" And Then There Were Three" Games Left For the New York Rangers

The New York Rangers have three games left, the Canadiens lead the Rangers by three points, and the Florida Panthers need three points to take the Rangers' place in the playoffs.

As they said when guitarist Steve Hackett left Genesis, reducing the band to a "trio," "and then there were three."

The Rangers  (40-30-9―89) will be playing the Canadiens (41-27-10―92) but they will be fighting off the Panthers (38-29-11―87). The Rangers host the Canadiens on Tuesday but it's the Panthers they have to worry about.

The Rangers are sitting in the final playoff spot for their division.

The last time these two teams met, the Rangers were on their way up and the Canadiens were going down. Now the Canadiens are moving up, with three wins in a row, and the Rangers have lost their last two.

The Canadiens climbed ladders by beating the lowly New York Islanders and Toronto Maple Leafs while the Rangers got bit by snakes playing the Carolina Hurricanes and the Boston Bruins.

The Rangers are coming off two tough losses. The conference leading Bruins beat them 1-0 in Boston and the streaking Carolina Hurricanes beat them 4-2 in Carolina.

New York looked good against Boston and dominated Carolina except for where it counted―on the scoreboard.

The Canadiens recently ended a long downward spiral and went on a win streak to climb above the Rangers in the standings.

The Canadiens had an easy 6-2 romp over the Leafs last night, according to Damien Cox of the Toronto Star, and it was a far cry from two weeks earlier when the Leafs easily beat them 5-2 in Montreal.

Two weeks ago Montreal was booed off the ice after that hard loss to Toronto, according to CP, but it was a very different-looking Montreal outfit that beat them last night.

The Canadiens won their fifth in six games. Alex Kovalev is one of the main reasons for the turnaround. He had a goal and three assists during a 6-2 victory over the Leafs and has 15 points over the past six games.

The line of Kovalev, Alex Tanguay, and Saku Koivu had combined for 27 points in the Habs' previous five games, a 4-0-1 stretch in which Montreal stopped its slide out of a playoff position.

Montreal moved to within one point of the Pittsburgh Penguins for sixth place in the Eastern Conference.

The Rangers A-line with Sean Avery, Scott Gomez, and Ryan Callahan has been their starting line for the past three games but the Rangers have not been scoring, especially on the power play. However, their penalty killing unit remains the best in the NHL

The Rangers scorers are overdue. Nik Antropov, their leading scorer, left the game against Boston after taking a knee-to-knee hit from Milan Lukic.

Both the Rangers and the Canadiens have had difficult seasons after starting out with great expectations. The Habs had high hopes for their team's 100th year in the NHL. The Rangers started the season in first place.

The Atlanta Thrashers all but ended the Panthers' playoff hopes in their last game. The Panthers failed to pull into a tie for eighth in the Eastern Conference standings, as they suffered a 3-1 loss to Atlanta.

Florida continues to trail the New York Rangers by two points for the final playoff spot but the Rangers would win a tiebreaker as they have two more victories.

The Panthers are really three points out of the final spot but they have a game in hand over the Rangers.