Recapping the Rangers/Bruins 3/26/11

The Rangers managed to stand tall in the face of adversity once again, shutting out the Boston Bruins on away ice. The Rangers scored a lone goal once again, coming off of a face off deflection by Derek Stepan in the 1st period.

The Rangers were superb defensively throughout the first two periods, doing a wonderful job of fore-checking and getting takeaways in the neutral zone.

Sean Avery returned to the lineup today, subbing out Mats Zuccarello. Avery threw some punches with Gregory Campbell early in the 1st, and helped out quite a bit on the defensive side of the puck. Despite being sat the past six games, I feel that this was a good idea to sup bout Zuccarello with Avery. Not to say that Zuccarello doesn't have skill to play in this league, but the Bruins are a massive MASSIVE team, and putting Zuccarello out on the ice against players like Zdeno Chara and Milan Lucic would have been kamikaze for Zuccarello.

One thing the Rangers really performed well in was they were blocking shots from ever getting to Henrik Lundqvist, who recorded his eleventh career shutout, a new career best, in his 400th NHL game. Lundqvist performed well through the shots he faced through the first two periods, and then really turned on the jets when the barrage of shots came in the 3rd to hold the shutout in tact.

In all, it was a good bounce-back win to keep the playoff push going for the Rangers. The Rangers are now currently tied with Montreal in the standings, and if the Rangers manage to overtake the Canadiens, there is a good possibility of the Rangers having to play Boston in the first round of the playoffs. Hold tight, things are about to get really interesting in the Eastern Conference.