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The Rangers have held a comfortable position in the Metropolitan Division standings for a majority of the season, but the cushion has seemingly gotten even softer at just the right time.
With 11 games to go in the regular season, the Rangers are four points shy of clinching their first playoff berth since 2017. Their 5-2-1 record over the last eight games has padded their lead on the third-place Penguins (3-4-1 over the same span) and closed the gap on the division-leading Hurricanes to just two points.
The Rangers and Penguins will get one last look at each other Thursday night at the Garden. It’ll be their final meeting of the regular season before the two are expected to go head-to-head in the first round of the playoffs.
“It’s an important game, for sure,” defenseman Jacob Trouba said Wednesday after the Rangers practiced at MSG Training Center in Tarrytown. “Even just to separate us even more in the standings, it’s a four-point game. There’s a decent chance we end up playing them [in the first round]. There’s definitely some tone-setting, I wouldn’t say it’s just your average regular-season game.”
Even though the playoffs will be an entirely different challenge, Trouba noted momentum might carry over from another strong showing against the Penguins. To have a good feeling when going up against an opponent, he said, provides confidence.
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The Rangers have won two of the three games they’ve played against the Penguins this season, outscoring them 8-3 in a pair of victories late last month after being shut out 1-0 at Pittsburgh in late February.
Asked about the Rangers’ confidence given their current position, Trouba said it was unfamiliar territory, but he alluded to the team’s mentality being in the right place.
“I think it’s a situation not a lot of us have been in in the past,” Trouba said, referring to how close they are to clinching. “It’s something that we’re learning through a little bit together. But I think it’s good. The additions we made have been great, I think some guys internally that have been here have been playing really well lately. It’s just about getting everything rolling and peaking at the right time.”
Since the Rangers aren’t in dire need of points to salvage their season, as they were in 2019-20 before the pandemic canceled their final 12 regular-season games, the idea of managing certain players’ workloads has been tossed around. Trouba said he considers that to be a “slippery slope,” especially if the goal is for everybody to be sharp come the playoffs.
Head coach Gerard Gallant’s infectious one-game-at-a-time mentality has kept the Rangers from getting ahead of themselves this season. The ‘x’ is not next to the Rangers in the standings just yet, but it’s coming.
“I just worry about [Thursday’s] game,” Gallant said. “I can’t worry about Carolina being right there and Pittsburgh just being a little bit behind, you know? We just take it one game at a time, you play that game. Everybody knows, everybody’s going to see, it’s going to be in the paper, ‘This is where the Rangers are. This is what it’ll do if we win [Thursday].’ But as coaches, you prepare your players to get ready for a good Pittsburgh team.
“We’ve played them well lately, all three games we played them very well. It’s a big battle. And then the points will take care of themselves and positioning will take care of itself.”
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