Larrybiv
We're CLEAN, we PROMISE!
I felt that Carolina "almost" matched our speed and their tenacity was better than ours. Shesty was better, PP & PK was ours but with Florida that "might be" a wash. I think we have from top to bottom more talent, but what will be the decided advantage is our team speed. I can see us having numerous breakaways and 2 on 1's. Guess we will see.Florida IMO has a better top group of forwards than the Canes. I like the Canes defense corps better than theirs but missing Pesce and all the man to man stuff that is Brind'amour's system hurt them against us. Bobrovsky is better than Andersen.
I mean I'd take Barkov over Aho easily if given the choice. Aho's a great player but Barkov edges him on offense and kills him in two way play. I'd also take both Reinhart and Verhaeghe over any of Carolina's scoring wingers Guentzel, Jarvis, Necas, Svechnikov. Reinhart had 54 goals this year and Verhaeghe is also deadly in kind of a Marchessault way....he gets goals when you really really need them. Carolina has no one like Tkachuk who in some respects is like a modern day Messier. A mean, nasty, big physical point producing forward and pretty much their leader who sets the tone for how that team plays. He's a real leader type. They're a more physical team than Carolina too. As we've seen with Bennett he can be pretty nasty. Tkachuk fits that too. Lomberg however much he plays. Cousins is a real agitator. Almost everyone on their team hits every chance they get and it was like that in their series against Boston. Going into the last game in that series the two teams had gone over 500 hits already in the series.
All that said I think the Panthers do have vulnerabilities that could play into the Rangers hands if the Rangers play up to their abilities. The Panthers physical game will mean there will be penalties and making them pay will be important for us.
It's kind of funny that their main additions at the deadline were two guys we added last year when we got bounced in the first round by the Devils. They're both pretty decent adds but I don't see either being big difference makers. They weren't for us and so far they haven't been for them.