Pens/Rangers Preview

Preview - Game one is tomorrow night at the Igloo and this town is fired up! And this is not the Ottawa Senators that are coming to town. This is a team that ended their first round series in 5 games against the Atlantic's second place team, the New Jersey Devils. This is a team that rivals the Penguins offensive production. This is a team that has stellar goaltending and rugged, veteran defensemen. The New York Rangers have all of the right keys in place to have a prolonged run through the playoffs. But so do the Pittsburgh Penguins.

In the regular season these two teams met 8 times. The record was 3-3-2 with the Rangers scoring 19 goals against the Pens and the Penguins scoring 20 against the Rangers. Pittsburgh won two at home and one away and dropped one each, home and away, in overtime. But the most relevant games, those occurring after January 1, has the Penguins in the advantage at 3-0-1.

The Penguins and Rangers have met in the playoffs four times with the Penguins winning all four series:

1996 - 2nd round - W 4-1
1992 - 2nd round - W 4-2
1991 - 2nd round - W 4-1
1989 - 1st round - W 4-0

Previous matchup have never gone more than 6.

What the Penguins need to do to win:

Goaltending - if M.A. Fleury can perform as well in this series as he did in the Ottawa series this is a given. If he struggles early the Therrien needs to make the move to Conklin. Fleury's head is clear and his confidence has to be sky high after his first career series win so don't look for him to be shaky from the start. This may be the one area that no one needs to worry about.

Offense - Continue what was started against the Sens. Get lots of pucks on net and get Lundqvuist moving east to west with crisp tape to tape passing and superior speed. Pittsburgh averaged 40.25 shots on goal in the first series. Whether this was a symptom of Ottawas porous defense or because the Pens offense exerted their will on the Sens, or some combination of each, this needs to continue for Pittsburgh to have success in this series. The same players will need to keep their performance at the high level in which they have and continue to camp out in front of the net to create traffic. Basically the Pens need to keep doing what they have been and the goal production will be there.

Defense - Gonchar and Orpik were able to shut down the top line of the Senators, holding that line to only 1 assist (even strength) in the series. As much as I would like to think they will be able to do this again going up against the Jagr line, it's not going to happen. Jagr is bigger and better than Heatly or Spezza and much more dangerous when he has the puck. His linemates, Straka and Drury, are both very capable with the puck and have played with Jagr much of the season so they are all familiar with each other. If the Pens defense can minimize the chances that this line gets then Pittsburgh will have a pretty good shot at getting out of this series in 5 or 6.

Role Players - By now every hockey fan in the world has seen or heard of what Rangers forward and all around agitator, Sean Avery, did to the Devils goalie Brodeur in the first round. Avery will continue being the jackass that he is and will make every attempt to get under the skin of the Penguins. That's his job and he does it well. Pittsburgh will have to ignore his antics to neutralize him, since his mouth, not his offensive prowess, is his most potent weapon. On the other hand, the return of Gary Roberts will have an immediate impact on the psyche of the team and guys like Ruutu and Laraque will be needed to enforce any liberties taken on the Pens skilled forwards by the Rangers.

Intangibles - Home ice advantage has not been all that important in this years playoffs, but should be more so in the second and later rounds. Winning game one was the most important factor from the quarterfinals, with the team that won game one moving on in six of eight series. That will probably remain the same throughout the semifinals as well. Pittsburgh needs to take game 1 and game 2 would be nice as well. Having a 2-0 lead going to New York for games 3 and 4 will give them a huge confidence boost and the Rangers will have second thoughts about their ability to pull off the win.

My Prediction - Pens in 6.