The Rangers opened their 2024 playoff run with a convincing 4-1 win, led by their 4th line of Jimmy Vesey, Barclay Goodrow, and Matt Rempe. The legend of Matt Rempe continues to grow, scoring the opening goal for the Rangers after taking a questionable penalty on his first shift.

The 4th line did some great work all game with the Rempe goal, the Jimmy Vesey goal 2 minutes later (with an Artemi Panarin goal in between), and overall dump and chase and cycling throughout the game. The fourth line set the tone for the game, and the Rangers never looked back.

Time and time again we’ve seen that sometimes the team just needs to get to the intermission and reset. Thanks to a bunch of very questionable penalties called in the first period, it was difficult for both teams to get into proper pace of play. That all changed in the second period, as the Rangers took over and never let the Caps dictate pace. Yesterday was no different.

Once they came out roaring in the second period, it was a complete team effort to dominate the Caps. We know what the fourth line and top lines did. There was also the Alex Wennberg line that completely shut down Alex Ovechkin at 5v5, and the Mika Zibanejad line did the same against the Dylan Strome line, with some help from the fourth line as well.

I’d be remiss not to mention the multiple skirmishes and dust ups, mostly instigated by Tom Wilson or Dylan McIlrath. The Rangers never let the Caps get to them, letting the scoreboard do the talking, but also defended each other as needed. There was a moment of this near the end of the game when Wilson was trying to get in Igor Shesterkin’s head, and K’Andre Miller and Braden Schneider were there to “remove” Wilson from the situation.

The Caps will still be the Caps. This year’s Rangers team is built different and won’t play down to those types of shenanigans. Though things do change over time, that apparently hasn’t, and neither has Chris Kreider scoring late, clutch goals against the Caps. His breakaway goal sealed it and added to his franchise leading 41st playoff goal count.

Last season, the story was the no show of all the Rangers stars, including Kreider, Panarin, and Zibanejad. This year, all three showed up in Game 1. The 16-game player energy is real at long last. Now the Rangers just need to stick to this game plan and run the Caps out of the building on Tuesday night.

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