"have no knowledge that we finished with 3 less points than their team did this season."
What they fail to realize is that their President's Cup +3 point performance was based on 2 more shootout wins + 1 more 3 v 3 OT win (we had more regulation wins.).
Memo to Ranger fans, that's not how the Playoffs roll.
btw: if Chytll plays I'm thinking they will sit Rempe. Rempe probably comes in if we get ahead in the series as a motivator for them. He will take stupid penalties and we just need to cash in.
btw: I wouldn't play Pepe unless one of our forwards gets hurt.
btw2: playoff series often bring our different heroes in every series. I'm expecting a big series from 59 & 88 with more room to operate plus a return to statistical norms.
Guentzel had a great series vs the Rangers when he was a Penguin. Now, some of that may have been playing with Crosby but if he can score 8 goals against them again I'll take that.
He was surprisingly quiet this round (thankfully we had secondary scoring back us up this round, which is what you need to be successful in the playoffs when your top guns go quiet).
Yes, he had 4 points, but one empty net goal. I don't know if taking Jarvis off his line with Aho disrupted that line since that line was hotter than a firecracker or if the Islanders just did a good job covering him.
Don't know about anybody else but I was very pleased with Kuznetsov this round. He had 4 points in 5 games, which is about his avg in the playoffs for his career.
Not bad for a 4th liner. Yes, one was a penalty shot but goals are goals and at the time that penalty shot goal was huge.
Also, that year the Rangers faced the Penguins Penguins took them 7 games with their 3rd goalie because Jarry got hurt and then their backup got hurt.
With us we played Raanta that series and he wasn't really that good at MSG at all.
I like our chances better this go around with Andersen and Kochetkov backing him up.
Also, Shesterkin is 5-4-0 vs the Hurricanes in his career and Andersen is 9-6-3 vs the Rangers.
If we play the Rangers these playoffs like we did during the season and last playoffs I like our chances now that we have a healthy Andersen and a capable backup.
Shesterkin has pretty good playoff numbers...but if the Devils beat him last year we can beat him this year.
Regardless will be a fun series. Hopefully we can win at MSG at least once if not twice this round. We have played better overall at MSG lately though.
So, looking at this Shesterkin is not Lundqvist, whom owned us...until we beat him in the bubble.