The waddling Penguins have stamped their little feet all the way to second in the Atlantic, sitting just five points adrift of the Flyers on 66 points and who’s that just five points behind them? 

It’s none other than the New York Rangers, Pittsburgh’s opponents for Tuesday night. It’s gonna be a close game with both teams trying to make ground on the team directly above them.  However, it’s the Penguins who have the most to gain as, despite the narrow points margin the Rangers have played a pair of games more, so are less of a concern for the Flyers. After those three teams in the league there’s a real big drop off as team #4 (the NY Islanders) have just 37 points (after 49 games).

Penguins holding steady without Crosby

It’s a tricky game to call because January was the very dictionary definition of a mixed month for the Pittsburgh Penguins, with six regulation wins from ten games and a thumping good result on the 5th of January, when they took the Tampa Bay Lightning apart and recorded an 8-1 victory, shortly followed by  a 4-0 loss to the Wild three days later. In their last game (also against a NY team) the Penguins made heavy work of the Islanders but managed to roll out winners 1-0 by the final buzzer.   It’s probably due to the lack of superstars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, that Pittsburgh have been forced to grind out games by relying on the three Ds, that’s defense defense and defense. The low scoring victory over the Islanders was notable for a 29-save shutout thanks to goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, which marked 10 consecutive home wins against New York teams for the Penguins.

The win also marked five victories in their last six games - all without Crosby - and the second time in three games that Malkin was also missing due to his injury. These injuries should have heralded a sorry run for the Penguins, but they’ve allowed just nine goals in this six-game run and have refused to let in more than two goals in any one of those. Don’t expect a high scoring match when they take on the Rangers, as the Rangers have only scored nine in their last four outings.

Rangers keeping it close

Close games have become something of a speciality for the Rangers, bet on a narrow win margin (whoever wins) and remember that The Rangers’ last three games have all been decide by a single goal and the last two were Shoot Outs, Shoot Outs that the Rangers won. The glass half empty types out there will say that’s just 2 goals that separate the Rangers from a four game losing streak. For the glass half full types out there, see it as two goals (if they’d been scored against the Panthers) that would have made a three game win streak….

Looking past the past four games (game number four being a 4-1 loss at the hands of Hurricanes), there was a big win for the Ranger as they tore the Maple Leafs a new one and beat them 7-0, hardly a close call. So putting aside the big win and the close calls what have the Rangers done for us lately?  

Ranger lost 4-3 to the Panthers last Tuesday, that’s what. You shouldn’t see that defeat as too much of a symbol for a team in trouble though the Rangers must have been running on fumes after their five-games-in-seven-nights stretch. A stretch that at times saw them hit the ice with up to eight regulars out due to injury. The All Star Break was probably just what they needed and expect them to take the fight to the Penguins.

Prediction: Almost too close to call...but the Rangers win 3-1.