The New York Rangers proved that they are for real this season taking a 1-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals and will have a chance to get one step closer to the Stanley Cup series when they host the defending champions Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals series tonight at the Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Match Details
- New York Rangers vs Tampa Bay Lightning
- NHL – Eastern Conference Finals, Game 2
- Date – 3/6/2022
- Starting time – 7 PM ET
- Venue: Madison Square Garden, New York City, NY
New York Rangers Stats & Form
The New York Rangers started the Eastern Conference Finals with an impressive 6-2 win over the defending champions Tampa Bay Lightning making a statement that they are ready to go to the very end.
Filip Chytil scored twice in the second period to lead the Rangers in the crucial run that sealed the deal for the home team. After scoring eight goals in 67 games during the regular season, the 22-year-old center has seven in 15 playoff games — including five goals in the last three.
Mika Zibanejad, Artemi Panarin and Frank Vatrano each had a goal and an assist, Chris Kreider also scored and Alexis Lafreniere and Adam Fox each had two assists to help New York win its franchise-record seventh straight home playoff game. Igor Shesterkin stopped 37 shots to improve to 8-3 in the last 11 games.
The Rangers have totaled 17 goals while winning their last three games after scoring nine over the previous five.
New York Rangers News
Samuel Blais will not play for the Rangers tonight.
Tampa Bay Lightning Stats & Form
The Tampa Bay Lightning are back-to-back Stanley Cup winner and they entered this year’s Playoffs not predicted to get even close to defending the title. Anyway, they are in the Eastern Conference Finals and have their chance despite a 6-2 loss in the series opener against the New York Rangers.
Steven Stamkos had a goal and an assist, and Ondrej Palat also scored for Tampa Bay, which had won six straight and was playing for the first time since completing its second-round sweep of Florida on May 23. Andrei Vasilevskiy, who gave up just three goals in four games against the Panthers, had 28 saves.
Tampa Bay has won 89 of the last 114 games after scoring 2 goals or less in their previous game and 40 of the last 52 games following a loss of 3 or more goals.
Tampa Bay Lightning News
Brent Seabrook will not play for Tampa Bay tonight while Brandon Point is questionable.
New York Rangers vs. Tampa Bay Lightning Head-to-Head Stats
Both teams have split the last 10 head-to-head games but the Rangers have won the last four.
Six of the last ten games between these two have ended with over 5.5 goals.
New York Rangers vs. Tampa Bay Lightning Betting Odds
The Tampa Bay Lightning are slight favourites coming into this game with 120 odds to win while the Rangers are at 175 and 322 odds are set for a draw.
The total goals margin is set at 5.5 with 101 for over and -125 for under.
Betting Tip
The New York Rangers shocked everyone in Game 1 continuing their domination on home ice, putting six goals past Andrei Vasilevskiy to get out upfront in the series. It appeared the long 9-days off-break ahead of this series caught up with the Lightning who were just a step slow and couldn’t keep up with this very confident Rangers team. There’s no reason to panic though, and for Tampa Bay their goal in these first two games was just to steal one of these two road games.
There’s good reason to think they will as Bolts and Vasilevskiy have been lights out the past three postseasons following a loss. The record is 17-0 following a loss in the playoffs with nearly 4 goals scored and under 2 goals allowed. These guys are the two-time defending champs for a reason and they know how to respond and that is exactly what we are going to see tonight in MSG.
