Anything directly related to the National Hockey League
Who will the New York Rangers play in Round 2 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals?
If the Flyers and Canadiens win, the Rangers will play Pittsburgh. If the Flyers and Bruins win, the Rangers will host the Flyers. If the Caps and Canadiens win, the Rangers will face Montreal. If the Capitals and the Bruins win, the Rangers will play Washington.
Phew.
If the Rangers win tomorrow, it’s still up in the air who they could play in the 2nd round of the Quarterfinals. The Quarterfinals don’t operate like a standard bracket, every team is reseeded. The highest seed plays the lowest seed, and the remaining two play each other. But, until all the 1st round games are done, you can’t really predict who is going to play who.
In the effort of fun and interest, I went back and looked at the Rangers record against the remaining 5 potential opponents.
MTL (1) 3 – BOS (8) 1
PIT (2) 4 – OTT (7) 0 (the only sweep of the first rounds)
WSH (3) 1 – PHI (6) 2
Montreal and Boston play tonight, as well as Washington and Philadelphia (Game 4). If Montreal wins tonight, they will be the 2nd team to into the 2nd round for either conference.
Here are the records for the games played against Montreal and Boston.
BOS 1-1-2 (Me and my parents were at one of the overtime losses at the Garden)
MTL 3-0-1 (This overtime loss is the 5-0 deficit where Montreal came back to tie, and subsequently win in OT)
Against Pittsburgh the Rangers are 5-3-0. Not bad.
Against Philadelphia 5-1-2, decent. And 2-0-2 against Washington.
Possible ways it can go… if Montreal and Philadelphia wins, we go against Pittsburgh. Staal v. Staal in that series. If Boston can come back, we’d either player Philadelphia or Washington. If Montreal and Washington win, they’d play against Pittsburgh. Definitely interesting.
Yesterday, this was legal.
Today, it’s a minor penalty.
“An unsportsmanlike conduct minor penalty will be interpreted and applied, effective immediately, to a situation when an offensive player positions himself facing the opposition goaltender and engages in actions such as waving his arms or stick in front of the goaltender’s face, for the purpose of improperly interfering with and/or distracting the goaltender as opposed to positioning himself to try to make a play,” Colin Campbell, the NHL director of hockey operations said in a statement.
I was lucky enough to see it live, where it will probably be the last time we ever see it.
Ugh. What a way to lose a game. It’s overtime, and the puck goes off your skate into your own goal. Unfortunate for the rookie Staal.
Here’s the recap of how the Devils scored 3 of their 4 goals in the unfortunate ways:
The game-opening goal went in off the shaft of Blair Betts’ stick, just as Sergei Brylin was trying to illegally kick the puck in. Zach Parise’s lead goal from the bottom of the faceoff circle changed direction off Brendan Shanahan. John Madden’s winner was banked in off Marc Staal’s leg as he stood alone in front of Lundqvist.
(Just for clarification, I’m going to both of these games, and the photos are from about where I will be sitting… behind the Devils goal for Period 1 and 3.)
Game 3:
Game 4:
