New York Rangers

Andrew Copp was back at center with Frank Vatrano and Kaapo Kakko and they had an outstanding first shift and Copp was excellent on the faceoff dots, but didn't ...

He had eight points in the first five games against Boston, but has not had a point in the last five games and he has been minus three in this series. It’s time for the Rangers to come up with a big night scoring so let’s root them on. ESPN will be televising the Calgary Edmonton with an 930pm EST start time so they will dump out of Rangers coverage pretty quickly. The power play finally got off the ground in the last game and if the Blueshirts can get some PP time, they could take advantage. One interesting element was the Rangers made some subtle changes in their power play strategy after going 0-4 in Game Two and it paid off. The Zibanejad line did well with Filip Chytil on the right wing, but the second line didn’t do much with Lafrenière again moved to the right wing.

After a testy ending to Game 3, New York coach Gerard Gallant said his team plays better when it's angry, and enforcer Ryan Reaves agrees.

"I don't want to say anything stupid here," he said, drawing a laugh. "I like to see our guys get a little pissed off once in a while," he said. "You don't want to be taking stupid penalties in a series that's this tight. I think we do well with that." "I'm sure [our] guys aren't going to shy away from finishing checks on those guys. "I think our team thrives on that. "I just think it's going to [happen] in the playoffs, when you play the same team over and over again," Reaves said. "He really said that?" "I wish I would have seen that. I wish I would have grabbed him first." Our guys know we have him there." We've got the guy that can handle all their guys if we want to."

New York Rangers forward Andrew Copp was a hero in Game 4 against the Hurricanes and said of a key first period penalty: "At the end of the day, ...

It was only 5-for-43 in the playoffs prior to Game 4 where the issues persisted. Carolina was relatively sloppy while a man down and a turnover in their own end led to a missed opportunity to clear the zone. Copp and Vatrano, both acquired in March trades, were named first and third stars of the game, respectively. Instead of merely taking Trouba’s number, Lorentz immediately came to the defence of his teammate and dropped the mitts with Trouba in a rare playoff scrap. He did mention he thought Trouba should've been given a cross-checking minor for getting his stick up on Lorentz prior to the brief punch-up. Whistles were few and far in between during a frenetic first half of the opening period as both teams traded chances.

The expected confrontation between Ryan Reaves and Max Domi didn't happen until the last 10 seconds of the game, and at that it was relatively uneventful.

The very fact that the games were so close was one reason why the Blueshirts were never in danger of being out of the picture. With the Rangers on their heels a bit and back to the dump and defend play that hurt them in Game One, Gallant called Andrew Copp’s goal to restore the three goal lead “huge.” After Jacob Trouba laid out Domi with a big hit, he was attacked by Steven Lorentz who ended up with the instigator penalty and a misconduct. He did say that the team sat back after getting ahead 3-0 and focused on protecting the lead, something he does not want to see. The teams followed the script with all the games won by the home team in this series. That means they will play at least one more game this season at the Garden.

With their 4-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night they have drawn even in their Second Round series after winning both games at Madison Square ...

As good as Raanta has played this postseason you have to think Andersen will be back in as soon as he is ready. This is now the second series in a row the Rangers looked done early, facing a two game deficit, only to come back. He has been the Hurricanes best goalie all year and one of the best in the league.

Following the Rangers' matinee victory in Game 3 to cut Carolina's series lead to a 2-1 margin, these teams will square off once again for a pivotal Game 4 ...

The aforementioned nonsense at the end of Game 3 made Gallant point out that if the Hurricanes continue to act the way they did, Reaves will be the one to step in. After some shenanigans at the end of the previous game that elicited a response from Gerard Gallant when talking to the media, the Blueshirts appear to have a bit of extra motivation to hand Carolina their fifth consecutive road loss of the playoffs and knot this series up at 2-2. Whether it’s on the scoresheet or somewhere else, look for Reaves to make his presence felt tonight.