of a team lacking in quality goaltending, took full advantage of his chance to play when injuries moved him into the spotlight. In spite of being exposed to 35 shots a game, Holtby enabled Washington to win a series where every game was decided by a single goal. Now the issue becomes tightening up that defense. The Capitals cannot seriously expect to survive this round if they allow New York to pepper away at the goal.

The reverse side of this is that New York needs to get its best offensive players the puck in position to score. Marian Gaborik scored 41 goals and had 35 assists during the regular season, but was a non-factor in the Ottawa series, a big reason why a team with no talent could push the East’s best to the brink. Gaborik and Ryan Callahan, the two best scoring forwards need to be active against a suspect Washington defense.

New York also needs to tighten up its own defense. Throughout the season this was an excellent unit, ranking 6th in the NHL at preventing shots, and with a goalie like Henrik Lundqvist to back you up, that adds up to a lot of wins. But Ottawa was able to get 31 shots a night at Lundqvist. Washington is not great at generating shots, but they’ve also shown—both throughout the season and again in the Boston series that they can score at a rate disproportionate to their shot volume. This is a direct consequence of having a player with Alex Ovechkin’s talent in the lineup. The forward was up and down in the first round, just as he was throughout the year. If he stays up throughout this series, there’s no reason the Caps can’t get enough offensive activity going to win this series.

If you look at the seedings and season-long statistics, there’ s not a lot of reason to pick Washington. But we can’t forget that this Caps team is the same group that earned high playoff seedings in previous years. If you’re a baseball fan, think of them like the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals. After winning 100-plus games the previous two years, they only won 83 in ‘06 and barely scraped their way into the playoffs, making it easy to dismiss their ultimate World Series run as a fluke. But it wasn’t. It was a case of a talented team that had underachieved, but got a second chance and took full advantage, and winning a championship in a year they weren’t really supposed to. That could be Washington’s M.O. this time around—and let’s not forget that this year’s Washington team has what previous one’s didn’t, and that’s the hot goalie. 30 is my magic number on this series—if the Caps defense keeps the Rangers under that total on  a shots-per-game average, Holtby puts them in the conference finals. The bet here is that the underdog wins another seven-game thriller.

NHL Playoffs 1st Round Preview: Washington-Boston

, , , , , ,

The Boston Bruins begin their quest for a second straight Stanley Cup as the #2 seed in the East and champs of the Northeast Division. The Washington Capitals have a recent history of playoff disappointment as a favorite, but after a tough season now get to play the underdog role from the 7-slot. TheSportsNotebook previews this great battle of the East Coast…

Boston is a well-balanced team that has no real weaknesses. Even though they lost their top scorer, Nathan Horton, to a concussion that will leave him out of the playoffs, the Bruins still finished third in the league in scoring. They did so, because Horton was only nominally the top offensive player. In reality this is a team that gets contributions everywhere on the ice, with the passing of defenseman Zdeno Chara, and contributions up front from Milan Lucic, David Krejici and Patrice Bergeron. The Bruins succeed offensively by sustained assault, as they also rank third in shots on goal.

The Washington team that Boston will attack has serious problems in goal right now. Tomas Vokoun was inconsistent to begin with and now a groin injury has his status uncertain. Michael Neuvirth is tentatively expected to start Thursday’s opener, but he’s got a knee problem. Given that neither one has played well, would the Caps be better off just blowing the whole thing up, going for the romantic storyline and giving untested 22-year-old Braden Holby a shot? I can tell you as a Boston fan that it’s the scenario I fear the most. The Bruins can handle Washington’s regular goalies. They might blow Holby out of the arena. But unfamiliarity is never a positive development for the favorite.

One player who will be eminently familiar to everyone is Washington forward Alex Ovechkin. His final numbers weren’t superstar-level due to a slow start, but he still scored 38 goals and he’s the reason why a team that only ranks 23rd in getting shots is able to translate that into being 14th in scoring goals. But Boston can answer Ovechkin with an above-average team defense and a goalie in Tim Thomas, who had some tough stretches this year and he’s getting up there in age, but still played well and has that warrior mentality you want in the playoffs.

The special teams are not a strength for either team, with both ranking considerably higher in 5-on-5 play. This is something that speaks of well of the winner’s ability to advance, since you don’t want to dependent on officiating at this time of year.

I know it must come off that I think Boston is a heavy favorite, but I don’t see it that way. Maybe it’s the fan in me overriding the analyst, because based on the numbers—including recent form, where each team won 11 of 20 to end the season—there’s just no reason to think Washington should win. Even allowing for the considerable talent of Ovechkin, the looser officiating in the playoffs make it harder for a forward to step up and dominate. But on the flip side, after so many years of favorite flameouts, it would be in keeping with the NHL playoffs for the Caps to suddenly turn into the feisty dog. But in the end, I’ll take the Bruins’ team offense to trump Washington’s goaltending issues in a hotly contested series.