Hurricanes 4, Rangers 2

The Hurricanes are on fire. This should not have come as a surprise. As soon as the Rangers missed out on four first period power plays, you kind of knew they were done.

This other Ruutu is not much different than his brother. The season almost came to a sure end Ruutu bumping Lundqvist, who ended up down and hurting, holding his head. After some stretching of the arm/shoulder by Jim Ramsay, he shook it off and played on.

Congrats to Corey Potter who scores his first NHL goal. Dan Giradi scores his first in 50-something games. That tells you about the offense.

The Islanders, fully aware that they are hurting the Rangers, lay their usual egg versus Montreal, allowing the Habs to get a little further away in 7th.

Gamenight: Rangers vs Canadiens

Canadiens 22-10-6, 50 pts
Rangers 24-14-3, 51 pts

The Habs come into town without their starting goaltender, as Carey Price is still out with a mysterious injury. Then again, every injury is mysterious, we just know it's either the lower or upper body. They will have Jaroslav Halak in net, much to the dismay of the diehard Canadien fans. Halak comes off an outing which he allowed 5 goals vs Florida at home, although they won in a shootout.

The Rangers, no surprise, will roll out the same lineup as they did in the win vs Pittsburgh. Another chance for the Voros-Dubinsky-Zherdev line to reclaim some of their early season magic. It's hard to believe that Dubinsky has only one goal in his last 30 games.

Other notes:
-The rest of the Eastern Conference all-star team will be announced tomorrow. I doubt Marc Staal would make it, but Lundqvist has a good shot, and will likely be the lone Ranger representative.
-Jarkko Ruutu is in trouble with the league. No surprise, it was just a matter of time. He denies biting Andrew Peters' hand, but hopefully the league does not buy it and does something about it.
-The Ducks have traded Brad May to Toronto. Not surprise there as well, as Brian Burke begins the process of adding toughness to the Leafs with a player he was familiar with in Anaheim.