FanHouse DmitriKalinin

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.

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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.