Rangers Return Home in Hopes of a Rebound<\/strong><\/p>\nNew York knows they absolutely need Game 3 \u2013 returning to Verizon Center for an elimination game will be a tough task indeed.<\/p>\n
The Washington Capitals are deserving leaders in their series with the Rangers \u2013 they are outplaying, outhitting, outshooting and they are winning the uber-important special teams battles so far. Washington\u2019s league leading power play from the regular season has scored twice in the series (28.6%) and the penalty killing unit has yet to surrender a goal in the two games \u2013 great signs going forward for the Caps.<\/p>\n
To everyone\u2019s surprise it has been Washington\u2019s defense and goaltending that have been the difference so far against the Rangers. Braden Holtby has given up just one goal in the series thus far and that goal came off an opponent\u2019s skate. He is outplaying Henrik Lundqvist \u2013 nobody could have seen that coming! Could it be that Holtby is in the Rangers\u2019 heads? He hasn\u2019t yielded a goal since the first period of Game 1.<\/p>\n
The New York Rangers have gone cold in the offensive zone which has led to them being down in the series – it is the early season issues of the Rangers that have inexplicably returned to haunt them at precisely the wrong time. An ugly stat \u2013 they went the final 17:43 of the Saturday`s game, including all eight minutes in overtime, without a single shot on goal. New York is also 0-for-7 on the power play so far in the two games \u2013 not nearly good enough to win at this point of the season. [ad-4437448]<\/p>\n
The Rangers may get a boost in Game 3 \u2013 Ryan Clowe, a proven playoff producer may return to the lineup after sustaining a concussion April 25. They could certainly use his grit, his presence on the power play and his experience in the postseason.<\/p>\n
New York\u2019s defense and goaltending on the other hand has been typically stellar led by the best keeper in the game \u2013 Henrik Lundqvist. He has a 1.90 GAA and a .941 save percentage in the first two games but is 0-2! It ain’t his fault that the Rangers are desperate for a win \u2013 the goal scorers need to do their job or this could be a short series.<\/p>\n
Betting Prediction<\/h3>\n
: <\/p>\n
A few trends to consider:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Over is 9-1-2 in WAS last 12 Mon. games.
\n\u2022 WAS are 8-2 in their last 10 road games.
\n\u2022 WAS are 2-8 in their last 10 Mon. games.
\n\u2022 NYR are 18-6 in their last 24 Mon. games.
\n\u2022 Under is 12-5-8 in NYR last 25 vs. Southeast.
\n\u2022 Under is 36-16-6 in NYR last 58 Mon. games.
\n\u2022 Under is 3-0-5 in the last 8 meetings in New York.
\n\u2022 Home team is 7-2 in the last 9 meetings.<\/p>\n
The Caps finished the regular season 8-1-1 and they have won two straight in the playoffs \u2013 ya \u2013they are on fire! The playoffs are all about goaltending and special teams \u2013 Washington has benefitted from stellar play in both aspects of the game. Brad Richards and Rik Nash have yet to hit the score sheet in the playoffs \u2013 the Rangers just can\u2019t seem to get anything going offensively. I like Washington to keep the momentum going and to put their feet on the throats of their quarter-final foe.<\/p>\n
Pick:<\/strong> Washington Capitals +127<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Caps vs Rangers NHL Spread\/Handicapping The New York Rangers return home Monday night with some work to do \u2013 down 2-0 to the Washington Capitals and struggling to find any sort of offense. The Rangers perhaps deserved a better fate in Game 2 but lost in overtime to put them in the 2-0 hole. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":32017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[53103,1547,23768,38454,38455,58959,3319,2276,1956,3801,895,12777,11729,27674,48455,40226,59016],"class_list":["post-62058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhl","tag-53103","tag-betting-predictions","tag-capitals-rangers-odds","tag-capitals-rangers-picks","tag-capitals-vs-rangers","tag-free-nhl-playoffs-picks","tag-game-3","tag-hockey-betting","tag-hockey-odds","tag-nhl-free-predictions","tag-nhl-picks","tag-nhl-playoff-odds","tag-round-1","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-washington-capitals-vs-n-y-rangers","tag-washington-vs-n-y","tag-washington-vs-n-y-free-pick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62058"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62077,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62058\/revisions\/62077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}