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Sam: You might ask, “How can the Capitals possibly beat the Rangers?” One answer may be Caps goalie Braden Holtby, who was stellar against Boston in Round 1. But Holtby regressed in game one. And it’s hard to imagine he’ll really outduel Henrik Lundqvist.The Caps hope their superstar offensive players—Nicklas Backstrom, Alexander Ovechkin, and Mike Green—can steal a game with a timely goal. Ovechkin in particular can do that. But it’s doubtful, since he played just 13 minutes; he’s no longer as dominant.The Caps didn’t generate many shots this season (just 28 per game), so the Rangers defense will seem especially suffocating. Both purport to play a similar defensive style, but only one has the personnel and coaching to pull it off. Rangers in six.Jonah: OK, I have a lot to say about this series. This is like a confluence of events that's happened once before, although in this case it's not all happening at the same time. We're talking about New York versus DC, which when you think about hardcore—that's a classic rivalry. But this makes me think that, because there's a West Coast team in the mix—and I'm going to say that LA is going to be there in the end—that means LA could quite possibly be coming to either DC or New York. And the last time that LA, DC, and New York met was when Fear played on Saturday Night Live. Now, let's see if I can reason this out strictly through the kind of moronic logic that I like. Here's what I know: Fear once played SNL and Ian Mackaye said "New York sucks" into the microphone, alongside guys from Antidote, and Raybeez. Interestingly, John Brannon [of Negative Approach] was also there, and Detroit is nowhere near this conversation, so maybe that doesn't bode well for my predictions.
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Jonah: Exactly. After this series DC will go off and do their own thing. They're going to have Revolution Summer, but New York, through grit, will come out on top. But that pumpkin could mean trouble when they play LA.VICE: The Devils did the expected thing and beat the Panthers, but it wasn't easy. They play the Flyers, who embarrassed the Penguins, one of the league's flashiest teams. Who's taking this one?
Sam: After passing the Penguins, everything else should be a cakewalk, right? Maybe, but Philly won’t score 30 goals in six games again. New Jersey, as usual, was one of the best defensive teams during the regular season. At even strength, they allowed the fewest shots per game (26.8) in the Eastern Conference; shorthanded, they had the league’s most efficient kill, 89.6 percent.
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Jonah: All of us as Canadians are more aligned with the Jersey tradition. Canada, like Jersey, is an othered place that sits right beside the shining light of North America. Canada is actually more like Scandinavia than New Jersey. Scandinavia: it's the other place versus Europe's more serious contenders. Socialistically oriented, calmer, politically kinder and next to Europe’s more historically important, continent proper-type-places. Canada's like that, too. We're post-colonial, but focus goes to the United States first. We're where people go to for a less acidic, less caustic time.Like with New Jersey, is my point. If you can't hack it in New York City, you go to New Jersey, where's it's less acidic, where there's more room, where there are more trees—“too many trees,” in the words of Adrenaline OD. Philly is a white-hot coal. It's really busy and there's this really rich history, and there are things that are inexorably Philadelphian. New Jersey has maybe a few things that are indigenously and uniquely New Jerseyan, but it takes and repurposes New York and Pennsylvania, just like Canada has things derivative of England but not really English, and derivative of the States but not really American. Both Jersey and Canada are defined as occupying this negative space and by a rural, sparse population. So that's the affinity. That's why I'm moved to say Jersey is going to win.We realize this round of picks is a bit late. Our sports editor filed this on Tuesday, but we were out watching crusties trying to bring about the collapse of capitalism in New York. Sorry.Previously - Round II, Part I@MSLaForge
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