Marian Gaborik

The New York Rangers currently are the No. 2 seed in the East and should be considered a real threat. Surprised? 

If you have been following this team all season long, it shouldn't be so surprising. The Rangers are a team that were once labeled with a moniker that represented bloated contracts and overpaid veterans. They were known to "buy" talent and trade young picks and talent for overpaid superstars.

The Pittsburgh Penguins rebounded from an ugly loss to the New York Rangers by shutting the Washington Capitals down. The Capitals could only manage two shots on goal in the third period and lost to the Pens by the score of 2-1.

Of all the the things that went right for the New York Rangers a season ago, and there were many, there was one component of the team that went indisputably wrong.

After every game of the 2011-12 season, each Rangers player will be assigned a letter grade based on his individual performance, impact on the game and outlook going forward.

The Washington Capitals currently hold a two games to one lead over the New York Rangers in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, but there 10 very good reasons why the Rangers will upset the top-seeded Capitals and advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals.

If you wanna see Alexander Ovechkin lose, read the rest of the slideshow.

With the final days of the NHL regular season slowly ticking off the calendar and anticipation looming in the air of which teams will be the next Cinderella-run Flyers of last year and who will be this years Powerhouse disappointment such as the Sharks of late, I will take you through each team and cover the single player that could power their team to playoff stardom or drag them into NHL history on the wrong end.

With the current standings, the playoff teams are nearly decided and here's the player that each team will be looking to raise their level of play.

John Tortorella doesn't quite know what to say to his players to inspire them. He said in a postgame press conference, "You can’t play game 77, I think this is, you can’t play it like it’s game 25 for 40 minutes [...] They were the more desperate team that we were. It’s not so much losing, it’s how we played.”

The New York Rangers' winning ways continue as they defeated the Montreal Canadiens 6-3 at Madison Square Garden.

The Rangers offense was alive tonight, having six different players score and notching five goals in the first period alone.

By now, anyone who cares about hockey knows the story of Sidney Crosby's concussion well enough that it doesn't need to be repeated.

That's not what this article is about. This is about what's been lost in the league because of concussions this season.

This is about the fact that the "First All-Star Team" at the end of the season could be rivaled by the "All-Concussion All Stars"—and the NHL doesn't seem to care a whole lot.

Here's a look at the "All-Concussion All-Star Team" and why the NHL isn't doing enough to fix the problem.

There have been a lot of high-profile injuries this year in the NHL. Teams are hoping to get their best players back as they go down the playoff stretch.

Some teams have received good news regarding their players—they'll be back soon.

Other teams unfortunately have yet to hear good news.

Here are the latest injury updates from around the league.

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