The Pittsburgh Penguins have had their fair share of rivalries. The iconic match up between the Penguins and the Philadelphia Flyers is one that has gone on for years, and it isn’t going away any time soon.
However, in recent years another rivalry has been brewing, and although the matchup with the Flyers is intense as ever on the ice, as far as importance in the standings, it has taken a step back. The Flyers barely made the playoffs last season after a terrible start, and currently sit nine points out of a playoff spot.
The more important rivalry, maybe not for the fans, but for the success of the team, has become the one between the Penguins and the New York Rangers.
The Rangers finished second in the Metropolitan Division in 2013-14, just one spot behind Pittsburgh. Come playoff time, the Blueshirts flipped it around, beating the Pens in a seven-game Eastern Conference Finals series that cost the team a berth in the Stanley Cup Finals and general manager Ray Shero and head coach Dan Bylsma their jobs.
While discussing meeting up with the Rangers in mid-November for the first time since the playoffs, Penguins captain Sidney Crosby was asked if high intensity and emotions from the previous year have affected the rivalry with the team.
“I don’t know there’s so many that, I think that rivalry get used a lot now a days,” said Crosby. “It’s one of the teams that with the history of the playoffs that we’ve had with them that some physical games have developed. There’s so many teams now that we’ve had a history with playoffs and that it’s hard to say what’s more than the other,”
That was before the Rangers did everything but take the Penguins lunch money in a 5-0 victory at Madison Square Garden. The loss ended the Penguins seven-game winning streak.
Four nights later, the Penguins got a chance at revenge. The game took on a frenetic pace, and three periods weren’t enough as regulation time ended with the score tied at two. Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist stopped Crosby on a breakaway in overtime, and forced one of the most dramatic shootouts in NHL history.
Rangers defensemen Dan Boyle had a chance to win the game for New York in the third round of the shootout. He beat Fleury with a deke to the glove-hand side and scored the game-winning goal. The Rangers poured off the bench to celebrate with Lundqvist and were filing into the locker room when the horn sounded to summon the referees for a video review.
After a quick review, it was determined that Boyle had hit the puck after it had struck the goal post and the goal was waved off. The teams came back out onto the ice, the shootout went on, and Brandon Sutter immediately scored for the Penguins. Fleury then stoned Rick Nash on his attempt to give the Penguins an improbable victory and set off one of the more raucous regular-season celebrations in recent memory.
After the game Crosby was again questioned about the rivalry between the Penguins and Rangers. This time his mind seemed to change.
“The intensity is probably as high as it’s ever been when we play them, and the rivalry has definitely developed,” he said.
When the Penguins look down their December calendar, Monday’s matchup with the Rangers will be the one that’s circled.
Photo credit: NHL
