3 reasons the Washington Capitals will shock the NHL and make quick work of the Rangers
The Washington Capitals may have barely made it into the postseason, but they may have drawn the ideal opponent in the New York Rangers.
The Washington Capitals could fare as the “happy to be here” team in the 2024 NHL Playoffs, but that also may not be the case, considering their opponent, the New York Rangers. Ironically, might I add, as the Rangers ended the year with 114 points and their fourth Presidents Trophy.
If you conduct some quick research, winning the Presidents’ Trophy hasn’t been a prerequisite for success in recent seasons. The Rangers are the only team in the previous decade to have simultaneously finished with the highest points total in the regular season and made a deep playoff run, which occurred in 2014-15.
That alone should suggest it’s no guarantee that teams who pace the league in points will get far in the playoffs, and the 2022-23 Boston Bruins further drove that point home. But playing the “cursed” Presidents’ Trophy winners isn’t exactly why the Capitals could make quick work out of the Rangers, as it goes far beyond that.
Washington Capitals could match up well against New York despite odds
For a while, we didn’t know if Washington was even interested in making a playoff appearance, thanks to the fact they traded Anthony Mantha and Joel Edmundson at the trade deadline, both of whom were a pair of key players. They also moved Evgeny Kuznetsov to the Carolina Hurricanes. But he wasn’t as relevant this season, appearing in just 43 games and logging 17 points.
Despite the ‘selling’ at the deadline, the Caps continued to win games, and they earned enough points to edge out other hopefuls like the Detroit Red Wings and the Philadelphia Flyers to earn that second and final wild card spot.
Overall, it’s easy for critics and experts to count out the Capitals, but there are a few reasons the Caps may not just beat the Rangers but also make quick work of them. Let’s talk about those three reasons in the following slides and make the case for why Washington will pull off a major upset.
Charlie Lindgren could be getting ultra-hot when it matters most
Alex Ovechkin has been the Capitals perennial MVP, and that has been the case for two decades. But Charlie Lindgren may have put a dent into that narrative this season, thanks to a string of performances that may have ultimately gotten this team into the 2024 playoffs.
Sure, Ovechkin came on strong in the second half of the season, and there is no denying the value he continues to give the Caps. Regardless of Ovechkin’s heroics, and even those of Dylan Strome, neither helped the Capitals get any higher than 28th in the NHL in scoring, yet Lindgren became an elite force in the net time and again down the stretch.
His numbers following the trade deadline when the Caps moved three players are 11 wins, six losses, two overtime losses, a 0.913 save percentage, 530 shots against, and 46 goals allowed, good for just 2.42 goals allowed per game. Sure, we need to give the entire team credit, as Lindgren faced just 27.89 shots on net per, but either way, he came up big when they needed him to.
Of his six shutouts, two also came in that span, and he allowed just one goal on seven different occasions. Like all goaltenders, he had his bad games along with a couple of ‘really bad starts,’ but if he keeps playing the way he did down the stretch, there’s a good chance Lindgren will stifle the high-scoring Rangers.
The season series didn’t go as planned for the Rangers
Even teams who win the Presidents’ Trophy will struggle against an opponent that may not have fared exceptionally well in the regular season. While the Capitals are in the playoffs, nobody, even in hindsight, is looking fondly at them as a great hockey team, but they played well against New York.
Washington managed four points in a 2-2-0 split with the Blueshirts, and they were one of 10 playoff teams New York finished with a 0.500 points total against or worse. This implies the Rangers haven’t fared well against playoff-bound teams, having won just five season series against those playing in the postseason.
It also means there won’t be an easy path forward for New York. While they won the Presidents’ Trophy for a reason, the fact that the Caps were one of those 10 teams to give them a tough time between October and April shows that they, like many other teams that led the league in points, won games they were supposed to win, but were so-so against some of the NHL’s better units.
It’s a point that goes back to looking at everything superficially to digging deep, and when you consider the latter, you get a different story for both the Rangers and Capitals. New York may be an outstanding team, and perhaps the Caps are nothing more than above average. But the Blueshirts had a tough time figuring them out this year, especially when Charlie Lindgren was playing goaltender.
The Caps will play with nothing to lose in this series
Some may scoff at this point, but in a series as lopsided as this one is on paper, you will have one team play to their strengths and only to their strengths. The Rangers know what works for them, and so do the Capitals. While the Caps have their own set of strengths, we need to remember that this team was minus-37 this season and rarely looked like a playoff-caliber group, and they will go into Round 1 knowing that.
While reckless abandon is a key trait in playoff hockey, a team like the Caps should and will take things a step further. Expect them to throw the unexpected and take a few more risks than the Rangers, and that could catch the Blueshirts off-guard.
There is hardly much difference here between a team looking to play spoiler against a legitimate playoff contender, where the former will hit harder, take more chances with the puck, and throw something new and unfamiliar at their opponents. In this series and perhaps in the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, nobody has more of an advantage than the Capitals in this regard.
The only question is whether they can keep things fresh for an entire four-to-seven-game series. If the answer is ‘yes,’ look for the Caps to catch New York off-guard with several unexpected strategies, and if the Blueshirts can’t adjust, they will be in trouble.
feed
(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)