Br4d

This one needs to go 6 or 7. The 'Canes are probably dragging at this point as Brind'Amour tries to skate their legs off for the 4th season in a row.

Lets go get that dreaded two game lead! Rumor has it that game 3 will bring on the Apocalypse when the Rangers get a dreaded 3 goal lead with a dreaded 2 game lead!

This is the best picture. Rempe is like "look what I can do!" Tom Wilson in background with an "oh fuck!" look on his face. Vesey and Goodrow with huge smiles for the rook.

Rempe plays keep away with the Cup when he hoists it and they have to take him down to get it back.

Laviolette had to be watching Rempe at Hartford and thinking he'd be a call-up before the playoffs. Maybe Drury also.

Fotiu was an enforcer in an age of enforcers. He was there because the Flyers set a meta where if you didn't have a Fotiu you lost before you hit the ice. The reason that the NHL is looking cross-eyed at Rempe right now is because this isn't an age of enforcers. They don't want every team to go out and find a Rempe and bring those days back. What Rempe needs to do now is to be a physical presence on the ice, just like he is, without fighting unless heavily provoked. What he wants to do is draw instigator penalties from the opposition. Then he can pound without fear of undue discipline.

The guy Wilson is going to be gunning for is Laf. Because Laf is hitting pretty freely out there and that kind of action always draws attention.

So who is going to be Tom Wilson's first fight of the series?

He was definitely going to see the ice against the Washington Wilsons at some point.

Jack Dempsey? Probably fought in the second Madison Square Garden. He owned a restaurant opposite the third one.

Line 4, Laf, Cuylle. These are not our dad's Rangers.

Caps weren't particularly chippy for a team that is going to have to live on the edge if they want to beat the Rangers. That's a Rempe effect.

Laf looked really good tonight. One of the fastest guys on the ice and throwing hits all over the place.

I love seeing Rempe out there on the last shift. That's the easiest way to tell the Rangers had their way with the Caps today.

Better they target Rempe than Panarin. Laviolette knew what he was doing when he dressed Rempe.

Laf is really throwing the body today. Playoff hockey.

Either this is a 3:30 start or my stream is plooged.

Everybody fires GG because you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. That and he apparently is willing to bitch to management when things don't go right. Never bitch to management because you're replaceable and often it is easier to fire you than to fix the things that are systemically wrong in the situation.

The only way this Ranger team gets beat by the Caps is if they play down to the Caps level and let this become a gritty defensive series. Goals early will put the Caps away all series long.

Early goal plz. The playoffs are not a time for sitting back and sussing out the game.

Because podcasts...

'Canes are due. I'd rather the Isles knocked them off so we can stomp them in round 2.

First time in my life I'm rooting for the Isles to win a playoff series. Makes me feel all slimy.

It was a seven game series. The Rangers best players mostly went blank after game two. There was no system you could hand players like Panarin, Zibanejad and Fox on the fly to fix what was wrong. "They knew what they had to do. They just didn't do it." To his credit Panarin took a long look at what went wrong in that series and decided to be part of the solution. More shots, taking responsibility for driving his line by scoring goals, working in the slot much more often than he had previously.

You're misunderstanding my position. It has nothing to do with the current team. It has everything to do with a coach who got 217 points in back-to-back seasons being the scapegoat for a GM who was in a rush to nowhere and a few vets who definitely thought they were better than they were and played like it. Was GG a great coach? Definitely not. But you can't fire your stars. You can fire your coach.