Rangers-Flyers: And Then There Was Just One Game Left for New York

The final game for the New York Rangers (42-30-9) and the Philadelphia Flyers (43-26-11) will determine who they face in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Rangers could meet the Boston Bruins or the Washington Capitals.

For the Rangers, it means facing the devil you know or the devil you don't know, but not the New Jersey Devils.

The revamped Rangers have won one and lost one against Boston, but they have not played the Capitals since new coach John Tortorella changed their game plan to aggressive attack and the Rangers added Nik Antropov, Derek Morris, and Sean Avery to the lineup.

The Flyers could face the Carolina Hurricanes, the Pittsburgh Penguins, or even the New Jersey Devils. The Flyers, Carolina, and Pittsburgh are tied for the fourth spot in the Eastern Conference with 97 points.

Philadelphia has two games to play, against the New York Islanders and the Rangers. Carolina and Pittsburgh are down to their final one.

The Rangers clinched a playoff spot with Thursday's 2-1 win over the Flyers, but Mellon Arena has been a tough place for the Rangers to play.

The Rangers dropped their last five games in Philadelphia and have not won in regulation since Jan. 19, 2006. Beating the Flyers by a goal at Madison Square Garden is one thing, beating them in their own building is something else again.

The Rangers have won only three times in 18 games away from New York since Jan. 18. However, they have been a new team since the NHL Trade Deadline at the start of March.

On the other hand, the Flyers will have fought with the New York Islanders on Saturday, while the Rangers had the day off.

The Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens are tied with 93 points, but the Rangers are seventh in the Eastern Conference, as they have one more victory than the Canadiens. On Saturday night, Montreal hosts the Pittsburgh Penguins. Montreal has struggled but the Penguins have been hot.

A Canadiens loss would give the Rangers seventh and a matchup with Washington in the first round. If the Canadiens win, the Rangers have to win to remain in seventh.

The team that finishes eighth will face Boston in the first round.

No doubt, the series hockey fans wanted to see was a Rangers-Devils matchup, with the across-the-river rivals in a re-run of last year's first round, which gave us Sean Avery versus Martin Brodeur and resulted in the Avery Rule and a win for the Rangers.

Second choice would be a Rangers-Bruins series, as their old rivalry recently had some unsavoury spice added to it with a controversial conflict between the Rangers' Sean Avery and Bruins goalie Tim Thomas.

The Rangers have not faced Washington since their run to the Stanley Cup in 1994, when they dispatched the Caps in a five-game second round series.

They have not faced Boston in a playoff series since the 1972 Stanley Cup Finals, when Bobby Orr and the Bruins beat the Blueshirts in a six-game series that ended at MSG.