Here. We. Go.

It's not worth reminding you that this is a better Capitals team than the one we faced in the first round two season ago; it's a better Rangers team, too, even with the Alternate Captain whose jersey I'm currently wearing sidelined with a broken ankle. However, it's worth noting that this is also a much better Capitals team than the one we lit up for a cumulative 15-1 over our three most recent meetings.

They've spent the last little while building up a defensive system that's less Mike Green and more John Erskine, and it's been working: since we most recently beat them by a touchdown, they have allowed a total of 37 goals through the final 20 games of the regular season (basic arithmetic tells us that's 1.85 goals per game). If they can reconcile that with letting this Alexander Whatever-his-name-is guy loose, it's going to be very hard to beat them.

Here's a pretty obvious sportswriter-type thing to say: the two questions surrounding this series are whether or not the Rangers will be able to score goals against the Capitals and whether or not the Capitals will be able to score goals against the Rangers. But here's what I mean: we know the Caps can score, dangerously quickly. We know Henrik Lundqvist can rob dangerously good goal-scorers of their dangerous goals. Question 1 will be who wins the Ovechkin vs. Lundqvist battle (this battle also includes Backstrom vs. Staal, and so on).

Question 2, on the other end of the ice (at any given time), is whether or not the Capitals' newfound ability to slow the game down and block shots will be able to overcome the Black-and-Blueshirts goal-scoring strategy of going hard to the net and getting that fifth deflection. If the Rangers play the kind of great, grinding hockey they're capable of, even without Cally, this will be a fantastic series. Two totally different styles of play complementing each other at opposite ends of the ice. In the Rangers' end, skill vs. skill, and in the Caps' end, toughness vs. toughness. On the other hand, if the Rangers fall flat early, this series could be over before you have time to say "Potvin Sucks!"

8 hours until Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs begins. How am I going to focus enough to get any work done today?