NHL Picks: Capitals to beat Rangers in battle of East contenders – CBSSports.com
Welcome to the NHL Daily Picks where hockey writers Adam Gretz and Chris Peters make their selections for all of the day’s games.
Washington Capitals vs. New York Rangers, 7 p.m. ET
The marquee matchup in the NHL on Tuesday night is in New York when the Rangers host the Capitals in a battle of Eastern Conference contenders. It’s not only a matchup of two of the top-five teams in the NHL standings right now, it’s also their first meeting since the Rangers erased a 3-1 series deficit in the second round of last year’s playoffs to advance to the Eastern Conference Final for the third time in four years.
The Rangers are a difficult team to get a read on so far this season because even though they’re winning a lot of games, they haven’t really played like the team we’ve seen the past two seasons. They’ve been outshot in seven of their first 11 games and are only 24th in total shot attempt differential for the season, which isn’t always a good sign for future success. What makes even more concerning is the fact that their schedule to this point has been fairly light. Only two of their seven wins have come against teams that were in the playoffs a year ago (Chicago in the opener, and a Calgary team that has been terrible at the start of this season) while they’ve also had games against Arizona, Toronto, Philadelphia and two against Columbus. Not exactly a list of the NHL’s Stanley Cup contenders. Yeah, they’re winning. But they should be winning against those teams.
The Capitals, meanwhile, not only have a fantastic record, they’ve also looked every bit as good as their record might indicate. They’re scoring goals (fourth in the NHL in goals per game), are in the top-10 for goals against, and are one of the top-five puck possession teams in the league.
This might be the best and most balanced Capitals team that we’ve seen in the Alex Ovechkin era. They’ve had better offensive teams, and maybe better defensive teams, but they’ve never had one that could excel in both areas without sacrificing too much the other way. They seem to have found a balance between the 2009-10 team that was all offense and that two-year stretch toward the end of the Bruce Boudreau era and the brief Dale Hunter era that committed entirely to defense and forgot how to score. Ovechkin has plenty of offensive support around him, the power play is lethal, and their defense is solid enough with a top-10 goalie behind them as the last line of defense. It’s a heck of a hockey team, and it’s going to keep winning on Monday night. Pick: Capitals 3, Rangers 2
The rest of Tuesday’s picks
Boston Bruins 3, Dallas Stars 2
New York Islanders 2, New Jersey Devils 1
Montreal Canadiens 4, Ottawa Senators 3
Tampa Bay Lightning 4, Detroit Red Wings 2
St. Louis Blues 3, Los Angeles Kings 1
Calgary Flames 5, Colorado Avalanche 3
Philadelphia Flyers 3, Edmonton Oilers 2
San Jose Sharks 2, Columbus Blue Jackets 0
Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals are in New York on Tuesday night. (USATSI)
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