Tonight at 7:00 p.m. ET, the New York Rangers and Pittsburgh Penguins faceoff for Game 1 of their Round 2 best-of-seven series live from the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh as part of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The game can be live streamed for free here. New York fans can hear all of the action on 98.7 WEPN while Pittsburgh fans can do the same on WXDX 105.9.
New York defeated the Philadelphia Flyers in a series that came down to the wire with a decisive Game 7 occurring on Wednesday while Pittsburgh had all it could handle from the Columbus Blue Jackets but was able to close them out in six games with the final game to finish them on Monday.
These teams last met in the playoffs in 2008, where the Penguins defeated the Rangers in five games in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. The Pens are 4-0 all-time against the Blueshirts in playoff series. The teams split their four regular season meetings with each team notching a home win and a 4-3 shootout win on the road.
The Penguins will look to tighten up defensively after blowing a few leads in their series with Columbus. Evgeni Malkin hadn't notched a goal in the entire series until his hat trick help lift the team to the next round in Game 6.
"I feel great," Malkin told NHL.com. "Had a couple practices, ready to go into the next round. I'm healthy, it's good. We start at home, that's good for us."
Malkin finished second on the team with seven points in the Round 1 series off of the three Game 6 goals and four assists while Matt Niskanen (two tallies, six helpers) and Paul Martin (eight assists) each led the team with eight points. Sidney Crosby failed to find the back of the net, but finished third on the team with six points off of six assists.
The Rangers will hope that Henrik Lundqvist will backstop them to their second Eastern Conference Finals in three years when all is said and done this series after he came up big in New York's Game 7 triumph.
"He's the backbone of our team for a reason," defenseman Ryan McDonagh said per NHL.com. "He made some huge saves down the stretch. We know what he means to this team, and he knows what he means. When he's on his game he's tough to beat. When they had some time in our zone he was the backbone back there. He relaxed everybody with some big saves."
Lundqvist went 4-3 in Round 1 with a 2.11 goals-against average and a .911 save percentage. He'll be opposed by Marc-Andre Fleury who had an inconsistent first round, going 4-2 with a 2.81 GAA and a .908 save percentage.
The Blueshirts had just one day off in between their Game 7 win and will now play three games in four nights and four in five overall.
2004 Stanley Cup Champion teammates with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Brad Richards and Martin St. Louis paced New York through the first round with six points each off of two goals and four assists apiece while five players had four points, including Rick Nash, who earned all four of his on assists and has just one goal through 19 playoff games with the Blueshirts.
The Rangers and Penguins take the ice tonight at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh for Round 2 Game 1 action as part of the 2014 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs.
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