The Montreal Canadiens and New York Rangers are playing on the NHL playoffs schedule on Sunday night and Game 4 comes with NY up 2-1 in the eastern conference finals at Madison Square Garden and the team is looking to bounce back from an overtime loss and it starts up at 8:00 pm ET on the NBC Sports Network and it's streaming from the NBCSN Live Extra website.
Montreal is coming into the game with some momentum after winning in overtime, but the way they got there was with some luck and cheap shots, as Brandon Prust was suspended two games for his late and illegal but not penalized shot at Derek Stepan, who is out for the game with a broken jaw. Martin St. Louis has continued his strong play and NY has said they are pulling together through the tough Game 3 loss, which also saw the loss of Stepan, Dan Carcillo and Derek Brassard, who was out for the last two games of the series. Stepan is out with a broken jaw and he is hoping to return in the series, while Carcillo was hit with a terrible ban after an official initiated contact with him after a penalty call.
Stepan is leading the team in the playoffs with eight assists and he is going to be out for at least the next game or two even if Daniel Briere doesn't think so and now the Rangers have to find a way to bounce back from their overtime loss. The team ended up scoring with under a minute to go to tie the game after being down and that was on another great play from Chris Kreider, but the team couldn't continue that into overtime and gave up the quick goal for the winner. Henrik Lundqvist had another excellent game, but he was beaten out by Dustin Kotarski, who had his best game and stopped a barrage of shots from the Rangers and ended up getting the win.
Brassard is expected to return after missing time and that helps with the loss of Stepan and now the Rangers have to play with some urgency, as they have another home game and need to win it after taking the first two on the road at the Bell Centre. The Rangers have the great crowd at MSG and they played a very good game on Thursday and ended up on the losing side and now they have to try and bounce back and they just need to continue playing the style they have been playing in this series.
The hit from Prust was late and while he said he was just looking to make a physical play, he went high and very late and the NHL looked at it and suspended him for two games and now Stepan is down as well, while the Canadiens are still without number one goalie Carey Price. Prust will be out for Games 4 and 5 no matter what happens and he has the chance to return when the series potentially returns Madison Square Garden and that won't get the players amped up or anything. The team will be without Carcillo for 10-games and that could be rough, but it also could help the team since he can inflame things with his aggressive style and he is also leading the team in penalty minutes.
