FanHouse Dmitri Kalinin

The New York Rangers have struggled offensively all season. That fact has been driven home of late, as the Rangers have scored more than two goals in only two of their last nine games. Today, they got some help on that front as GM Glen Sather made a serious deadline push to get his team into the playoffs.

The Rangers have acquired Nik Antropov from the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for second round and conditional picks, both from this year's draft. In a separate trade, they also acquired Derek Morris from the Phoenix Coyotes for Dmitri Kalinin, Nigel Dawes and Petr Prucha.

---

The Penguins lost again on Monday night -- fifth in a row -- and continued their struggles with the power play. Entering play against the Rangers, the Penguins had been mired in an 0-for-24 slump with the man advantage. After an 0-for-8 showing at the Garden, you can extend that slump to 0-for-32. Not exactly an advantage.

Granted, the absence of Sergei Gonchar has been huge for the Penguins, which is no doubt leading to some (all?) of these struggles. Still, it's difficult comprehend how a unit that consists of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Petr Sykora can struggle to put the puck in the net on a semi-regular basis.

In the first period of Monday's game, the Penguins were awarded a four-minute power play after a high-sticking call on Petr Prucha, which was quickly followed by a questionable holding call on Dmitri Kalinin. It was going to be a full two-minute, two-man advantage. And they failed to score. Sure, Henrik Lundqvist was stellar in net, but he wasn't in goal for the 24 previous attempts.

So, what's the problem? Being too predictable comes to mind.

Let's take a look at a typical Penguins two-minute power play over the past month.

Montreal's Andrei Kostitsyn recorded his first career hat trick on Saturday night, while Carey Price stopped 31 shots, including 16 in the third period to lead the Canadien's to a 3-2 victory in Pittsburgh. With the win, Montreal moves ahead of the Penguins in the Eastern Conference standings, while the Penguins failed to win consecutive games yet again -- they haven't won two in a row since November 13-15. Just sayin'.

Kostitsyn scored a pair of goals in the first period before completing the hat trick early in the third period with a quick slap shot that beat Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury through the five-hole.

Following Kostitsyn's goal, Price turned into a brick wall, as the Penguins had a trio of power plays in the final period, and peppered the Montreal netminder. Of course, if you're Pittsburgh, you have to be a tad frustrated you failed to convert on five power plays, after going 0-for-5 one night ago in New Jersey. How a power play that features Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Petr Sykora and Ryan Whitney, among others, can consistently have so many 0-for-5 and 0-for-6 nights seems to defy all logic. Yet, here we are.

Crosby and Pascal Dupuis each finished with a goal and an assist for Pittsburgh.

Actually, if the Sabres defense were decimated it would be an improvement over the current situation. First Teppo Numinnen, then Jaro Spacek and finally Dmitri Kalinin have all suffered serious injuries. Numminen's future is still completely unknown (and with good reason) and Kalinin is out another 4 to 6 weeks with an right MCL sprain on a questionable hit from Rod Brinda'mour. As for Jaroslav Spacek, he's missed 2 weeks with a sprained shoulder, but he should be ready to return Thursday against the Bruins.

In their stead Andrej Sekera had to play much higher minutes than I'm sure Lindy Ruff wanted them to. In the games over the weekend Sekera logged 17 minutes a game, as opposed to the 10-13 minutes he'd been getting before Kalinin's injury. Sekera's very green and easily overwhelmed physically down low, especially paired with Brian Campbell. I disagree with Ruff that he's played well, but he hasn't been god-awful either. He's 21 years old with 7 games at this level under his belt. Mistakes are going to happen, but he feels a step behind the play. They'll have to be very patient with him in the same way they were with Brian Campbell.

On the other hand, I liked what i saw from 19 year old Mike Weber in his first two games. He's got good size at 6'2", 205 lbs which he uses and he showed a lot of composure out there, kept the game simple and didn't make a ton of mistakes that his partner had to clean up. He gave his team 10-11 minutes of even hockey and seemed to mesh well with Nathan Paetsch. He's been returned to Rochester already, but if Spacek can't go on Thursday, expect him back up in Buffalo.

Halfway through the 2nd period I turned to The Wife(tm) and said, "I just love blowouts." Her response was the old bromide, "This game isn't over yet." Truth to tell, with the way the Sabres have played this season, I had to agree with her... on the inside.

At the end of the 2nd period the Islanders had finally looked like they'd had enough, until Ryan Miller let in a softie to the oft-booed Miroslav Satan early in the 3rd which really opened things up. The Isles had life and let it all hang out, trading chances with the Sabres and drawing within one with 6:53 to go.

If not for a spectacular save on Satan by Miller with 9.1 seconds remaining this game could easily have gone to the Isles in OT. The Sabres looked like a team that was lining up to shake hands with 10 minutes to play, as if the Islanders had finally come to realize just how out-classed they were and would greet them with open arms as they crossed the blueline. Well, this group ain't the Thrashers or the Penguins, they went down swinging, and swinging for the fences.