Ok, the Rangers won a round and even though it’s a good thing to dispatch the Devils, the games will probably get a little harder from here on out.

For the next round, the Blueshirts will get three possible opponents depending on what happens in the two remianing series in the Eastern Conference.

The most likely opponent is the Pittsburgh Penguins, who the Rangers went 5-3 this season. They were 4-0 on Garden Ice and 1-3 in the Igloo, so if the trend continues they will win it in seven games. Now the trick with the pens is to do to Marc0-Andre Fleury, what the Blueshirts did to Marty Brodeur. If that can crash the net and get him off the game, they can steal a game in Pittsburgh and then continue Penguin mastery at the Garden.

For the series, Tom Renney may put Colton Orr back in the lineup, because the fourth line of Blair Betts, Ryan Hollweg and Orr, did a great job at shutting down Sidney Crosby during the year, while relying upon the Ranger big guns to come through with less ice time.

Also watch if Jaromir Jagr melt unter the Scott Gomez treatment in Pittsburgh.

Now if the Caps come back and Montreal wins, the Rangers will visit the Bell Centre for game 1. The Blueshirts were 3-0-1 against the Habs, who are relying upon Carey price. As we saw in Game 5, Price can get rattled by little mistakes as the Bruins were able to keep the series alive. In this possible series the Ranger penalty kill needs to shut down the Hab pwer play and also stay out of the box, because the Habs offense is centered around taking advantage of other teams mistakes.

They also will be visiting a hostile Bell Centre, unlike the cushy Prudential Center they got in the first round.

If Boston and Philly win, they the Blueshirts will open at the Garden against the Flyers. They were 5-1-2, but Stephen Valiquette took three of thoise wins. Don’t expect Vali to replace the King in the beginning, but coach Tom Renney may use his backup in this series to change things up. Valiquette has a 1.04 gaa against the Flyers.

On offense, the Rangers need to solve Martin Biron and doing the same things to him as they did to Brodeur should do the trick.

They can also play the Capitals if the Caps and Briuns win their respective series. Again, they will have to deal with Cristobol Huet, who was great in the regular season, but struggled against the Flyers who ran him. However this matchup seems unlikely due to the nature of their round 1 matchup.    

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