It has been two decades since the New York Rangers reached the Stanley Cup finals. For the Montreal Canadiens, it has been two decades, plus one year. Now both teams are one series’ victory away from returning to hockey’s biggest stage. Talk about drama. New York versus Montreal, Henrik Lundqvist vs. Carey Price, Ryan McDonagh versus Max Pacioretty — P.K. Subban versus everyone.
Note: All advanced statistics used are from ExtraSkater.com, and conventional statistics are from NHL.com
Peeling Away the Layers:
Not a lot separates these teams. New York has struggled to score at times during this postseason, but their five-on-five scoring leads the NHL playoff teams. It is well-documented that Rick Nash is goalless, and that the Rangers’ power play has struggled, but New York has seen the Derick Brassard line step up, and Brad Richards and Carl Hagelin have chipped in some timely goals.
With Chris Kreider’s return to the squad in Game 4 of the conference semifinals, New York has more speed and combativeness. On a team desperate for precise shooting, the young winger provides that. Coach Alain Vigneault can insert the power forward in the lineup with Derek Stepan and Nash, a triumvirate that had a lot of success during the regular season.
But more importantly, this development also allows Vigneault to put Martin St. Louis back with Brad Richards and Carl Hagelin. These two lines have size, speed, playmaking, and improved shooting. The beauty of this for the Blueshirts is that their third line has been their most productive these playoffs, with Derick Brassard, Benoit Pouliot, and Mats Zuccarello all in the top five for New York in points per 60 minutes. The Brassard trio has forechecked well, passed magnificently, and tilted the ice. (They also are in the top five for Relative Fenwick among Rangers forwards.)
Yet, there are a few concerning numbers that need to be addressed. The Rangers have the worst faceoff percentage of any team in the playoffs, not just among the teams remaining, but among all teams that participated. New York’s 46.3 win percentage is a rate bad enough that it would have ranked them 29th in the regular season — .1 percent ahead of the woeful Calgary Flames. (Montreal has not been gangbusters in the faceoff circle either, possessing a 47.4 percentage.)
In the conference quarterfinals, the Rangers dominated the Philadelphia Flyers in Fenwick Close and Fenwick at even strength. The Rangers were 6th in the NHL in Fenwick Close during the regular season (and seventh in Fenwick at even strength), and the Flyers were 23rd. The Rangers were expected to dominate puck possession, and they did by a significant margin.
However, that narrative flipped in the second round when they played Pittsburgh. The Penguins dominated the Rangers in Fenwick Close and at even strength, despite the Rangers having the clear edge in both categories during the regular season. On a game-by-game basis, New York had three disastrous puck possession contests: Games 2, 4, and Game 7 (they were below 40 percent in all 3). The Rangers lost the Fenwick Close battle in Game 1, but won it in Games 3, 5, and 6.
Translation: New York dominated the puck in the first round, but failed to do so in the second, despite the regular season numbers suggesting that they should have had the edge against the Penguins. During the regular season, the Canadiens’ puck possession numbers were much closer to the Flyers than the Penguins, which augurs well for New York. After all, controlling puck possession leads to winning.
Interestingly, the Canadiens’ ice-tilting trajectory was similar to the Rangers during these playoffs. The Canadiens commanded the Fenwick Close and Fenwick at even strength against Tampa Bay in the conference quarterfinals, but got the tables turned on them against Boston in the conference semifinals, with the Bruins memorably hitting the post and crossbars seemingly every few shots.
Strategy Enhancement:
Montreal is a bit of a throwback, but credit goes to coach Michel Therrien for fostering a team that plays cognizant of its strengths and weaknesses. Unlike most successful teams in the NHL, the Habs’ defensive group is not active for the most part. Most contenders ask their rearguards to play a 200-foot game, but Montreal’s defenders’ responsibilities mostly revolve around finding the outlet pass to exit the zone and keeping the puck away from Price.
Montreal blocks shots magnificently, and as a group they eliminate the passing lanes adeptly. Their forwards assist in this, but Montreal’s defensive group is very skilled in this facet. The “for the most part” above is the qualifier, because the Canadiens also have P.K. Subban, the excessively talented defenseman who operates as the nucleus of this team.
Opponents try to counter the Subban factor in the offensive zone by fronting him when he has the puck, and New York will likely try to do that too. Sadly for opponents, P.K. is wise to this and is proficient at swinging the puck from the strong side to the weak side. If there is a seam to be found, he will exploit it. That is not to say that he does not make mistakes when he tries to thread a pass through the clutter of bodies in the middle — but Subban is improving rapidly at voiding his mistakes with his ability to recover defensively and disrupt the ensuing counterattack.
Boston is one of the best defensive teams in the league, and they expended a lot of energy trying to neutralize Subban, but ultimately, they failed. He does not get overpowered on the forecheck, is more conscientious of his gambles, and galvanizes the Canadiens every time he is on the ice.
Offensively, Montreal tries to channel as many pucks as they can toward net, and harness their speed in a way that exposes gaps in the defense. This aspect of Montreal’s offense is something New York needs to be keenly aware of, because there were episodes in the Rangers’ prior series where they scrambled in their defensive coverage and left a forward open in the slot. If New York allows the trailing forward to stay uncovered, the Canadiens will find him.
Montreal also is dangerous on counterattacks, and relentless at trying to force turnovers in the neutral zone and at each blue line. Max Pacioretty has a sixth sense for sniffing when to leak out to impel a breakaway, and the Canadiens have forwards who will deliberately fly the zone if they believe a turnover is coming.
Considering how skilled and offensively talented Pacioretty is, he has been an inconsistent part of the Canadiens’ offense this postseason. He scored two big goals in the latter half of the Boston series, and had the series-clincher against Tampa Bay, but his offensive impact has been flat by his standards. Just as for Nash, an offensive explosion by Pacioretty seems imminent. Both players are very talented, although since Pacioretty is younger and the more explosive player currently, a hot streak seems more plausible for No. 67.
The Rangers will likely implement the Bruins’ blueprint of trying to physically wear down both Subban and Pacioretty. The Canadiens’ offense lies in the weeds, but like Boston, New York will want to dominate the territorial game by forcing the Montreal defensemen to experience difficulty on their breakouts. McDonagh and Girardi will probably be pitted against Pacioretty and David Desharnais, and the Rangers’ pair will try to make Pacioretty and Desharnais’ lives miserable by eliminating space and brutalizing them.
Offensively, New York is dependent on the stretch pass because it allows them to wield their speed advantageously. This is true of Montreal as well. The Rangers will want to get in on the forecheck and start the cycle early, with the hope that by clogging the middle with traffic, they can eliminate Carey Price’s vision. But Montreal is very skilled at utilizing the pack-the-slot, collapse strategy to their advantage.
While a game played on the perimeter cannot sound too appetizing to New York, in Intelligent Hockey’s view, New York would be wise to try to attack the net from below and around the goal line. Too many times, Boston tried to fire from acute angles on the perimeter at Price’s glove, and saw their shots miss the net or get blocked.
But if New York’s Mats Zuccarello or St. Louis operate below the circles, flanked along the icing line, they could aggressively shuttle the puck towards the net. On the power play, this strategy is referred to as the jam play. It might be the Rangers’ best modus operandi if only because it would give them a 50-50 chance of beating the Canadiens in a scramble in front of the net. There is also some common sense logic to this play: If a team has layered defensive coverage to protect the front and middle, it makes sense to attack them from the back.
Montreal’s defense is not very big – assuming Douglas Murray does not play – so the Habs might be vulnerable because their back end is also not fleet-of-foot enough to seal the edge. Boston played some of their matchup beneath the goal line, but New York would be smart to try it more. Shots from the outside are often for naught against a goalie as skilled as Price and a team as good at shot blocking as Montreal.
Ultimately, it is hard to say what will beat either Price or Lundqvist because both are splendid goalies who are playing great hockey right now. Not surprisingly, the Canadiens have won every game in the playoffs when they scored first, and Price has played a huge role in that. New York is first in the playoffs in goals against, and while New York’s blue line has been good, Lundqvist has fended off some A-grade scoring chances. In net, it is dead even. Finding creative ways to attack, while also playing to your team’s strengths, will be what dictates who scores more in this series.
Final Thoughts:
The Canadiens’ power play has been good in the postseason, but it was worse than New York’s middle-of-the-road success rate with the man advantage during the regular season, so a correction seems likely for Montreal. Moreover, these two teams are the least penalized in the playoffs, so it is probable this series will be determined at even strength – particularly five on five.
From the conventional and advanced statistics view, both teams are close to equal. And while the Rangers were the better puck possession team during the regular season, there are many examples where the playoffs have yielded results that differ from the 82-game preliminary play. In the playoffs, Montreal has been the more consistent team; after all, the Rangers were consecutively shut out before staging their three-game comeback to beat Pittsburgh.
Montreal’s game-to-game output was not high variance like New York’s, even against Boston, and ultimately it gave Montreal a chance to win the series. Also, the Canadiens swept the Lightning in four games in Round One, looking formidable throughout that series. And while New York has the slightly stronger team from a personnel standpoint – although Montreal’s blue chippers may swing that argument in a season or two — the Rangers looked fatigued and ineffective at times against Pittsburgh. The Kreider infusion helped, but the Rangers just came off consecutive seven-game series. It is hard to imagine this series finishing in less than 6 games, and Montreal has played three fewer games than New York.
As Grantland’s Sean McIndoe noted earlier in these playoffs, there is a magic number a team wants to avoid going over when they win the Cup:
“The NHL adopted the seven-game opening round in 1987, making it possible for teams to play up to 21 games on their road to a Stanley Cup final appearance. But of the 26 champions since, not one has needed more than 18 games to get to the final. And the vast majority of those teams (17 out of 26) managed at least one sweep along the way.”
It is hard to envision either of these teams defeating one of the powerhouses from the Western Conference, but this statistic is illustrative of the maxim that the NHL playoffs are a war of attrition. New York’s having played three more games than Montreal matters. And with the gap so thin between these teams, Montreal, who has been the more consistent game-to-game performer, presents the more palatable option.
Prediction: Canadiens in seven
