48 Hours Later, Rangers Win Again
The second round of playoffs has begun for the Eastern Conference, matching two hard working offensive-minded teams, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the New York Rangers. Just a few days earlier, the Rangers closed a long 7 game series with the Philadelphia Flyers. The Pittsburgh Penguins closed their series against the Columbus Blue Jackets in 6 games, also earlier this week.
The Rangers took the lead early. Benoit Pouliot scored against Marc-Andre Fleury within 5 minutes of the first period, making 1-0. Then, at the end of the first period, the Rangers capitalized again and Brad Richards made it 2-0.
However, Pittsburgh came back in the second period. Penguins Lee Stempniak got a clean back-hand shot against Lundqvist. Later in the period, Evgeni Malkin scored on a deflection. However, the goal was reviewed because it looked like it was hit with a high stick. After review and receiving confirmation from Toronto, the goal was good. Malkin actually never touched the puck; it just bounced in from a high angle. James Neal got credit for the goal.
After an exciting, but scoreless, third period the Rangers and Penguins went into overtime. About 4 minutes into the first overtime period, Rangers Derek Brassard shot and hit the cross bar, thinking he had scored. But the Rangers still managed to keep it deep in the Penguins zone. It ended up back with Brassard again passing it to Benoit Pouliot, who beat Fleury to win the game.
Along with Pouliot, Henrik Lundqvist also played a phenomenal game making 34 total saves out of 36 shots. The Penguins really fired shots at him, whereas the Rangers only had 27 shots on goal.
Game 2 of the best-of-7 series will take place again in Pittsburgh on Sunday, May 4th at 7:30 pm.
