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Game of the Week: This time around, Rangers win shootout against Flyers

Wojtek Wolski

New York Rangers’ Wojtek Wolski, right, gets the puck past Philadelphia Flyers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky for the wining goal in an overtime shootout of an NHL hockey game on Sunday, April 3, 2011, in Philadelphia. The Rangers won 3-2. (AP Photo/Tom Mihalek)

AP

Of course, this game just had to end in a shootout, didn’t it?

Last season, the Philadelphia Flyers prevailed in a dramatic - if a bit unsettling - shootout against the New York Rangers to earn a playoff spot while booting the Rangers out of the postseason. This afternoon’s skills competition didn’t have the same consequences for the Flyers, but the Rangers earned a huge two points with their win against Philadelphia in the NBC Game of the Week.

New York 3, Philadelphia 2 (SO)

Erik Christensen and Wojtek Wolski scored in the shootout for the Rangers, while Henrik Lundqvist turned aside both of Philadelphia’s attempts. The Flyers managed to wrestle a point out of this game thanks to a Nik Zherdev goal in the third period, as the hot-and-cold Russian connected thanks to a beautiful pass by Claude Giroux.

Bryan McCabe and Ruslan Fedotenko scored the Rangers’ two regulation goals while James Van Riemsdyk found the twine for Philly’s other tally. Both Lundqvist and Sergei Bobrovsky made 32 out of 34 saves, but Lundqvist earned his 34th win of the season today.

With this win, the Rangers move into seventh place in the Eastern Conference with 89 points with three games left. This gives them a one-point lead over the eighth place Buffalo Sabres (88 points with four games remaining), a three-point lead over the ninth-place Carolina Hurricanes (86 with four games left) and a five point margin over the 10th place Toronto Maple Leafs (84 with three games remaining). It also pulls them to within two points of the sixth-place Montreal Canadiens (91 points with three games left). The only drawback is that they didn’t earn a non-shootout win, which could be a problem if they end up needing a tiebreaker.

For more on the Rangers’ chances of surviving the playoff bubble battle, read this post.

While the Flyers would have preferred to earn the win, they actually moved back into first place in the Eastern Conference thanks to the charity point because they have one more non-shootout win than the Washington Capitals. Both teams have three games left on their schedules, so it should be a fun race to watch (check out the details of their home stretch runs here).

This was a big win for the Rangers, but both New York and Philadelphia still have a challenging week ahead of themselves. Stick with PHT for the lowdown on all the playoff races and tune into NBC at 12:30 pm ET to see what could be a huge game for the Chicago Blackhawks against the Detroit Red Wings next Sunday.