Game One of the Second Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs is here for the New York Rangers, and they will need to play an almost perfect game in order to beat the Carolina Hurricanes both tonight and indeed throughout this series.
It took seven games and an Artemi Panarin game-winner in Overtime to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins in Round One, and it will almost certainly go the distance again if the Blueshirts are to get past the Canes and advance to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 2014-15.
Given that Carolina is an absolute wagon and built to win right now, this will not be an easy series for the Rangers who didn’t always play their best hockey in Round One, but they found a way to win despite having to consistently climb out of holes.
It is fair to say that the game-plan will have to be a little bit different given that the Hurricanes are a step up in quality, and there’s three things Gerard Gallant’s team will have to do well if they want to take Game One on the road.
Start fast
One of the biggest trends to emerge from Round One for the Rangers was their refusal to quit, no matter how tough the situation. They simply did not know how to roll over and die despite facing elimination three times in the series.
They became the first team in the history of the Stanley Cup Playoffs to come from behind and win three consecutive elimination games in the same series, underlining the tough mentality that has been instilled in that locker room.
However, keep pushing your luck and eventually it will come back and bite you, and that may be the case if the Rangers start slow against Carolina, who scored first in six of their seven games against the Boston Bruins in the First Round.
Not only that but the Canes had the sixth best points percentage (.796) when scoring first during the regular season, while they also had the third best home record in the Eastern Conference (29-8-4) and the fifth best in the NHL.
The Rangers did have the second best points percentage (.829) when scoring first, and they also had the seventh best record on the road in the NHL (25-14-2), but Raleigh is not an easy place to, especially in the heat of postseason battle.
With Carolina possessing the third best record on the road in the league too (25-12-4), the Rangers can’t afford slow starts and, with PNC Arena doing its best to limit Ranger fans from being in attendance, that building will be up for grabs and a fast start by the Canes on home ice could prove fatal.