Rangers look to head into the home stretch on a winning note

March 18, 2008   ·   Lenny   ·   Jump to comments

The Rangers take on the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight, kicking off the final ten games of the regular season. All ten games will be against Eastern Conference opponents, so saying that every game is crucial would be an understatement.

The Penguins will be without Sidney Crosby, but remain a formidable opponent none-the-less. For the Rangers, Petr Prucha, Ryan Hollweg, Paul Mara and Jason Strudwick will be healthy scratches. Marek Malik goes back into the lineup alongside Michal Rozsival and Marc Staal goes back to skating with Christian Backman. The good news is that everyone is healthy, the bad news is that Prucha and Hollweg continue to be wasted on the bench.

Henrik Lundqvist will be back in net tonight, as the Rangers look to get back on track after back to back unmotivated games against the Panthers and Lightning. If they can’t get motivated for the Penguins, Flyers, Islanders and Devils, then this team doesn’t deserve to make the playoffs. Their best games this season, however, have come against these teams, so let’s see if this translates into home-ice advantage in the playoffs. A clean two points in at least seven of these last ten games would put the Rangers in a great position.

Enjoy the game. I’ll check in later on.