Stanley Cup Playoffs Daily Picks: Rangers look for 2-0 series lead – CBSSports.com
Welcome to the Stanley Cup Playoffs Daily Picks, where CBS hockey writers Chris Peters and Adam Gretz get you ready for every game every day of the postseason and share their predictions for each.
Tampa Bay Lightning at New York Rangers, Game 2, 8 p.m. ET, NBCSN
Rangers lead series 1-0
The Rangers are three wins away from reaching a second straight Stanley Cup Final, all while scoring only 26 goals in 13 playoff games. They have scored more than two goals in only three of those games. They are giving up close to 30 shots per game.
How are they doing it?
It’s actually quite simple: Henrik. Lundqvist.
Thanks to Lundqvist’s postseason dominance, the Rangers were able to shut down Penguins stars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in the first round. Then, even though Alex Ovechkin had his moments against them the next round, they managed to limit him and Nicklas Backstrom enough to overcome a 3-1 series deficit against the Capitals. Now they’re trying to shut down Steven Stamkos and what was the highest-scoring team in the NHL during the regular season.
They got off to a good start in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals.
Getting a split in the first two games is always be the goal for the road team, and for the Lightning to do so they’ll have to find a way to break through Lundqvist and the Rangers’ defense, something neither of the Rangers’ first two playoff opponents could accomplish.
The Lightning have lost three of their past four games this postseason, a stretch that has seen them score only eight goals, and their only Game 1 score was an Ondrej Palat power-play goal. When playing 5-on-5, they rarely presented much of a threat to Lundqvist and the Rangers, something that is going to have to change Monday night if they are to even this series when it goes back to Tampa for Game 3.
Pick: Rangers 4, Lightning 2
Henrik Lundqvist is dominating for the New York Rangers. (USATSI)
Three stars
1. Henrik Lundqvist, New York Rangers: Lundqvist enters Monday with a .945 save percentage, by far the best in these playoffs. It’s also an all-time great performance. The only goalies who have appeared in at least 10 games in a single postseason and finished with a higher save percentage are Patrick Lalime (Ottawa Senators in 2002) and Jonathan Quick (during his first Stanley Cup-winning season with the Los Angeles Kings in 2012). Both finished at .946.
2. Chris Kreider, New York Rangers: Kreider is an intimidating player because there are not many players who combine his size (6-feet-3, 226 pounds) and speed. His line, which at the moment features Derek Stepan and Jesper Fast, has been the Rangers’ most dangerous in recent games, contributing to four of the Rangers’ past eight goals. Kreider has a hand in three of them, scoring two and assisting on another.
3. Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay Lightning: The triplets line of Kucherov, Ondrej Palat and Tyler Johnson was the one line in Game 1 that seemed to be able to generate any kind of consistent pressure, and that’s really nothing new. That line has been one of the best in the NHL all season and continued that level of play into the playoffs. The question: Can Tampa Bay find some offense from another line to help these guys out? We know they’re going to produce, but this line alone won’t be enough.
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