The NY Rangers and the Philadelphia Flyers are playing Game 4 of their NHL playoffs series on Friday night and the matchup starts at 7 pm ET from the Wells Fargo Center and comes as New York is up 2-1 in the series with the chance to take a commanding lead and the matchup will air on TV from CNBC and is streaming from the NBC Sports Live Extra website.
The Rangers come in after winning Game 3 and they played very well throughout the matchup, especially on the penalty kill and that was one reason why New York was able to win that game. The Rangers and Flyers have not played against each other in the playoffs for over 15 years and that last series saw Philly win and that was in the eastern conference finals and not the first round of the playoffs. The Flyers won that series and now the Rangers have the chance to take a commanding 3-1 lead heading back to Madison Square Garden with a win in the matchup on Friday night.
The Rangers won Game 1 in nice fashion with a 4-1 victory at home and that saw three points from Brad Richards, including a goal and two assists and the team added two power play goals in front of Henrik Lundqvist to get the victory. The team lost Game 2 after a great performance from Ray Emery and it pushed a long streak for the Rangers, as they have not won the second game at home in a playoff series for years. Emery was starting for Steve Mason and he performed well in the series, but it looks like it will be Mason in net on Friday as long as he is healthy and ready to go after sustaining an injury at the end of the season.
The schedule on Friday and the weekend will decide some series and the Montreal Canadiens are already into the second round in the eastern conference after sweeping out the Lightning and now they are waiting for the rest of the series to finish up. The Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues have played a tight series and they will play on Friday as well and that game starts up at 8 pm and is on the NBC Sports Network and comes as that series is tied 2-2. Henrik Lundqvist had been great for the Rangers and he had over 30 saves in Game 3 and will be the main focus on Friday night as the teams battle.
The Blackhawks have won the last two games against the Blues and that came after they lost the first two in St. Louis and they were able to tie things back up with two straight wins. Corey Crawford has been excellent over the past two games and Ryan Miller has been very good for the Blues in the series and now it is a best of three as the two teams look to take advantage on Friday night for a 3-2 lead heading into Game 6 and that will be on Sunday and could decide the series depending on who comes out on top.
Check here for the New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers game coverage from NBC.