The best New York Rangers second-round preview on the internet
The magic of sports is the unpredictable. Just because something should or is supposed to happen, doesn’t mean it always will. Hell, even if what’s expected happens, the path getting there might not be the straightforward one. Even as the slight favorite, the New York Rangers managed to make the first round anything but expected.
Now is when the fun begins for New York. Coming into the season, there was an expectation to qualify for the postseason. Check. There was energy amongst the fan base that winning at least one series would qualify as a successful season. Check.
Going forward, the Rangers are the kid on their 21st birthday at the blackjack table with their birthday money. Sure, if the deck stays hot, they can play all night. But, the looming cold streak is simply one hand away. Either way, the kid got to have an exciting 21st birthday and a cool story out of the process.
For New York, this second-round series against the Carolina Hurricanes will be an uphill battle. DraftKings has the Hurricanes as a solid (-190) favorite and based on each team’s respective regular season, expectations, and first-round results, it’s hard to argue.
But, that’s why we play the games. We’re betting more than the table minimum and we’re gonna see what happens, now dealer, deal.
Regular season results: Carolina 3–1–0
The narratives and plot
New York just played the most chaotic first-round series out of any team in the postseason. Coming back from multi-goal deficits and winning three consecutive games is next-level fortitude. There’s no questioning the resolve of the group even if I myself sometimes get frustrated with the effort at times.
These two teams met in the 2020 bubble playoffs and Carolina skated circles around the last gasp of the Henrik Lundqvist era. While the team likes to pretend that series wasn’t really the playoffs, it cannot be ignored.
Carolina played a homer series against the Boston Bruins. As a favorite, the Hurricanes won every game on home ice and it proved the difference. While the Bruins are a tight defensive team with an above-average goaltender, it never really felt like Boston was a threat to snatch the series from Carolina.
The Rangers are playing with house money, the expectation was to make it this far. Now, as an underdog against a quality opponent, it’s going to take the perfect confluence of luck and good play to upset Carolina. There’s nothing wrong with being an underdog, in fact, it’s a great motivational tool.
As for Carolina, this is the point where its season has run into walls the last several years. The Hurricanes haven’t gotten past the second round since 2018–2019 when that plucky group of promising youngsters won two straight series as underdogs before bowing out against a Bruins team that was one goal away from winning the Stanley Cup.
Carolina expected to be at this point and frankly should be ready for this moment. After several consecutive exits in the second round, it seems like a “strike while the iron is hot” moment. If Carolina is ever going to win the east and make a Stanley Cup final run, this is the time.
As for New York, they have to put forth the best effort possible. The team probably wasn’t supposed to be this far along this season, but things broke the Rangers’ way. As long as the dealer keeps putting down face cards, they’ll stay at the table.
The on-ice results
At face value, the underlying results for New York and Carolina paint a pretty clear gap. Especially during the regular season, the Hurricanes continued their trend of being analytics darlings, controlling play with both quantity and quality of scoring chances. New York was a “bad process with good results” regular-season team with the high-end talent to win games.
That’s the 2021–2022 Rangers’ defining trait, finding a way in spite of difficult odds. No one is saying it’s impossible to win with less than 50 percent of scoring chances, just that it’s more difficult. Lesser teams would’ve wilted in the face of that style of hockey, but the Rangers’ best players made up the gap.
Carolina consistently has strong underlying numbers because of their up-tempo, pressing style of hockey. Remember that annoying PAL team in middle school that ran full-court press because the dad coaching the team took it way too seriously? That’s the Hurricanes.
The Rangers will have to weather an intense style of hockey. The Hurricanes will win loose pucks, get to offense quickly, activate the defense in the offensive zone and funnel pucks to the net in any and every direction to put stress on the New York defense.
As for the Rangers, anyone who’s watched them, they themselves and the coach will admit they’re choosey in terms of when the puck gets to the net. The team’s marquee players like Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin are always looking to make the perfect play because they have the individual talent to make it happen more often than not.
This in turn leads to an ugly underlying statistic profile. When the strategy is working, the Rangers absorb pressure from the perimeter, spring the forwards from the zone with speed quickly, and try to generate a rush scoring opportunity.
When the Rangers don’t gain the zone with speed and puck control, they struggle to maintain any real offensive pressure. Against Pittsburgh, New York was dramatically out-chanced at five on five and it took a handful of individual efforts to overcome that poor play.
In particular, New York needs to be better in front of goaltender Igor Shesterkin. The Penguins were able to pass across the net mouth at will and get the puck to dangerous areas whenever they wanted to. Against Carolina, those pucks will be on the net and not going across passing lanes.
Stylistic matchup
In a vacuum, this matchup presents the Rangers with a very real opportunity to get back to the team’s preferred style of offensive hockey. As mentioned, the Hurricanes are going to inch up the ice and try to overwhelm the Rangers’ defensemen with speed along the boards.
For New York to find offensive success, the team’s forwards are going to need to be more actively engaged in the defensive zone. Below the goal line and along the walls are where playoff hockey games are decided. If Carolina has a defenseman pinching down to create a numbers advantage offensively, that also means they have a numbers disadvantage defensively.
This, of course, means that the Rangers will need to actually be able to exit the defensive zone at some point in this series. Against the Penguins, it was more a matter of when Pittsburgh would turn the puck over as opposed to when the Rangers recovered it.
Against Carolina, that type of pressure is simply not going to be sustainable. New York needs to get out of its own zone and put pressure on the Carolina D in their own zone. The Rangers’ offense will have opportunities to exploit the Hurricanes’ man-on-man style of in-zone defense.
My one worry stylistically for New York is tempo. While the Rangers aren’t a slow team, they’re also not littered with straight-line burners. Against a Carolina team that relies on speed and conditioning as the foundation of its style, the Rangers’ lack of speed will require stronger execution.
After all, the Bruins wouldn’t be confused with the Maple Leafs or Florida Panthers and the team still managed to score enough to keep the series competitive. For New York, it’ll be a matter of executing better, especially in transition.
The intangibles
In New York’s last series, the experience gap didn’t seem to impact the Rangers. If anything, I’d argue the team’s relative inexperience played to the team’s advantage because it didn’t know any better. What may have seemed daunting to the outside world was just noise, that group rallied from 3–1 down.
Again, the Rangers are playing a team with more postseason experience. The Hurricanes have endured a few traumatic playoff series in consecutive seasons. That type of painful experience is typically considered a benchmark in establishing a team’s contender credentials.
While New York was more tenacious and physical than Pittsburgh, that won’t be the case in round two. The Rangers have a few players who like to use their bodies to make time and space, Carolina’s entire team is entrenched in that mindset.
It’s all tied into the overarching team presence that Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour instilled over the previous four years behind the bench. His teams simply don’t get outworked. If the Hurricanes are gonna lose, it won’t be because of effort.
X-Factor matchup
It might be a cop-out to use a special teams battle as the most important matchup in a series, but I’ll make it simple, the Rangers need goals. Shesterkin could transform into a pile of bricks larger than the net as soon as the puck drops for game one and New York still couldn’t win the game 0–0.
Let’s start with the baseline understanding that Carolina is going to control play at five on five. The styles of these teams lend to that outcome and the results in the regular season matchups make it all the more likely. That means that New York won’t find offense easily or with any real consistency.
In round one against the Penguins, the Rangers scored on 29% of its 21 power-play attempts. In the regular season, New York checked in at 25.5 percent of the time. Of the Rangers’ 28 goals in the first round, 6 came on the power play.
Simply put, for New York to score enough in this series to win, it will need to maintain the same high standard on the power play.
The problem for the Rangers is that the Hurricanes had one of the best penalty-killing units of any team in modern NHL history. For a long stretch, the Hurricanes flirted with a 90% penalty kill which hasn’t been done in more than 30 years.
This is an irresistible force meeting an immovable object-type situation. Carolina’s PK is so good, that it’s effectively invented a new approach to four-on-five situations at the NHL level. Some in the hockey community dub the Hurricanes PK the “power-kill” because it’s so good at generating offense while down a man.
During the 2021–2022 season, the Hurricanes finished second in both percent of scoring chances and expected goals in penalty kill situations.
Final thoughts and series prediction
To be frank, I didn’t think the Rangers were a “back from a 3–1 series deficit” type group. But, in spite of being dramatically outplayed in six of the seven games in the series, the team is here and has to be bubbling over with confidence.
In fact, that newfound confidence married with the expectations surrounding Carolina presents a narrative advantage for New York. Playing as a “nobody believes in us” team in the postseason is a powerful motivator. After all, who isn’t a little petty when they’re doubted?
The most important player in this series for the Rangers is Shesterkin. It was crucial that he finished the first-round series on a good note and was able to rediscover his form. Without the Vezina and Hart Trophy finalist at the top of his game, this series would be just academic.
But, with Shesterkin trending in the right direction, Carolina has to feel a slight lump in its throat. In years past, the Hurricanes have had trouble beating high-end goalies because the team’s style encourages quantity over quality.
As long as Shesterkin has a clean view on the puck, he’s going to find a way more often than not. For the Rangers’ defense, it’ll be a matter of keeping the traffic in front to a minimum and not losing Carolina players between the circles.
The Hurricanes are the favorite and deservedly so. After all, I picked them to win the Eastern Conference. That said, I feel a lot better about this matchup going into game one than I would have a month or so ago. The gut-check New York endured in round one went a long way in assuaging some of my concerns. At some point, the Rangers will play a good game at five on five, Shesterkin will find a way to steal one, and just like that you’re at two wins out of four.
The Rangers will make this series more interesting than it should be. However, I think Carolina features a deeper lineup and plays a style more conducive to postseason hockey. It’s been a long time coming in Raleigh for the Hurricanes to assert themselves as cup contenders.
New York achieved its goal for the season, the team will be back in the playoffs with more complete rosters in the near future. Of course, Shesterkin could easily turn into that aforementioned brick wall and the series gets all types of chaotic.
Just a little bit too much playoff hockey too fast for the Rangers. This is a good test to see what New York will need going forward. Measuring oneself against the league’s best is when to draw conclusions about a roster, not regular-season games with depleted lineups.
