Eastern Conference Quarterfinal Game 1: Flyers @ Rangers

Hockey's true season has begun. The Philadelphia Flyers will look to take the first step toward a mild upset of the New York Rangers when the longtime rivals clash tonight at Madison Square Garden in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals.

Once the playoffs start, regular season records and even previous head-to-head meetings during the season all go out the window. Much has been made of the Flyers' eight-game losing streak at Madison Square Garden and the fact that the home team won each of the four games the team played during the regular season series in 2013-14.

Playoff history shows that the postseason is a whole different animal than the regular season. Every shift is managed with a greater attention to detail and there is more intensity than even the most spirited of regular season games. Every playoff series takes on its own complexion and the personality of the series is unpredictable beforehand.

Here is an example: During the 2010-11 regular season under then-coach John Tortorella, the Rangers went a perfect 29-0-0 in games they led after two periods. What happened in the lone playoff game against Washington that the Rangers led after two periods? The Rangers were unable to nail down the win in the third period and went on to lose in double overtime.

Most playoff series are won in the trenches and not in open ice. If the Flyers outwork the Rangers on the walls, the faceoff circles and in close to the respective nets, they will win the series regardless of how well star Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist plays along the way. If New York outnumbers the Flyers consistently and Philly starts trying in futility to generate east-west plays that aren't there, the Rangers will win.

Game two of the series will take place on Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden. Regardless of tonight's outcome, the Flyers will take an off-day tomorrow before practicing on Saturday.

Flyers Outlook

The Flyers took a wild ride to reach the playoffs, digging out of a 1-7-0 hole at the start of the season to finish with 94 points. Moreover, the team ended up with seven different 20-goal scorers for the season after the team scored just 22 goals through its first 15 games.

Additionally, over the course of the season, the Flyers developed a level of in-game resiliency that some other installments of the team have lacked. Philly set a new franchise record in 2013-14 with 11 comeback wins in games that the team trailed at some point during the third period.

The goaltending tandem of Steve Mason and Ray Emery played very well for the majority of the regular season. Mason, in particular, seemed to be coming into his own an upper echelon NHL goaltender after going through several years of struggles following his Calder Trophy rookie season as a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Mason will miss at least Game One of the playoff series against the Rangers. While Mason is a better puckhandler than Emery -- Mason is one of the top three or four puckhandling goaltenders in the NHL -- and has better side-to-side mobility, no goaltender is more of a battler than grizzled veteran Emery. He will fight for every save and is impossible to intimidate.

Additionally, Emery has been through the playoff wars before and started games for the Flyers this season against some of the top teams in the NHL. The prospect of stepping in for Mason at Madison Square Garden will not phase Emery.

When the Flyers set their minds to it -- specifically when the forwards devote themselves to paying attention to backchecking and gap control -- they are a better defensive team than many of their critics believe. While the blueline corps lacks star-caliber talent, Philly has the ability to roll out six bonafide NHL defensemen with two additional ones in reserve.

Compare that to the group from 2010 that had Chris Pronger and a younger Kimmo Timonen atop the blueline, with Braydon Coburn and Matt Carle rounding out the top four. That was a more formidable top four than the current Philly group. However, there was a steep dropoff on the bottom end of the blueline, as the Flyers had to roll out marginal players like Lukas Krajicek and Ryan Parent in their postseason starting lineups.

The real strength of the current Flyers team is its forward depth. The Flyers legitimately have three lines that contribute to the five-on-five offense, and third-line center Sean Couturier has rapidly emerged as one of the top defensive pivots in the NHL.

Of course, team captain Claude Giroux is the team's primary catalyst. When he produces offensively and sets a two-way tone, the rest of the team follows suit and the Flyers can beat any team in the NHL. When he gives into frustration and forces the play, the team as a whole tends to get off its system. Fortunately for the Flyers, Giroux was on his game for most of the final 2/3 of the regular season after a slow start.

The Flyers were an upper-tier team on both ends of special teams over the balance of the regular season. The power play was decidedly better on the road than at home. However, once the playoffs start, things like regular season special teams numbers tend to become irrelevant.

In the days leading up to tonight's game, the Flyers coaches and players heavily emphasized the need for the team to play a simple north-south game, with a balance of aggressiveness and patience. That can be easier said than done, but it is a necessity to defeat a solid all-around opponent with good team defense like the Rangers.

Rangers Outlook

The Rangers did not exactly come blasting out of the gates this season in their own right. With Madison Square Garden undergoing renovations, the Rangers did not play their first home game until Oct. 28. Goaltending star Lundqvist got off to a slow start by his standards, and top-line sniper Rick Nash missed 17 games.

The Blueshirts sported an unimpressive 10-11-0 record through their first 21 games of the season. Thereafter, the Rangers posted a record of 35-20-6 over the remainder of the season to finish with 96 points.

Under the auspices of new head coach Alain Vigneault, the current version of the Rangers became somewhat more offensive-minded than the John Tortorella teams. First and foremost, the Rangers are still a team that pays attention to taking care of the puck and playing sound defense but New York is no longer a team that is necessarily in deep trouble if it does not score first in a given game.

The Rangers have three solid forward lines, led by the trio of Nash, Derek Stepan and veteran Martin St. Louis. While St. Louis scored only one goal after coming over from Tampa Bay in a trade deadline deal that sent team captain and locker room stalwart Ryan Callahan to the Lightning, he remains a dangerous and creative player. Nash is the only other Rangers player who is a potential individual game-breaker.

Part of the difficulty in matching lines to New York is the fact that the Blueshirts have above-average depth beyond the top line. The Rangers had eight different forwards score 17 or more goals this season. Mats Zuccarello led the team in overall scoring with 59 points, while the likes of Brad Richards (20 goals, 51 points) and Derick Brassard (18 goals, 45 points) can step up to burn opposing teams.

The Rangers have good team speed and puck management ability. Carl Hagelin -- a linemate of Flyers counterpart Matt Read while the two were playing in Sweden during the NHL lockout last season -- is a prime example of the type of player that the New York lineup features. He is first and foremost a defensively responsible player but he has smarts and speed while being just opportunist enough offensively to have generated 17 goals and 33 points despite missing 10 games this season.

While the forward group is decent and reasonably deep, the real strength of the Rangers lies in net and in its top four defensemen. Both areas are superior on paper to the Flyers.

Ryan McDonagh has emerged as one of the top two-way defensemen in the NHL. He has always been a good defender and skater with quick feet and a strong stick, but his offensive game (14 goals, 43 points) took another step ahead this season. McDonagh missed the latter part of the stretch drive with what was probably -- but never publicly acknowledged as -- a separated shoulder. He will play in this series but his health and effectiveness will be one of the key X-factors.

Along with partner McDonagh, Dan Girardi is one of the NHL's best shutdown defenders. He makes few mistakes with or away from the puck, and is a savvy shot-blocker as well. The top pairing will be frequently matched against the Giroux line during the series.

Meanwhile, number three defenseman Marc Staal would be a top-pairing defender on the majority of teams around the NHL. Undersized Anton Stralman has remade his game a bit in the last couple years from being primarily an offensive-minded defenseman to being an underrated puck-mover who is also reliable in his own end of the ice.

There is a bit of a drop-off toward the bottom end of the New York blueline but players like former Nashville Predators defenseman Kevin Klein (acquired in the Michael Del Zotto deal) are also competent NHL defenders. The Rangers acquired Raphael Diaz for additional depth.

When all else fails, the Rangers can rely on Lundqvist to bail them out of most situations. After a tough start by his standards this season, Lundqvist rounded back into his accustomed Vezina Trophy-caliber form. Most of the time, if Lundqvist can see the puck, he will stop it. He is very fluid and rarely takes himself out of position to make a second save if he needs to. Lundqvist also has above-average rebound control.

If there is one weakness in Lundqvist's game, it is his puckhandling. He is strictly average in terms of stopping pucks behind the net and getting them quickly to his defensemen, so if the Flyers can get pucks in deep, they can have some success in getting a forecheck game going.

As a team, the Rangers are generally willing to concede perimeter shots to opposing teams. They do so because Lundqvist yields few goals or dangerous rebounds on such attempts. When it comes to play over the middle, however, New York does not allow much time or space and the club still blocks a lot of shots in these situations.


PROJECTED LINEUPS (Subject to change)

Flyers

19 Scott Hartnell - 28 Claude Giroux - 93 Jakub Voracek
12 Michael Raffl - 10 Brayden Schenn - 17 Wayne Simmonds
24 Matt Read - 14 Sean Couturier - 42 Jason Akeson
36 Zac Rinaldo - 40 Vincent Lecavalier - 18 Adam Hall

44 Kimmo Timonen - 5 Braydon Coburn
8 Nicklas Grossmann - 32 Mark Streit
47 Andrew MacDonald - 22 Luke Schenn

29 Ray Emery
[33 Cal Heeter]

Potential scratches: Steve Mason (upper body), Steve Downie (upper body), Erik Gustafsson (healthy), Hal Gill (healthy), Jay Rosehill (healthy), Tye McGinn (healthy), Chris VandeVelde (healthy).

Rangers

61 Rick Nash - 21 Derek Stepan - 26 Martin St. Louis
67 Benoit Pouliot - 16 Derick Brassard - 36 Mats Zuccarello
62 Carl Hagelin - 19 Brad Richards - 12 Jesper Fast
22 Brian Boyle - 28 Dominic Moore - 15 Derek Dorsett

27 Ryan McDonagh - 5 Dan Girardi
18 Marc Staal - 6 Anton Stralman
17 John Moore - 8 Kevin Klein

30 Henrik Lundqvist
[33 Cam Talbot]

Potential scratches: Dan Carcillo (healthy), Raphael Diaz (healthy),Justin Falk (healthy), Chris Kreider (hand surgery).


REGULAR SEASON TEAM STATISTICS: OVERALL NHL RANKING

OVERALL SCORING/ DEFENSE
Non-shootout goals per game: Flyers 2.84 (8th) , Rangers 2.61 (18th)
Non-shootout goals against : Flyers 2.77 (20th), Rangers 2.32 (4th)
Shots per game: Flyers 30.4 (14th) , Rangers 33.2 (2nd)
Shots against per game: Flyers 30.6 (19th) , Rangers 29.4 (15th)

GOAL DIFFERENTIALS BY PERIOD
1st PD: Flyers +3 (60 GF, 57 GA), Rangers E (60 GF, 60 GA)
2nd PD: Flyers -4 (79 GF, 83 GA), Rangers +7 (78 GF, 71 GA)
3rd PD: Flyers +5 (90 GA, 85 GA), Rangers +18 (74 GF, 56 GA)
Overtime: Flyers +2 (4 GF, 2 GA), Rangers -1 (2 GF, 3 GA)

SITUATION PLAY
Five-on-five goals for/goals against ratio: Flyers 0.96 (17th), Rangers 1.07 (10th)
Power play efficiency: Flyers 19.7% (8th), Rangers 18.2% (15th)
Penalty killing efficiency: Flyers 84.8 (7th), Rangers 85.3 (3rd)
Opposing shorthanded goals yielded: Flyers 11 (28th), Rangers 7 (8th)
Shorthanded goals scored: Flyers 8 (14th), Rangers 10 (4th)
Average PP/SH time per game: Flyers 28th, Rangers 5th

PLAYING WITH LEAD/ PLAYING FROM BEHIND

Scoring first: Flyers 39 of 82 games (47.6 percent), Rangers 38 of 82 games (46.3 percent)
Winning percentage when scoring first: Flyers .744, Rangers .816
Winning percentage when trailing first: Flyers .302, Rangers .318
Record when leading after 1st period: Flyers 21-5-2, Rangers 20-4-2
Record when leading after 2nd period: Flyers 29-2-4, Rangers 28-1-2
Record when trailing after 1st period: Flyers 8-18-3, Rangers 6-18-0
Record when trailing after 2nd period: Flyers 7-22-2, Rangers 5-23-2

IN-GAME BATTLES

Faceoff winning percentage: Flyers 50.0 (16th), Rangers 48.8 (22nd)
Credited hits: Flyers 2,174 (6th), Rangers 1,905 (14th)
Blocked shots: Flyers 1,200 (15th), Rangers 1,119 (21st)
Credited takeaways: Flyers 445 (28th), Rangers 564 (12th)
Charged giveaways: Flyers 587 (10th), Rangers 706 (20th)

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