I'm gonna be bold and say the Rangers get a goal tonight. Not sure why I just have a weird feeling the puck might actually go in the net.
Have to get it early and have to score first. If the Penguins score first, this team will fold. We play incredibly poorly when playing from behind. And the Penguins will be able to play shutdown defense the remainder of the game, and capitalize on the scoring opportunities they get (the Penguins are a team that only need a few quality chances to score, they have the TALENT to take advantage of the opportunities, we have a multitude of 3rd liners who can't finish plays and "elite" goal scorers who are even worse than our 3rd/4th liners playing).
I wouldn't be shocked at all if the Penguins score first and we are forced playing from behind and may or may not score a goal. Would not be shocked if the Penguins can shutdown our meager offense for a third shutout where Fleury doesn't have to play all that well. We are seeing one of the worst Rangers post season efforts in terms of offensive chances this round.
11-12 3rd in GA/G
12-13 7th in GA/G
13-14 2nd in GA/G
Noticing a trend? We finish in the top half for goals against per game in each of the last three post seasons, top-3 two of the last three years, and can't get out of the second round. GOALS win playoff series. Same **** every year. Team can't score goals. They're routinely top in goals against/game but cannot win series because their offensive is wildly inconsistent.
Let's look at an example.
In the MTL/BOS series, Price has won TWO games, in each game his team scored 4 GOALS. Rask has won ONE game, his team scored 5 GOALS.
You can't win games scoring 0-2 goals per game. People always ***** about Lundqvist, but frankly, the goal support is never there. If the Rangers had better goal support, we might have won a Cup in 11-12. Tired of the same **** every year. GOALS. We need GOALS. Give him a team like the 93-94 Rangers with the offense of Messier, Kovalev, Leetch, Zubov, Graves, etc, and we might be able to do something.