GDT: Game 82: New York Rangers vs Ottawa Senators, 7:30pm, MSG

[Fitzy]

It is true, a lot of playoff hockey is about praying that your goaltender happens to be on a hot streak, not a cold one, at the right time.

Because even if you go backup, by the time you figure it out the series is often over.

 

[AirGut]

Hey Rangers Fans... Canes fan coming here is peace. Hell of a reg season from you guys and no doubt the playoffs will bring things to another level.

Serious question for you all... while totalling getting that you can win the President's Trophy with a win tonight... from just a pure matchup perspective would you rather clinch top spot and face the Washadelphia Pengwings or do you think you would have more of an advantage against the Isles?

Maybe this would have been a more difficult question if BOS/FLA were taking #1 seed and with the #2 the Metro winner would be getting Tampa but just curious on your thoughts.

I think it's very mixed amongst the Rangers fanbase, for some the idea of playing another rival in the opening round after a very exhausting RD1 against the Devils last year is nightmare inducing. This Rangers team is very different than the Gallant led team of 2023 however, but the Isles still enjoy and even embrace playing against the Rangers too much just like the Devs did last year and when you're fighting against an underdog it can be very frustrating especially when you mix that in with how the Islanders play the game.

I've been sick of seeing the Penguins and Capitals in the playoff picture just about every year since I was a child and so I think it'd be nice to finally see some new blood like the Red Wings. Detroit deserves it after spending many years in a ditch, PITT/WSH have had their fun in years past imo. We'll see, whatever happens happens

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Right, so "killer instinct" just means you won the Cup, which is a reactive measure, not a predictive one.

Colorado lost a game 7 at home last year in a feckless performance. Tampa Bay got run off the ice by Toronto. These are teams that, by your measure, have killer instinct, except when they don't, which is most of the time.

Before winning the Cup, Vegas lost a semi-final to like a 20-win Montreal team, blew a 4-1 lead a game 7, and missed the playoffs the year prior.

It's not real.

DonaldTrumpWrong.gif


They won because they didn’t waste their energy with inferior competition.

They stepped on their necks.

 

[nyr2k2]

Hey Rangers Fans... Canes fan coming here is peace. Hell of a reg season from you guys and no doubt the playoffs will bring things to another level.

Serious question for you all... while totalling getting that you can win the President's Trophy with a win tonight... from just a pure matchup perspective would you rather clinch top spot and face the Washadelphia Pengwings or do you think you would have more of an advantage against the Isles?

Maybe this would have been a more difficult question if BOS/FLA were taking #1 seed and with the #2 the Metro winner would be getting Tampa but just curious on your thoughts.

I don't want the Islanders. Not because I think they're good--I actually think they suck--but because I've been a fan of this team long enough to know that's a script written with a heartbreak ending for us.

 

[Machinehead]

DonaldTrumpWrong.gif

Scintillating analysis.

 

[Levitate]

nah, he's right, some kind of "killer instinct" thing is BS.
I think some teams do learn what it takes to get through the playoffs and that can benefit them some but in many ways hockey is too random even so.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

nah, he's right, some kind of "killer instinct" thing is BS.
I think some teams do learn what it takes to get through the playoffs and that can benefit them some but in many ways hockey is too random even so.

“Hockey is random” is fake news.

The best teams always come out on top in the end. The only exception is maybe St Louis but they were a very good team overall.

You have your Cinderella teams make it to the finals sometimes but they always lose.

There are no lucky cup winners.

Hasek, Bobrovsky, Hank have dragged their teams to the finals but didn’t win

 

[Fitzy]

Yes, but no TRUE team without killer instinct has ever won a cup..

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

If you need 7 games to barely squeak by Detroit or Washington or NYI, you’re not winning the cup.

 

[Machinehead]

They won because they didn’t waste their energy with inferior competition.

They stepped on their necks.

Sure, having short series helps.

Did they have short series because they have some mental fortitude that most teams don't have or because of shooting and goaltending luck?

If they had this secret instinct you claim they do, then why did all of those teams thoroughly embarrass themselves at least once during their contending windows?

We talked about Boston before. Outside of their one Cup, they're the biggest chokers in the league. St. Louis and Washington couldn't get past the second round except when they did. Pittsburgh, same thing. LA missed the playoffs in 2015 and get smoked in 2013. Hell, LA was incapable of winning in less than seven games until they ran into us and we hit the post 900 times in five games.

Except for a bonafide dynasty like Chicago, every Cup winner has ugly losses all over their resume. They do all of the things you claim only the Rangers do because the Rangers don't have killer instinct.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

Right, so "killer instinct" just means you won the Cup, which is a reactive measure, not a predictive one.

Colorado lost a game 7 at home last year in a feckless performance. Tampa Bay got run off the ice by Toronto. These are teams that, by your measure, have killer instinct, except when they don't, which is most of the time.

Before winning the Cup, Vegas lost a semi-final to like a 20-win Montreal team, blew a 4-1 lead a game 7, and missed the playoffs the year prior.

It's not real.

I like your take but if you take it on a player per player basis would you not say that Mark Messier has more killer instinct than Valeri Kamensky?

 

[Fitzy]

If you need 7 games to barely squeak by Detroit or Washington or NYI, you’re not winning the cup.

I certainly buy that there is an inverse relationship. More games taken total, the less chance of success in any following one. Question is whether better teams tend to win early series cleaner, whether there is a fatigue effect, or perhaps a combination of the two (Seems most plausible to me)

You could see a team going 7-5-5-7, or 5-5-7-7, or 7-7-5-5, but you'll never see a 7-6-7-7 or anything like that.

 

[Rongomania]

We didn't play the Caps in 2014.

I meant more leading up to 2014 we finally got through those haunting ass teams on our way to the finals.

I just feel like this team beating Tampa and especially the Isles, that’s the kind of mental wins for a core which can really have them playing as confident as possible.

 

[Machinehead]

I like your take but if you take it on a player per player basis would you not say that Mark Messier has more killer instinct than Valeri Kamensky?

Ok, Messier led his teams to Cup wins in 1990 and 1994 but we're missing two things.

1) Messier is a billion times better than Valeri Kamensky.

2) Put Kamensky on the 1984-1988 Oilers and he has four more Cup rings.

I'll give Messier one thing: he has a Stanley Cup winning goal that he never touched. If that's not killer instinct, I don't know what is.

 

[Fitzy]

I like your take but if you take it on a player per player basis would you not say that Mark Messier has more killer instinct than Valeri Kamensky?

If the point is that killer instinct is important insofar as it impacts playoff results vs regular season, then Kamensky is an odd example because he was actually a solid playoff performer.

It was in the low stakes games/seasons where he coasted.

What we want to distinguish is the Henrik's of the world who, for whatever reason, are better in a game 7 situation.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

Ok, Messier led his teams to Cup wins in 1990 and 1994 but we're missing two things.

1) Messier is a billion times better than Valeri Kamensky.

2) Put Kamensky on the 1984-1988 Oilers and he has four more Cup rings.

I'll give Messier one thing: he has a Stanley Cup winning goal that he never touched. If that's not killer instinct, I don't know what is.

But you can control for confounding variables in these types of analysis.

 

[Machinehead]

If the point is that killer instinct is important insofar as it impacts playoff results vs regular season, then Kamensky is an odd example because he was actually a solid playoff performer.

It was in the low stakes games/seasons where he coasted.

What we want to distinguish is the Henrik's of the world who, for whatever reason, are better in a game 7 situation.

Certain players are better in clutch situations. I don't think it's farfetched to say some teams rarely have bad games in these situations.

The trouble is when you try to say a team is incapable of that because they did X, Y, and Z. Look back and you'll find every Cup winner making absolute asses of themselves either right before or right after they won the Cup.

 

[jerseyjinx94]

Killer instinct is just another way of saying you treat every shift like it’s Game 7. Go out there and leave it all on the ice. If the Rangers do that they should dispose of whoever they play bc the fact is they are one of the more talented teams in the league. It’s the effort level and the commitment to playoff style hockey that is in question, and it’s a fair question

 

[Fitzy]

Certain players are better in clutch situations. I don't think it's farfetched to say some teams rarely have bad games in these situations.

The trouble is when you try to say a team is incapable of that because they did X, Y, and Z. Look back and you'll find every Cup winner making absolute asses of themselves either right before or right after they won the Cup.

And we select on the dependent variable 90 percent of the time.

When a team wins a cup every player gets credited as a bonus. Even those who the team won despite. When a team fails, no one is credited a winner, unless they do so in such a glaringly obvious way (Henrik, Hasek, Ryan Miller for team USA in 2010) that it's impossible to ignore.

 

[Machinehead]

Killer instinct is just another way of saying you treat every shift like it’s Game 7. Go out there and leave it all on the ice. If the Rangers do that they should dispose of whoever they play bc the fact is they are one of the more talented teams in the league. It’s the effort level and the commitment to playoff style hockey that is in question, and it’s a fair question

Is it a fair question?

The same core of players has a 3-1 comeback in which they trailed in every game and a game 7 win on the road.

 

[Fitzy]

Killer instinct is just another way of saying you treat every shift like it’s Game 7. Go out there and leave it all on the ice. If the Rangers do that they should dispose of whoever they play bc the fact is they are one of the more talented teams in the league. It’s the effort level and the commitment to playoff style hockey that is in question, and it’s a fair question

Every game in a playoff series like it's game 7 I'll buy, with the asterisk that if you're up 5-1 in the 3rd I don't need you running around.

But every regular season game like it's game 7 is a recipe for disaster.

 

[Levitate]

Killer instinct is just another way of saying you treat every shift like it’s Game 7. Go out there and leave it all on the ice. If the Rangers do that they should dispose of whoever they play bc the fact is they are one of the more talented teams in the league. It’s the effort level and the commitment to playoff style hockey that is in question, and it’s a fair question

I don't think this is always possible or realistic and it also treats sports/hockey like a video game where it's just like "this teams total rank is higher than that teams so they shoudl win!" and discounts how players have bad games, bad luck, are injured, or are just worn out and not playing to their top form.

The team that flopped against the Devils is largely the same team that scratched and clawed its way to the ECF the year before. Was one team just putting in more effort than the other?

Hockey isn't completely random or something, of course better teams are usually the ones that win the cup, but parity in the league now is such that when you throw a bunch of the best teams in the league against each other in the playoffs the outcome often isn't decided by what the best team on paper is but by which teams happens to "get hot" (lucky, more or less) and so forth.

You can have all the killer instinct in the world and the puck just doesn't go in for you a couple of games and that's it, you're done.

 

[Reijo29]

1 point does it. Just 1.

1 point doesn’t do it, why are some fans so asleep. They need 2, why is that so difficult for some to understand.

 

[Machinehead]

1 point doesn’t do it, why are some fans so asleep. They need 2, why is that so difficult for some to understand.

 

[Fitzy]

1 point doesn’t do it, why are some fans so asleep. They need 2, why is that so difficult for some to understand.

The tiebreakers can be confusing for people since it has changed a few times.

I even had to double check if it was ROW or RW this time. But either way as you say Carolina takes it with another win and any NYR loss.