RichieNextel305

This league will be so much better when McCauley and Sutherland are gone. The absolute worst.

I don’t think it’s as much an issue with their gas tank as it is just a flat out mismatch. The Rangers are better than them in every single facet. And it’s not even by a small margin. It’s a big gap. Much of the talk entering this series was how they can smother you defensively, and how they would try to bore the Rangers to death. And how Charlie Lindgren has been on fire of late. Last I checked, the Rangers are defensively better. And the Rangers have the best goalie in the league since the All-Star Break; a goalie with a history of dominance, not some AHL-flub who caught lightning in a bottle. Play your game and this Ranger team can beat the Capitals into dust. Fast.

I don’t think they can. It’s not their game. If they open up things, they’re leaving the defense out to pasture against a team who feasts off the transition game. Used to say this about the Lundqvist-era Rangers against teams like the early-2010’s Caps: don’t make it a fast paced game. Same could be said for this Caps team against us. I mean if they want to go that way, it’s fine. I love our odds even more then. But, yeah, to your point at the end, just capitalize on your chances and rip this teams heart out. Our chances will be there, we know that.

I expect the Capitals to come out and try and clamp up more defensively and to play physical. I expect them to be a little overzealous and for it to lead to a Ranger PP. And we need to capitalize early, take the juice out of that bench and then get to work and squeeze the life out of them each and every single shift. Take this one. Learn to close teams out without it taking all 7. Or 6. Impose your will and dominate this team.

The goalies in the West have been just awful so far. Awful.

I don’t disagree. Keep whoever you want on the roster. But your lineup at game time must be cap compliant. I don’t get why that’s so difficult. I’m sure they can come up with some solution. I mean listen I get it. Injuries happen. Teams go on runs. Hockey players are hockey players and if they see their team on a run, and feel they can go, they want to go. They’re a different breed of athlete. I understand that and the whole concept of why the cap doesn’t come into play in the playoffs and all of the situation. I get it. But this is the same team. The same guy. Over and over and over again. I’m sorry, but at some point, this needs to be fixed because it is ridiculous.

Hurricanes didn’t escape this game unscathed. Brett Pesce, a huge part of their defense, went down with a lower-body injury in the 2nd and didn’t return. It was a non-contact injury. Brind’Amour touched on it during his post-game presser and said he would be evaluated tomorrow but that it doesn’t look good for him. That would be a huge loss.

I honestly hadn’t seen yet to be honest, haha. My cousin threw money on Stone for anytime goal and put it in the group chat and then I looked. See Hertl has one too. No one saw this coming!

And look who scores the 1st goal of the series? Captain Circumvention! And the wild celebration to boot! But be careful, he had a dangerous injury!

That was a gut punch, potential season-ending type of loss for them. I also don’t think they’ll recover. And now you need to win 4 of 5 against them. Just (hilarious) brutal to see. You hate (LOL) to see it. Wow. Have to also assume they go to Sorokin for Game 3 now, no? If not for anything else, maybe just a shakeup? Not sure it’s going to matter. They had 12 fucking shots.

Back to the Future.

I get it’s not breaking any current rules. And that’s all that ultimately matters. But this is a joke. I know players get hurt and then heal in time to play playoffs. I get it’s a slippery slope when coming up with a way eventually in the next CBA to combat this because so many scenarios exist and you can’t penalize them all under one blanket. But this has gotten to the point it’s just outrageous. Same player. Same team. Same shit for how many years now? This isn’t what should be discussed coming into the playoffs; an elite team bending the rules. It should be all about the playoffs. This really is unfair. I don’t know what the answer is, but it will be something that needs to be figured out at some point in the next CBA.