The Rangers will face the Senators in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Ottawa defeated Boston 3-2 Sunday thanks to Clarke MacArthur's overtime goal to win their best of seven series four games to two. That win means New York will face a Canadian team in the first two rounds of the playoffs for the first time since 1937 (hat tip to Steve Zipay for that info and other pieces below). The Senators and Rangers have met just once in the postseason, during the 2012 conference quarterfinals, which the Rangers rallied from three games to two down to win in seven games.
In the regular season, the Senators finished second in the Atlantic with 98 points and 44 wins. Because of the way the playoff brackets work, the Rangers, despite having more points than Ottawa, will start on the road. The Senators are built around head coach Guy Boucher’s 1-3-1 neutral zone trap, which gave New York fits during the regular season, and their structured defense in their own zone.
As Steve Zipay pointed out in today's Newsday, the Senators won two of three against the Blueshirts. The teams split the first two at Madison Square Garden early in the season, with Antti Raanta, not Lundqvist, in net, a 2-0 Rangers loss on Nov. 27 and a 4-3 win a month later. In that first game, New York was unable to generate a sustained attack, and when they did, Craig Anderson was stellar between the pipes. In the penultimate game of the season, with the Rangers resting a half-dozen regulars, the Senators won 3-1 at Canadian Tire Centre
Ottawa relies on captain and Norris Trophy finalist Erik Karlsson, who had six assists in the six games versus Boston, to drive the opportunistic offense, which has been boosted by the return to form of Bobby Ryan, who scored and added an assist Sunday to give him seven points in the Boston series. In addition, we get to see the traded players - Derick Brassard, aka Big Game Brass, who led Ottawa with two goals and six assists versus the Bruins, and Mike Zibanejad, who won Game 5 against Montreal, match up against each other. But Zib needs to avoid trying to outdo Brassard, he just needs to play his game.
I am a huge Mike Hoffman fan and Mark Stone is the perfect counterpoint to him on the other wing. Kyle Turris scored his first of the series Sunday while Zack Smith and/or Chris Neil provide Ottawa that physical and sometimes over the line presence. The Senators have a pair of heartwarming stories. First, Craig Anderson, who has left the team at times to deal with and played through with his wife's Nicholle cancer treatments. Second, the return from several concussions by Clarke MacArthur, who tallied the game-winner Sunday,
Below is the blog I wrote after the November 27 loss, including the Ryan McDonagh quote. Get used to seeing the 1-3-1 trap in full deployment in the series. New York's coaching staff will need to find a way how to break that trap.
When New York was rolling, it was tic-tac-toe from D to O and breakouts through the neutral zone using their team speed to generate chances and odd-man rushes. Teams, especially recently have caught on, which we saw against Carolina and Columbus, then yesterday by Ottawa. Rangers' opponents are clogging the neutral zone, forcing New York to go 180 feet plodding up the ice rather than via stretch passes, which would enable the team speed to take over the game. In addition, its four men at the red or blue line, at times like a picket fence and occasionally using interference to slow down the game and make it a slogging affair.
Against that strategy, stickhandling up the ice is almost impossible. The sheer volume of bodies to get through prevents that style of play. Yet, all we have is New York try that approach and fail miserably. Adjust. adjust, adjust. But the Rangers have either mentally or physically resisted doing so. The mental part shows stubbornness on the coaching staff and as well as the skaters on the ice. Chip and charge. Dump and chase. Then try the breakout passes and hope the change in approach create a hole or two, whereby you can use your speed.
"We are a team that likes to create on the rush and they didn't give us many opportunities to do that," McDonagh said. "They didn't turn pucks over; they made sure they got pucks in deep. They made us go the full length of the ice for the majority of the game and they had numbers back. But in the end we have to find a way - some in-zone plays, running our cycles, getting pucks up top, and getting shots down at the net. There are other ways to create offense and that was a test for us tonight that we didn't accomplish."
"Obviously teams have seen a lot of us now," McDonagh added. "You might be seeing teams for a second time now at this point in the season. They understand our speed game is a big strength of ours. It is up to us defensively in units of five creating those turnovers and not spending a lot of time in our zone and us moving the puck up to our forwards quick, catching them when they are not in their structure."
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