"The King" Rules Supreme Over the "Great 8"

Thanks to a remarkable performace by Hank Lundqvist and a first period Ryan Callahan conversion off of a pass from Markus Naslund, the Rangers are heading back to MSG with a 2-0 advantage over Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.

The Rangers were able to limit the quality of the Caps' chances with a strong team defense and tenacious back-checking, and even when they weren't, Lundqvist was there to bail them out. Wade Redden had another strong game, while Marc Staal was able to not only contain AO, but hold him completely off the scoreboard. Ryan Callahan continued to play his heart out, laying the body on anybody in a red jersey, while also scoring the lone marker of the contest.

The Rangers' face-offs and penalty killing were much better in Game Two. Although the presence of Captain Chris Drury was helpful, his injury (probably an armor wrist), prevented him from taking many draws or playing a roll a man-down.

The Caps, who replaced ridiculed netminder Jose Theodore with rookie Simeon Varlamov, were unable to find a way to beat Lundqvist, despite some excellent chances. Ovechkin was trying to do too much by himself, Semin was playing soft (as exhibited when he swung his purse at Callahan to take a foolish penalty late in the game), and Mike Green was unable to supply any offense from the back-end.

Two things the Caps can take away from this game are that they outshot the Rangers by a wide margin for the second straight game, and also received some top notch goaltending from the 20 year-old Varlamov.

Unfortunately for the Caps, moral victories are few and far between in the playoffs.