Series Preview- New York Rangers vs. Ottawa Senators

Ottawa will win if:

All starts with Ottawa's goaltending. If Craig Anderson is up to the task at matching his fellow counterpart in Henrik Lundqvist at the opposite end of the ice, Ottawa will have a good chance at stealing this series. They'll have even a better chance if their secondary scoring decides to kick in. Guys like Turris, Foligno and Greening will have to chip in offensively if the Rangers top defensive pair in Dan Girardi and Ryan McDonagh are able to neutralize Jason Spezza, Daniel Alfredsson and Milan Michalek for long stretches. Finally, the Senators need to be stout killing off Ranger power plays which have been better as of late. Ottawa's penalty kill was ranked 20th in the regular season and Ottawa cannot allow an under-whelming New York power play to burn them.

New York will win if:
We've all heard about how how fast the Senators are and how their speed poses as a matchup issue. To counter-act this, the Rangers have to come out in Game 1 and bang the Senators around along the boards. Finishing checks needs to be a must to slow down and wear on a quick team over the course of a 7 game series. Look no further than Game 1 of the Flyers-Penguins game last night. The Flyers had 39 hits against the Penguins who were getting badly beaten to pucks along the boards as the game progressed. Next, Ranger fans are about to find out if the increased rest over the course of the season for Henrik Lundqvist is going to pay off. Hank is beginning to hear the mumblings of some detractors in the hockey media about how he is only a regular season goaltender who suddenly becomes average in the playoffs. We've seen Lundqvist turn into a goalie possessed before and it's only a matter time before it happens again. Finally, the Ranger defensemen need to make sure they know where Spezza and Erik Karlsson are at all times, allowing their top guys especially Karlsson distributing the puck on the point to take over could be disastrous.

Prediction:
Goaltending and defensive depth clearly favor Rangers in this matchup and we'll call the offense a wash, but the Rangers have done the little things just a little better than Ottawa has this season and that'll be enough to advance. The Rangers, as always will make it interesting but I think they'll win this in 6 games.