Rangers, Flyers strong favourites, analysts say
Surprisingly bad Capitals now surprisingly good
Hard to conceive of anything coming close to that opening-round pinball game of violence, skill, handwringing and hysteria that was the Pittsburgh Penguin-philadelphia Flyer Stanley Cup playoff series.
That will probably suit the Flyers just fine as they move on from the ridiculous-yet-entertaining to what they hope is the sublime.
When the puck drops in Game 1 of the Flyers-new Jersey Devils set on Sunday in Philadelphia (3 p.m., CBC, NBC, RDS), the home side will be the best rested club in the Eastern Conference. Given the mayhem of the opening round, that qualifies as a good thing for the Flyers.
Ray Ferraro suited up for 68 playoff games in his lengthy NHL career. Rest and recuperation, he says, can’t be downplayed.
“Anybody that can get a rest better take it,” the TSN hockey analyst offers. “The fact that that New Jersey-florida series stretched on is only going to do the Flyers good.
“It looks like they’ll get Nick Grossman back on defence. Kimmo Timonen was really banged up towards the end of that Pittsburgh series. They’re going to be healthier, they’re going to be rested and they get a bit of a mental break as well, because that was such an emotional series. It would have been tough to move from one series to the next.”
Nick Kypreos won a Stanley Cup in New York with the Rangers in 1993-94, but is admittedly an admirer of the Flyers’ courage, and not just the stuff displayed on the ice.
Kypreos – now a hockey analyst with Sportsnet – contends general manager Paul Holmgren is reaping the reward from a summer of risk. Holmgren essentially revamped the top end of his roster last offseason.
“They took a huge flyer on getting rid of Mike Richards and Jeff Carter. It was a gutsy call. They could have been conservative and safe, but they felt comfortable enough for Claude Giroux to step in while Richards steps out,” Kypreos says.
Kypreos and Ferraro agree the Flyers and Rangers should share top billing as co-favourites in the Eastern Conference, with one caveat.
“While they should be considered favourites. ... We’re talking like the two other teams don’t exist, but if there’s one thing we should have learned from the first round, there is no clear favourite anymore,” says Ferraro.
The Rangers get the “surprising” Washington Capitals in the other second round hook-up, which starts Saturday (3 p.m., CBC, NBC, RDS). “Surprising” because of where they were expected to be, where they ended up, and where they are now.
The Caps were a consensus Stanley Cup favourite prior to the start of the season but stumbled badly and fired head coach Bruce Boudreau in late November.
Toward the end of the season, Washington was nip-and-tuck in the chase for a playoff rung. The Caps clinched on the final weekend of the year – landing the seventh seed in the East.
Dale Hunter’s group was sup- posed to bow out gracefully (and quickly) to the defending Cup champion Boston Bruins but ended up winning the series in a Game 7 overtime thriller.
The team known more for a barnstorming offence got the job done thanks to stellar goaltending from unknown Braden Holtby.
“One of the reasons they thought they could trade (Sergei) Varlamov to Colorado was because of their three young guys and they almost had Holtby rated at the top of the class. We saw what he could do in a pressure-packed spot,” Ferraro says.
While Holtby was the star, Hunter chose to staple offence-first stars like Alex Ovechkin to the bench in the third periods.
“Not sure if everyone was buying in, but it worked in Washington,” Ferraro adds.
Pete Deboer’s Devils have the quickest turnaround of the remaining four, having gone to double overtime in Game 7 against Florida Thursday night before pushing on.
There are also questions surrounding star Ilya Kovalchuk, who was clearly hobbling in the latter stages of the Florida set.
New Jersey’s key will be dishing plenty of pucks at the Flyer net and seeing if up-and-down keeper Ilya Bryzgalov is Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde.
“He’s a wild card here,” Kypreos says. “You don’t know what you get. If I told you he’d be giving up four goals a game in the first round and they’d knock out Pittsburgh in six games, you would have said you have a screw loose.”