derek stepan

Stepan (Photo: AP)

With last night’s win against Florida, the Rangers sit in second place in the Metro Division with 90 points and nine games left to play. Even at a .500 record, the Rangers will finish with 99 points, so they are virtually assured a playoff spot at this point. What is left to determine is seeding, as the only thing set in stone is Washington as the Eastern Conference’s top seed.

The Rangers can finish anywhere from second in the Metro to seventh in the conference as the first wild card team. I don’t think they fall to the bottom wild card spot, as Detroit and Philly are too far back with too few games remaining. Even so, that leaves the Rangers with four potential first round matchups this year, depending on how the cards fall.

The most likely matchup at this point is the Penguins, which should honestly scare the bejesus out of people. The Pens are white hot, and likely pose the biggest threat to Washington to come out of the East. Ever since Mike Sullivan took over, the Pens have been scoring a ton and playing significantly better possession hockey (tops in the league at 55% since the trade deadline). This is a team doing the right things on the ice and getting results.

The predicted matchup against the Islanders seems to have fallen through, partly because of the Pens and partly because the Isles have struggled as much as the Rangers recently. This matchup may still happen, but the Isles need to figure it out and the Pens need to lose some games. This is the ideal matchup for me, but mostly because I would love to see a Rangers/Islanders playoff series. It would be a lot of fun.

Another scenario that could happen is the Rangers dropping to the top wild card spot –doable because the Isles have two games in hand on the Rangers with one head-to-head matchup remaining– and moving to the Atlantic for the playoffs. The Rangers avoid the Pens/Caps this way, but would likely draw one of Tampa Bay or Florida. Florida is my preferred opponent, since they are actually a worse possession team than the Rangers and lack the depth of the other teams. But Tampa Bay has a few anchors on the blue line. 

It’s rare that nothing is set with less than ten games to go in the season, but such is Gary Bettman’s “parity.” It’s also rare that a conference has so many question marks and only one or two real contenders. The East is a steaming pile of mediocrity, which should help the Rangers in April and May. Of course, they need to figure it out too, of which that is no certainty.

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