Rangers escape with uninspiring win over last-place Penguins as NHL trade deadline looms
NY Post
PITTSBURGH — The cliché “a win is a win” almost always applies, but it doesn’t feel right for the Rangers.
Not for a team that gave up eight goals in an embarrassing loss on the first night of a back-to-back slate, only to follow it up with a slow-starting, empty-net abetted 5-3 win over the Penguins that they were more than lucky to come away with after getting outshot 39-15 Sunday evening at PPG Paints Arena.
The cliché “beggars can’t be choosers,” on the other hand, certainly does apply to this Blueshirts team.
“We need to win games right now first and foremost, which we did tonight, but that’s not a recipe for winning games,” Ryan Lindgren said. “We’ve got another big one on Tuesday [against the Islanders], a team we’re battling with in the standings right now. We have to play a heck of a lot better, for sure.”
Splitting their first two games after the 4 Nations Face-Off break should hardly matter to the Rangers hierarchy that watched the team get destroyed in Buffalo and barely escape Pittsburgh with a win over the last-place club in the Metropolitan Division.
These first games out of the break were always going to be about assessing where the Rangers are truly at and preparing for the trade deadline.
The car carrying Tanner Engstrand and Sammy Lawanson into work at 6 a.m. usually was a little lighter on the way home.
BOSTON — The Knicks are at a crossroads in Beantown.
BOSTON — The Knicks are at a crossroads in Beantown.
On the morning of Nov. 2, 2023, the question was whether Adam Fox, coming off the best month of his NHL career, was going to win his second Norris Trophy in four years.
One of the players most dramatically affected by the Yankees’ long-standing policy on beards and long hair believes they should keep the “tradition.”
At the time of the break, Mika Zibanejad had just started to turn around his season.
PORT ST. LUCIE — Jett Williams spent his time away from baseball last season to reflect on life.
CLEVELAND — The Knicks arrived and left Cleveland with the same problem: Their defense is atrocious against the NBA’s best.
The car carrying Tanner Engstrand and Sammy Lawanson into work at 6 a.m. usually was a little lighter on the way home.
Urho Vaakanainen is in his seventh NHL season, and the Rangers are his third team, but the 26-year-old defenseman never has reached the playoffs.
TAMPA — Aaron Judge has played in the Yankees’ first home Grapefruit League game in each of the past four years.
Silent most of the game, Mikal Bridges required just one play to make himself heard.
PORT ST. LUCIE — When the Mets arrived at spring training, their intention was to go with a six-man rotation from the outset of the regular season.