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Tonight was great for Rangers and awful for Penguins

Pittsburgh Penguins v New York Rangers

NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 19: Derek Stepan #21 of the New York Rangers and Carl Hagelin #62 celebrate Hagelin’s goal against Marc-Andre Fleury #29 of the Pittsburgh Penguins during their game on January 19, 2012 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

Al Bello

On paper, the Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Rangers should have finished Tuesday night in the same place that they started it, aside from having one less game remaining on their schedules.

Instead, it was an awfully tough night for the Penguins and a great one for the Rangers. New York squeezed out a 3-2 win against a persistent but hopeless Minnesota Wild team while Pittsburgh dropped a 5-3 loss to the New York Islanders.

Tough times for Pittsburgh

This gives the Rangers a three-point lead in the Atlantic Division (and thus, the first seed in the East), which honestly seems more like a four point gap when you consider the Blueshirts’ tiebreaker advantages.

If that wasn’t enough, Kukla’s Korner points out that Marc-Andre Fleury took an elbow to the head in the second period and Sidney Crosby might just face some heat from Brendan Shanahan for his ill-advised cross-check.

Saving grace

The Penguins aren’t totally out of the No. 1 seed sweepstakes, though. The key date is April 5 when the Penguins host the Rangers at Consol Energy Center. If Pittsburgh wins that game in regulation, it reduces the Rags’ lead to just a point (or essentially two because of tiebreaker advantages).

In a fitting way, the blow to Pittsburgh’s quest for the top seed isn’t all that different from Washington’s diminished opportunity to get the eighth seed. Both teams still have a shot, but now they’ll need to depend upon Buffalo/New York to lose for things to work out.

Here are highlights of the Rangers’ win:

Check out video of the Islanders beating the Penguins: