Rangers' conference lead down to one point
Henrik Lundqvist #30 and Ryan Callahan #24 of the New York Rangers celebrate after defeating the New Jersey Devils. (Feb. 27, 2012) Credit: Jim McIsaac
For the Rangers, the math is simple: Beat the Devils Monday night at Madison Square Garden and extend their quickly vanishing lead in the Eastern Conference and Atlantic Division.
The 10-point lead the Rangers held March 3 is down to one over Pittsburgh with 11 games remaining. The surging Penguins blew a 2-0 lead and had their winning streak end at 11 games Sunday, but they did pick up a point in their 3-2 overtime loss to the Flyers.
Despite having lost five of the last seven games, the Rangers took some positives out of the season-high 42 shots they fired at Colorado's Semyon Varlamov in Saturday's 3-1 loss and said they had to build off that effort.
"I thought we played a good game," Ryan Callahan said. "We have a good opponent, a division opponent coming up. Monday won't be hard to get up for."
It will be the fifth time that the Rangers and Devils have met since Jan. 31 and the season finale in the six-game series, in which each team has scored 10 goals. The Devils won the last game, 4-1, in Newark on March 6. The Rangers, 1-1 at home, beat the Devils, 2-0, at the Garden on Feb. 27.
"All of our games are important if we want to stay in first," said rookie Carl Hagelin, who has two goals and four assists in the series, in which the Rangers are 2-2-1. "We have to win pretty much every game that's left because we know Pittsburgh's coming and they're not going to lose many games. We should just take how aggressive we were [against Colorado] and how many chances we created and continue on from that."
The Devils, with 87 points and in sixth place in the East, have lost two of three and will be desperate for two points in order to stay close to the division leaders. The Rangers have 95 points, the Penguins 94 and the Flyers 92.
"We have to be ready," Brandon Dubinsky said. "They're playing good hockey. We know it's always a battle against those guys and the games are always exciting. We have to be prepared for them and be ready to have a great start."
Notes & quotes: Henrik Lundqvist (2-2-0 with a 1.26 GAA and .947 save percentage against New Jersey) is expected to be in net against Martin Brodeur, who has played in all five previous games. The Rangers' Martin Biron played in a 4-3 shootout loss on Jan. 31.
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