Tonight at 7:00 p.m. ET, the New York Rangers and Pittsburgh Penguins faceoff for Game 5 of their Round 2 best-of-seven series live from the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh as part of the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The game can be live streamed for free here. New York fans can hear all of the action on 98.7 WEPN while Pittsburgh fans can do the same on 105.9 WXDX.
New York will have to win three straight games to stave off elimination starting tonight while Pittsburgh hopes to put the series away by notching its fourth straight win in the series and to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second straight year.
The Rangers took Game 1 in overtime before the Penguins swung the momentum by winning the next three games by at least two goals.
The Rangers power play may have been its undoing this postseason as the team is 0-for-its-last-36 on the man advantage and allowed a dreadful shorthanded goal last time out. The Blueshirts will look to fix some mistakes from a sloppy Game 4 to try and get this series back to New York for Game 6 Sunday.
"A lot of our mistakes [in Game 4] were execution and our execution, we've proven in the past, can be a lot better than it was and that's what we're banking on," Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said Thursday per NHL.com. "We've been a solid road team all year long. We've been able to win in that building, so we need to win one game and that's what we're going to try to do."
While the Penguins have a huge margin for error considering they have at least three chances to put the series away, the team knows that three wins mean nothing in a series and the fourth one could be elusive.
"It's only three wins and that gives you nothing," coach Dan Bylsma told NHL.com. "We have an opportunity back home in Game 5. We need to be as desperate as we've been all playoffs to get this fourth win."
Evgeni Malkin has paced the Penguins in the playoffs with 12 points off of five goals and seven assists while Jussi Jokinen (six tallies, three helpers) and Sidney Crosby (one marker, eight helpers) each have nine points.
Brad Richards has led the Rangers with seven points off of three goals and four assists while Benoit Pouliot and Carl Hagelin have each found the back of the net three times while adding three helpers for six points. Hagelin's goal in Game 4 broke a 145:30 scoring drought for the Blueshirts.
Martin St. Louis (2-4-6) may not play Game 5 after he learned that his mother, France St. Louis, passed away unexpectedly at age 63.
Henrik Lundqvist will man the crease for New York and comes into the game with a 5-6 record this postseason with a 2.27 goals-against average and a .915 save percentage. Marc-Andre Fleury counters for Pittsburgh and is 7-3 in these playoffs with a 2.20 GAA and a .922 save percentage.
The Rangers try to stave off elimination while the Penguins look to clinch a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals when the puck drops on these teams tonight at the Consol Energy in Pittsburgh as part of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
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