Rangers faceoff against Pens this afternoon

March 30, 2008   ·   Lenny   ·   Jump to comments

Pre-game update: Colton Orr is in fact injured. He blocked a shot with his foot a few games back and will not skate today. Both Petr Prucha and Jason Strudwick are skating in the pre-game warm-ups as I write this, and one of them will skate on the fourth line with Ryan Hollweg and Fred Sjorstrom. If you want toughness, go with Strudwick. An extra scoring threat, hard forechecker, Prucha. It’s a toss up really because the line will get all of four minutes of playing time.

The Rangers have a Sunday afternoon game today, squaring off against the Penguins at 12:30 on NBC. With all kinds of playoff implications hanging in the balance, this is another one of those crucial games for the Blueshirts. While a loss wouldn’t crush them, it certainly would be nice to have.

The Rangers trail Ottawa by a point and the Devils by two. They are six points behind Pittsburgh for the lead in the Atlantic Division. Even the Montreal Canadians are only seven points away. While that may be a stretch, a two game sweep of the Penguins today and tomorrow for the Rangers puts them two points behind with three games left to play. Couple that with some Hab losses, and the Rangers could be in business.

Whatever happens, all of this intensity should only help the Rangers come playoff time. I’m a believer that if you let down intensity to rest all of your starters and take it easy for a few games that getting back to that intensity for the playoffs becomes that much harder. I would be all for giving Brendan Shanahan or Martin Straka a game off, and starting Stephen Valiquette in net for a game or two before the big dance kicks off, but there’s a difference between doing that and taking the last few games of the season off. This scenario only helps the Rangers right now.

I don’t know much in terms of lineups tonight, but the lines at practice yesterday were almost the same as Thursday’s lines against the Devils. The only exception was Petr Prucha skating on the fourth line in place of Colton Orr. Whether that’s an injury issue or just to get Prucha some ice time, I don’t know. I would expect Orr to be in there today, especially if big Georges Laroque is in the lineup.

Philadelphia inched closer to securing a playoff spot last night with a win over the Islanders in a shootout. The Islanders led 2-1 and 3-2 in the third period, but couldn’t hold of Mike Richards and the Flyers. The other game to watch today is Boston vs Buffalo. Buffalo is all but out of the race, in my opinion, but a lose to the B’s today will make that almost a sure thing.

I’ll check back in after the game. Enjoy.