The Pittsburgh Penguins once again cleanly beat the Rangers to push New York to the brink of elimination. While the Rangers try to figure out how they can turn the tide, we have two more playoff games ahead of us tonight.
Game 4: Boston Bruins vs. Montreal Canadiens [Montreal leads series 2-1] (7:30 p.m. ET -- NBCSN)
Boston scored seven goals in the third periods of their first two games versus Montreal. The Canadiens would not permit any late game heroics on Tuesday.
The Bruins were held to just seven shots on goal in the final 20 minutes and while Jarome Iginla did scored with 2:16 minutes remaining, Montreal still went on to earn a 4-2 victory.
Goaltender Tuukka Rask lamented after the game that the Bruins “made stupid mistakes” while coach Claude Julien felt their start wasn’t good enough to give them a chance to win.
The silver lining is that help might be on the way for the Bruins. Defenseman Dennis Seidenberg feels good enough to return from a torn ACL, although that doesn’t necessarily mean that he will play soon. As upbeat as he is, he reportedly hasn’t been cleared for contact yet.
On the other side, the Canadiens were angry that Milan Lucic appeared to spear defenseman Alexei Emelin.
Lucic and Emelin have a long-standing rivalry, so we’ll have to see if that battle escalates as we get deeper into the series.
Game 3: Anaheim Ducks vs. Los Angeles Kings [Los Angeles leads series 2-0] (10:00 p.m. ET -- NBCSN)
The Kings have won six straight games, but they want to avoid getting too comfortable. After all, they know better than most just how quickly a series can turn.
“Coming home having that 2-0 lead, you want to have that killer instinct too, and that right attitude, that right mind-set to win in front of your own fans,” Kings forward Jarret Stoll told the Los Angeles Times.
The Ducks are going into this contest with a similar attitude and it obviously shouldn’t be hard for them to view this as a must-win game. In order for Anaheim to turn this series around though, the team needs to find a way to beat Jonathan Quick. So far the Kings goaltender has turned aside 69 of 72 shots.
“He’s seeing a lot of pucks. We need to get in his eyes, get in his head a bit,” forward Patrick Maroon said. “We need to crash and bang, go to the net. We need all 20 of us. It’s what we’ve been doing all year.”
If they fail to do that tonight, the Ducks will have no recourse but to try and give the Kings a taste of their own medicine by overcoming a 3-0 series deficit.