Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich.

Welcome to the HockeyPedio cast. My name is Dimitri Filippovic and joining me is my good buddy, Jesse it all down. We're going to talk

about what we saw, things that either surprised us or reinforced ideas we had heading into

the series and what matters moving forward. What do you think of game one from either team's

perspective, whether just the terms at which it was played

or something one of the teams did that might be surprised you, would you just give me your

general thoughts on game one and we can just dive into it?

So I thought, I think like the story, right, of both of these teams going into this series

is the rate at which they've been able to control the pace of

the play like vis-o-vis their four check and just controlling the neutral zone, right?

I think if you look at the Rangers path here, that's an area that they've done really well in.

I think their best mitigation has come from the strengths of their offense, Dimitri,

or they've had long periods

of time playing in the other team's own, like cycling the puck, activating their D when they

can.

It's been enough to hide the dents in their armor and there are some, right?

So up to this point, like, you acknowledge, like, okay, the Rangers sometimes have, like,

defensive pairings that occasionally get exposed and turn the puck over. That is not a problem because

X, Y, Z, all the way down the list. That takes us to Florida. Florida, a team who runs a very

aggressive forecheck and generally speaking controls the pace of the play with the fours they have

up front. It's like the irresistible play with the fours they have up front.

It's like the irresistible object and the unmovable force here.

...