Right back at it tonight as the Rangers and Devils prepare for game two of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals. The Rangers had the edge in game one and were rewarded with an early lead on the series but they will need to keep progressing if they want to hold onto the lead as they return home. As Barclay Goodrow mentioned as a key to this game, “Playoffs are all about raising your level of play each and every night. We know they’re going to respond in Game 2 and we’re going to have to raise our level as well. We all know the Devils have the potential to be a better team than we saw Tuesday Night therefore it’s in the Rangers best interest to keep performing at a level where we don’t get to see the Devils at their best. Despite the all around great start to the series, there are plenty of areas for improvement going into tonight’s contest.
For starters, we know the Rangers aren’t going to get away with much as the officials are calling most of everything they see. We learned that the hard way as the Rangers spent over a quarter of the first period in the penalty box. With that in mind, they must do everything they can to stay out of there. While their penalty kill was stellar, you don’t want to keep putting your team at a disadvantage like that. While the Devils didn’t get much done on the power play, we know they have the skillset capable of being a threat. By contrast, any chance you have to draw the Devils into taking a penalty is worth taking, especially following the success of the power play unit in game one.
Aside from that, there isn’t much else the Rangers need to drastically improve on. They did a lot of things right in game one that they just need to keep progressing on which will leave them in good shape. The biggest thing for me is again, getting off to a good start. The Devils hadn’t played a playoff game in years and for many of the players on their roster, they’ve never played a Stanley Cup Playoff game. With game one under their belts, they’re going to come out a tad more aggressive and you don’t want to give them any room to find their game. It’ll be interesting to see if Lindy Ruff decides to roll with the same exact group or if he looks to get Luke Hughes or anyone else into the mix.
For the Rangers, you can expect the same group in game two:
Kreider - Zibanejad - Kane
Panarin - Trocheck - Tarasenko
Lafreniere - Chytil - Kakko
Vesey - Goodrow - Motte
Lindgren - Fox
Miller - Trouba
Mikkola - Schneider
As long as the Rangers build off their series opening performance and get the same kind of efforts from Igor Shesterkin, it’s hard to see them finding anything but success in game two. The most important things again are getting off to a good start, staying out of the box and limiting New Jersey’s chances and slowing them down as much as possible. The Rangers know better than anyone that a series isn’t over until it’s over so hopefully they can take that lesson and apply it to the other side of it in order to maintain the lead on the series from start to finish. Expect a more intense outing tonight with hopefully another great outcome from the Blueshirts.
Chris Feldman
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