The first round matchup between the New York Rangers and the Pittsburgh Penguins may be a rematch of last season's Eastern Conference semifinals, but both teams enter this year's postseason at opposite ends of the spectrum. The Rangers comfortably found their way atop the league standings, while the Penguins barely made the playoffs, booking their entry on the very last day of the regular season.

There are a few things the Penguins can bank their hopes on, though. They have at their disposal one of the league's best penalty kills, stopping their opponents 84.8 percent of the time thanks in large part to the stinginess of goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. They duo of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin is always a dangerous proposition for any team, and with Crosby a much healthier version of himself this time around, he will look to exponentially better his production of just one goal in 13 playoff games last year.

The Rangers, for their part, are stacked. They totaled 113 points this season, and were head and shoulders above the rest of the league when it came to goal differential at plus-60. They're depth was also evidenced by tempering the loss of goaltender Henrik Lundqvist during a six-week stretch. In that span of time, they managed an impressive 18-4-3, despite being without the former Vezina Trophy winner.

"They're deep. They have a really good hockey team," Clarke MacArthur of the Ottawa Senators said fresh off facing the Rangers last week.

The stellar play of Rick Nash during the regular season is no secret, and so is the strong play of Lundqvist since coming back from the injury shelf, but the x-factor coming into the series could well then be rookie Kevin Hayes, who finished the regular season strong ending with 17 goals and 45 points, with, as ESPN.Go.com points out, six points coming in the last four games.

Game 1 of the series between the Rangers and the Penguins begins Thursday, April 16, 7:00 pm, check out the live stream link here.