eastern conference preview
New York Rangers vs Tampa Bay Lightning Eastern Conference Finals Preview
By: Dinner
New York Rangers vs Tampa Bay Lightning Eastern Conference Finals Preview 6/1
The New York Rangers are advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 2015 after a game 7 spanking against the Carolina Hurricanes. They are set to face off against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 1 on Wednesday night at MSG. The Lightning have had a decent amount of time off since sweeping the Panthers in 4, so the theory of rust vs rest will be present in this series. This series is going to be absolutely fucking insane people, and if your a fan of goalies I’d suggest grabbing your popcorn. The two best goalies in the entire league Igor Shesterkin of the New York Rangers & Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning will be on opposite sides of the rink. No pun intended but these games are going to be electric.
During the regular season the Rangers & Lightning met on three occasions, the Rangers winning every game. The first being a 4-3 shootout win on New Years Eve. They met again two nights later with the Rangers shutting out the lightning 4-0. Then finally they met up on March 19th where the Rangers were able to sneak by with a 2-1 win. The Rangers winning every game during the regular season is huge, but that being said it is the playoffs… so you can pretty much throw the regular season out the window.
The goalie battle we have all been waiting for is finally here people! Igor Shesterkin vs Andrei Vasilevskiy. On one side of the ice, you have 26-year-old Shesterkin, who in a few weeks will very likely be handed the Vezina Trophy. In just his second season with the Rangers he has arguably filled the shoes of Lundqvist perfectly, he had an excellent regular season and has been able to adapt to the playoff speed well after falling 3 games to 1 to the Penguins. On the other side of the rink you have 27-year-old Vasilevskiy who is a 2 time Stanley Cup champion. Vasilevskiy struggled in the regular season but is back to his normal playoff self. Both goalies are easily the best in the league so it is going to be extremely exciting to watch.
I can not wait for puck drop Wednesday night, if your not a hockey fan I would suggest watching now because this series is going to be entertaining as fuck. I fully believe that these games are going to be low scoring unless one of the two goalies is having an extremely rare off night. I hate to say it but I am uncomfortably confident in my series prediction so here we go. My series prediction: Rangers in 6.