NY also has to make sure Penguins goaltender Matt Murray works a little harder than he has in the past two games. All in their early 20s.
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In the new National Hockey League, not only do you need a solid netminder, but teams need to be built 12 forwards deep to win a Stanley Cup.
Rust and Sheary combined for three goals during Pittsburgh’s second-period explosion against uncharacteristically shaky Henrik Lundqvist and Murray turned away 38 shots as the Penguins exacted revenge against the Rangers, who knocked Pittsburgh out of the postseason in 2014 and 2015. The setbacks led to franchise-wide soul searching, including hiring Mike Sullivan to take over for Mike Johnston in mid-December and having General Manager Jim Rutherford overhaul the roster with fresh legs unburdened by past failure.
“It meant a lot to me, obviously getting a hat trick in the first game”, Hornqvist said.
Does a guy who is playing with Crosby, on the top line count as depth at this point?
New York’s 10 double-digit goal scorers from the regular season have combined for six in this series, and Rick Nash was the only one to mark the score sheet in NY, where the Rangers have lost five straight playoff games.
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Not by a long shot.
Just ask the New York Rangers and their future Hall of Fame goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, who were eliminated in five games by the steamrolling Penguins thanks to a humiliating 6-3 loss in Game 5.
Pittsburgh generated odd-man rush after odd-man rush, beating Lundqvist to the glove side on high-danger chances for each of the last three goals they scored during Saturday’s 6-3 clincher.
Since the start of the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs, the Blackhawks have won 12 of 16 games when facing elimination. He spent the final 20 minutes of New York’s loss wearing a baseball cap on the bench while backup Antti Raanta played out the string. That right there is a group of players that is relatively young and can win you some hockey games. “And that’s painful, you know?”
Now Gorton’s job is to revitalize the roster, to make enough significant changes to start a launch of a new era in NY. He recorded 21 goals and 37 points on the regular season with a full 82-game campaign, putting him third in goals scored behind only Filip Forsberg and Shea Weber.
2, Pittsburgh, Crosby 2 (Kessel, Malkin), 19:18 (pp). The Penguins won 6-3 and won the series. I will go out of my way and say that if these two teams meet up, then the victor of this matchup would more than likely represent the East in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Once again the Rangers face a win-or-else scenario, and it’s the Penguins again this season.
Phil Kessel, Carl Hagelin and 39-year-old Matt Cullen also found the net as the Penguins shook off two early deficits before steamrolling the Rangers 4-0 during a dominant second period. Likewise, this year’s loss could help bring about the change in NY that they need. By the time Rust finished off a 2-on-1 by burying a saucer pass from Evgeni Malkin to give the Penguins more cushion than Murray would possibly need, the 421st consecutive sellout at Consol Energy Center was chanting “Hen-rik! Hen-rik!” at the person most responsible for Pittsburgh’s recent anguish.
That seemed to motivate this team and play more aggressive, rather when they played conservative the 1st 2 games when Jeff Zatkoff was in net.
“I think we played a team that was smarter, better and had better goaltending”.
“Simply put, we didn’t play well enough”.
In Anaheim, Ryan Garbutt scored the go-ahead goal in the second period for the Ducks, who beat Nashville to earn the first win by a home team in their first-round series, which Anaheim leads 3-2.
Hornqvist scored three goals in the series, all in Game 1.
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Instead Crosby tied it up on the power play and the goal parade continued from there.
