Rangers-Capitals Playoff Preview: Avery to Lead New York to Win in Five!

NHL scoring leader Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals will face Sean Avery and the revamped New York Rangers in the first round of the NHL playoffs. The Caps have not faced the Rangers since John Tortorella took over as coach and GM Glen Sather traded for Nik Antropov and Derek Morris after inviting Sean Avery to rejoin the team.

The Caps lost their last game to the Florida Panthers at home, 7-4. The Rangers clinched their fourth consecutive trip to the postseason with an exciting 2-1 victory over the Flyers at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night. It was the Pittsburgh Penguins’ victory over the Montreal Canadiens that determined the four Eastern Conference Playoff pairings.

Second-place Washington will play the seventh-place Rangers. Washington and the Rangers met four times this season, with the Capitals winning three.

The New Jersey Devils will play sixth-place Carolina Hurricanes. Montreal, in eighth place, will play the Boston Bruins. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh will meet in the other first-round series.

The Rangers won just one of their four games against the Caps this season, when they were criticized for being "vanilla" but since they added Avery nobody is calling them "vanilla" anymore.

The Caps will have home-ice advantage in the series. It is expected the Rangers will use Marc Staal and Dan Girardi to shut down Ovechkin.  The Caps are 29-9-3 at home, the third-best home record in the NHL this season.

The Rangers are considered a dark horse in the playoffs this season, given 30 to 1 odds of winning the Stanley Cup, but considered by many the most likely to upset a team or two or three now that the regular season is over.

The Capitals had an excellent season. The Rangers started strong, had their longest mid-season slump in decades, but finished getting stronger and stronger.  They turned around their skid, had a couple of three-game winning streaks and finished the season with strong games, winning over the Canadiens and the Flyers. 

My prediction? The Rangers have the momentum and new energy and they will surprise the Caps in five.