This is Alcaraz and Sinner in the second round of Wimbledon. It’s a matchup that comes too early in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, at least for the series. It’s a heavyweight battle between the NHL’s highest-ranked team and his third-best record, and it’s already being held as early spring fun.
Those are the Rangers with 114 points and the Hurricanes with 111 points from Game 1 of Game 2 at the Garden late Sunday afternoon. It’s yet another test for the Presidents Trophy winner, who has overcome all the challenges he has faced over the past seven months. .
The Carolina organization probably considers a win here a birthright in the program’s sixth year under head coach Rod Brind’Amour. The club won a total of seven playoff rounds and established a discernible brand and style that kept puck pressure constant throughout 200 games. x85, an offense based on attempt volume while keeping everything close to the net.
The cane is ready. But do you know when the Canes were ready? It was March 12, when the Rangers were in Raleigh, leading Carolina by two points with 18 games remaining for both teams. The Blueshirts entered their second straight night without Matt Lempe, who received the first of a four-game suspension for catching Jonas Siegenthaler with an elbow to the head the night before.
Carolina has been chasing the Rangers since the last week of October. This was my chance to do that. The final score of the match was 1-0.
Adam Fox’s goal late in the first period put the Rangers up 1-0.
The Canes couldn’t catch the Rangers that night. He wasn’t caught at all. And while there’s certainly a line between the regular season and the playoffs, there’s also a line between the first and second rounds of the tournament, but in 2023-2024, the Blueshirts will The accumulated results have encouraged the team.
Carolina is very good, but so are the Rangers, and with all due respect to the situation, they kind of know that. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
“I think one of the biggest things we talked about is not being complacent, but recognizing that we accomplished a lot this year,” Quandre Miller told the Post. . “I think there are many things we were able to do for the first time this year, including winning the league, winning the division, and losing in the first round.
“That’s kind of the standard built into how we’ve grown this year and the nature of our competitiveness around here at the rink. I think that’s the biggest thing.”
Carolina is relentless. They basically bring in a heavy forecheck on every possession, putting constant pressure on the five-man unit to get good first passes to the defense and protect the front. On March 12, the Canes had 59 attempts at 5-on-5, but only 24 were on net as the Blueshirts blocked 23 times.
The Rangers defended that night and also defended against Washington in the first round sweep. They do not panic under duress. Their composure is reminiscent of the 2011-12 Black and Blueshirts team, who always looked comfortable in their own cause, even though they were Corsi to death, as sometimes happens at this club.
“We defended pretty hard and felt confident in our play down the stretch,” Jimmy Vesey said. “It’s a tough 82-game season and if you don’t play defense, if you don’t play with attitude, you’re not going to finish at the top.”
This series features the feisty Artemi Panarin, a man made for this time and place. It will be about Igor Shesterkin, who will hold a cashier tournament ahead of summer contract negotiations. Does anyone know what a cash register is these days? Maybe the franchise goaltender is making the Bitcoin playoffs.
The story will be about Mika Zibanejad, who saved his best record from the 2023-24 season for this game, against Jordan Staal. More than six months have passed since Fox returned to the ice with his team on Saturday after receiving leg-on-leg from Nick Jensen and knee-on-knee from the Canes’ Sebastian Aho in Sunday’s Game 4. It will be. .
It will be about elite professional teams on both teams. During the season, the Rangers ranked in the top three in both power play (26.4 percent) and penalty kill (84.5 percent) for the first time since 1993-94 – third place in each, but somehow Carolina finished first in both. He ranked second in PP with 26.9 and first in PK with 86.4.
Being good on specialty teams is not enough in this round.
And it came from Lempe, who had missed a single game against Carolina that year and was thought to be too slow for the Canes, with the exception of the Rangers winning the last 13 games in which No. 73 played. It probably depends on the influence. With him in the lineup, we’re 18 wins, 2 losses, and 1 draw overall, so I think we’ll probably be fine.
It’s a matchup between the team with the best record in the league and the team with the third-best record in the league. This could be a mid-June matchup, but instead it will be a first week matchup in May.
Now, let’s leave.
It’s Rangers time.
