As If there had been any previous doubt, this week’s events demonstrated once and for all the Penguins are the NHL’s version of Made Men, not only untouchable but protected by the authorities against insult.
The league responded to John Tortorella’s withering verbal attack on the Pittsburgh…

If the Rangers had their pick of first-round opponents, no doubt they’d choose the Panthers, who are stumbling into their first playoff appearance since 2000 having lost eight of nine games (1-3-5), six of those defeats to teams who didn’t qualify for the postseason, and without a reliable…

PITTSBURGH — Rangers coach John Tortorella joined the parade of Penguins’ bashers following Thursday night’s 5-2 defeat in which Derek Stepan may have suffered an injury when he was kneed by Brooks Orpik at 15:21 of the third. Tortorella labeled the hit, “cheap and dirty,” the Pittsburgh organization, “one…

PITTSBURGH — Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist said his right forearm was “pretty stiff” following Thursday morning’s skate, but that he could have played last night against the Penguins if necessary.
“It’s pretty stiff and sore, but it’s getting there,” said Lundqvist, who took the full force of…

PITTSBURGH — The Rangers have amassed the best record in the NHL through 80 games by mixing and matching on defense behind the redoubtable Dan Girardi-Ryan McDonagh first pair that is to this regular-season conference champions what the Zdeno Chara-Dennis Seidenberg tandem was to the 2011 Stanley Cup winning Bruins and…

PHILADELPHIA — The champagne will wait but there is no doubt the Rangers — the Eastern Conference champion Rangers, if you please — are the toast of New York.
And on the night the Rangers clinched their status on top of the heap and kings of the regular-season hill with a 5-3 victory…

PHILADELPHIA — The Rangers are not facing a Saturday night deadline to sign Chris Kreider in order for the Boston College junior winger to be eligible for the Stanley Cup playoffs, The Post has confirmed with multiple sources.
According to NHL By-law 28, players are eligible to play in the…

PHILADELPHIA — The seeds had been sewn since the lockout, or maybe beginning with the 2004 Entry Draft that yielded Ryan Callahan and Brandon Dubinsky, or maybe even as far back as June 2000, when in his first month on the job, general manager Glen Sather oversaw the selection of a…

So the Rangers head to Philadelphia to face the Flyers tomorrow night, first place in the Eastern Conference still theirs for the taking with three games to go, but having squandered an opportunity to have set up this final week much differently.
“Obviously we would have loved to have clinched…

Marian Gaborik joined Mike Gartner and Jean Ratelle as the only Rangers in franchise history to record at least two 40-goal seasons by hitting the milestone for the second time in his three years on Broadway with a breakaway goal against Tim Thomas 4:33 into last night’s 2-1…