Rangers Beat Senators - Eye Second Place

The New York Rangers rebounded from a tough loss to the New York Islanders by handily beating the Ottawa Senators last night. The Rangers balanced attack was on display again last night as players on all lines contributed to the 4-1 victory.

Wade Redden was ejected from the game on a controversial call. Alexei Kovalev barreled down on him as he tried to keep the puck in at the blue line and Redden's elbow came up as they made contact. Kovalev fell awkwardly into the boards and is out 3 weeks with a shoulder injury. Redden was ejected which caused head coach Roger Neilson to go balistic and scream at the referee until he was blue in the face. Marek Malik had an outstanding game with 24 minutes of ice time and a plus 4 rating as he filled in for Redden.

"I don't know why I was ejected," said a clearly frustrated Redden after the game. "My elbow went up so I could try and keep my balance and then he fell into the boards. He hurt his shoulder falling, not on my elbow. Hope he's ok, but it wasn't intentional."

With the vicorty the Rangers find themselves with a slim but possible shot at second place in the conference. The Rangers have 3 games remaining but 2 of them are against the Florida Panthers.

If the Panthers beat Atlanta tonight, however, the Rangers will have to beat the Panthers twice and win their final game against Montreal to have any hope of jumping into second.

If the Panthers lose both to the Rangers they have the mighty Islanders for their next game and finish out the season against the Bruins. To have a realistic shot at second place the Rangers are going to have win their remaining three games and hope the Panthers lose to them twice, lose to the Islanders and lose to either ther Bruins or Thrashers.

"We'd love to get second place," said Mats Sundin. "We control our destiny a bit by having the opportunity to beat the Panthers twice but we have to hope for some other teams to help us out. We'll be happy to face any team in the playoffs. It was a scenario that looked doubtful at the beginning of the year and here we are in third in the division and fourth overall in the league."