Written by Graeme on Wednesday, May 22nd, 2024
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Oops sorry for the extreme lateness on this. That’s on me. I was out of town yesterday and just zonked today and literally just remembered – oh yeah, there’s NHL playoffs.
Scott: The Panthers beat the Lightning in 5 games in round 1 and then they beat the Bruins in 6 games in round 2. At home they have gone 4-2 and on the road they’ve gone 4-1.
They’re led by Tkachuk who has 14 points, Barkov has 13, Verhaeghe has 11 and Reinhart and Lundell both have 9. Montour and Forsling are their top scoring defenseman with 8 and 7 points respectively. Bobrovsky has been good, great at tines, but this is one area where the Rangers have the advantage.
The Rangers swept the Capitals in the 1st round and beat the Canes in 6 games in the 2nd. At home they have gone 4-1 which is the same record they have on the road in these playoffs .
Zibanejad and Trochek lead the way both with 14 points. Panarin has 11, Lafreniere and Kreider 10 each. Fox and Trouba are their leading point getters from the blueline with 4 each. But one of the main reasons they are in the Eastern Conference Finals is the play of Shesterkin who has been incredible.
The Panthers are in the Eastern Conference Finals for the 2nd consecutive year so they know what time expect and have a deeper team offensively than the Rangers do. But it’s all about how they deal with Shesterkin that is going to decide this series. They did beat two good goalies so far in Vasilevskiy and Swayman so they know they can beat good goalies. I think their experience is going to carry them to the finals.
Panthers win series @ 1.74 odds
Graeme: Crunching the data but won’t do huge write-ups here.
Playoff metrics better Corsi & Fenwick for Panthers by a large margin. GF% is pretty similar although xGF% Panthers favour. Rangers better SCGF impressively. They have been more clinical. Panthers did a great job goaltending wise at stopping the high danger goals. Rangers have relied on them a bit with the 4th biggest HDGF.
It’s an interesting one as it’s all about if the Rangers can stop the Panthers scoring. They really couldn’t with the Hurricanes but then they outscoured them. So can they keep that going?
Really seems like this will be a series with a lotta goals that’s for sure.
Looking at the Panthers last couple of games though – I mean props to them for shutting down the Bruins offense but they struggled to score too and their xG was drastically down.
I’m going to take Rangers to win the series @ 2.40. Panthers have shown their offense can be suffocated, and the Rangers have shown they can go toe to toe in an offensive battle and win.
