by Kelly Monteith

Created on: April 29, 2008

The New York Ranger easily made short work of the New Jersey Devils in the first round of the playoffs, in five games to move on and face the Pittsburgh Penguins.Once again goal tending was the issue, as Henrik Lundqvist out dueled his counterpart, Martin Brodeur to give the blue shirts the series.With the addition of free agents Chris Drury and Scott Gomez, along with veterans, Brendan Shannahan and Jaromir Jagr the Rangers felt they had the talent to go deep into the playoffs.

Their next opponent, the Pittsburgh Penguins had nine days off since eliminating the Ottawa Senators in four straight games in the opening round of their playoff series.The Rangers were off for an extended period of time, so two well rested teams were ready to do battle.During the regular season the Rangers dominated the season series, finishing 8-0 against the Penguins.But this is the playoffs and the Penguins played their best hockey down the stretch, while the Rangers stumbled a bit, but still managed to finish in a healthy position to start the playoffs.

Enter the next round and although the Penguins looked like a team that had been off for a long period of time, they soon found their skating legs and continued to pound away at the Rangers,but Henrik Lundqvist stood up to the challenge.By the end of the first period the blue shirts were up 3-0 and it looked like the team was home and cooled, continuing where they left off when they defeated the Devils.

Something was said in the Penguins dressing room, either by the coaching staff or some players, but when the second period began there was a different Penguins team.Rangers coach, Tom Renney warned his team not to sit back and let their opponent back into the game, for there was still two periods of hockey left.No sooner had the players agreed with what the coaching staff had said, then the Rangers found themselves doing exactly what they said they would not do, let the Penguins back in the game.

By the end of the game, the Rangers had blown a three goal lead and lost game one, 5-4.Game two proved to be a closer checking game and although the Rangers had their opportunities to put the puck in the net, it was Marc-Andre Fleury who stone walled New York and when there is good goal tending the rest will follow.Game two was a low scoring affair, but another win for Pittsburgh (the score was 2-0), but the Rangers knew they would be heading home to Manhattan and their fans.

Tuesday night's game and the Ranger faithful are in fine form.The Rangers

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