Penguins confident after regular-season finale win, prepare for Rangers taken at PPG Paints Arena (Penguins)

JOE SARGENT / GETTY

Casey DeSmith makes a save on Jakub Voracek at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday.

What seemed like the inevitable for the last several weeks of the regular season is now official.

The Penguins will play the Rangers to open the Stanley Cup Playoffs, a fate that was sealed with the Penguins' 5-3 win over the Blue Jackets in Friday's regular-season finale at PPG Paints Arena.

The Rangers were dominant in the regular-season series between the two teams. The Penguins just went 1-3 in the four games against the Rangers, with those three losses all coming within the last six weeks of the regular season. They scored just one even-strength goal in those four games, a Brian Boyle tally in the March 29 loss. Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin shut out the Penguins in the last meeting between the two teams on April 7, and waved goodbye to the Penguins as they left the Madison Square Garden ice.

The Penguins know what they're going to be up against when the series opens on Tuesday in New York.

"They're a fast team," Marcus Pettersson said of what he learned of the Rangers this season. "They feed off their power play a lot, too. I think their transition game is a real factor. They want to be aggressive off the rush, have four or five guys involved."

"They're a good four-line team," Evan Rodrigues added. "They're pretty balanced with an elite power play and some elite talent."

Mike Sullivan called it a "big challenge" ahead of them, and said that the key will be to have their defensemen and forward working in sync and having trust in each other. The forwards need to play their role in the support system for the defensemen, allowing the defensemen to "play on their toes, keep pucks alive and stay active."

"When there's a disconnect there, I think that's when we're vulnerable," Sullivan said. "We've just got to make sure that we build that trust."

The Penguins may have come out on the losing end more often than not when these two teams met in the regular season. They won't put those games completely behind them -- they'll still look to learn from those experiences -- but they're looking at the series ahead of them as a "clean slate."

"It's playoff time now," Rodrigues said. "It's a whole different ballgame. It's a whole different mentality. Guys are finding ways to just get up for games and enjoying the ride."

A number of players said after Tuesday's game that they were looking at the regular-season finale as an opportunity to build up confidence heading into the postseason following the tough losses to the Oilers and Flyers. With the win to close out the season, they believe they did that. The Penguins opened Friday's game with three goals in the first 6:26 of the game. They got scoring throughout the lineup, from some usual suspects in Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, to some more infrequent names on the scoresheets in Rodrigues, Pettersson and Boyle.

"I thought our start was a testament of that," Pettersson said of the Penguins' confidence in Friday's game. "We said before that it was our last chance to earn that confidence and just play the right way. I thought we did that in the start and it carried over. So it's a good feeling."

That confidence has them feeling good heading into this series with the Rangers, too.

"When we play our best we defend hard and we get our chances," Petterson said. "We've got world-class players out there that can capitalize on those. It's going to be a good matchup. It got a little heated at the end of the last game. So we look forward to it, for sure."

MORE FROM THE GAME

• Malkin opened the scoring with his 20th goal of the season, eclipsing the 20-goal mark for the 13th time in his career. Only three active players have more 20-goal seasons than Malkin's 13: Alex Ovechkin (17), Sidney Crosby (14) and Patrick Kane (14):

• Rodrigues' goal was just his fourth goal in his last 49 games:

• Pettersson's goal was his second of the year and first since Oct. 23:

• Letang's goal was his 10th of the year and 68th point, a new career-high point total. 

• Boyle's redirect of a Pettersson shot was his 11th goal of the year:

Boyle, 37, is still competing for his first Stanley Cup. He's come close twice, reaching the Final with the Rangers in 2014 and then again with the Lightning in 2015. He said Friday that he's "thrilled" about having the opportunity to compete again.

"I'm so excited," Boyle said. "I mean, half the league's done, right? And it's no secret that I didn't have this chance last year. The year before was in a bubble. I remember fondly, the most fond memories I have are playoff series, the grind. The days between games where you're just together with your teammates. It's the greatest thing in our sport, I think. Watching it even, you watch the games on the days you're not playing. It's just so much fun. There's so much on the line. Every play matters. I'm just so excited to have a chance to be a part of it, really."

Brian Dumoulin left the game twice. The first time was early in the second period, when he blocked a shot with the inside of his left knee. He spent several minutes in the locker room then returned to finish the period. He left again midway through the third after appearing to take a skate to the chin area, and didn't return that time. Sullivan didn't have an update on Dumoulin's status after the game.

Casey DeSmith earned the win with 33 saves on 36 shots.

"He's a great teammate," Pettersson said of DeSmith. "I mean, we watch him every day. You guys watch too in practice, the way he works. He always stays out and works on extra things and small things. So I think just the way he works and he's a great teammate, we have a lot of confidence in him right now."

• The Penguins' 103 points in the standings are the eighth-most in franchise history. They've now hit the 100-point threshold 14 times, 11 of those seasons coming in the Crosby-Malkin era.

• Crosby and Jake Guentzel finish the year tied for points, with 84 each. This is the first time that a player other than Crosby or Malkin led or tied for the team-lead in points since Dick Tarnstrom led the team in 2003-04.

David Morehouse dropped the ceremonial first puck after stepping down as CEO and president, ending his 16-year tenure with the team.

• Players had a t-shirt toss at the end of the game for fan appreciation night. Malkin got a little too into it and threw Jeff Carter's unattended glove to a fan. Rodrigues tried out the t-shirt cannon. Crosby unsurprisingly, has a cannon for an arm and was aiming for the upper bowl:

• Pettersson played his best game of the season, and was rewarded for it with the Bold Penguins helmet:

With Pettersson getting the helmet, the only Penguins to spend substantial time on the NHL roster during the season and not receive the helmet were Radim Zohorna, Mark Friedman, and Zach Aston-Reese. How Friedman didn't get it after his goal-line save in Columbus, I'm still not sure.

Here's a Spotify playlist I made of the Penguins' warmup songs every game, in order. As superstitious as some of these guys are, I don't know if they're allowed to deviate from these songs.

• There were a couple of cool stories elsewhere in the league on Friday. Sabres goaltender Malcolm Subban sang the anthem in Buffalo:

• The Ducks had to play the Stars' emergency backup goaltender, who stopped two of three shots faced:

THE ESSENTIALS

Boxscore
Live file
Scoreboard
Standings
Statistics
• 
Schedule

THE THREE STARS

As selected at PPG Paints Arena:

1. Marcus Pettersson, Penguins D
2. Evgeni Malkin, Penguins C
3. Evan Rodrigues, Penguins RW

THE HIGHLIGHTS

"  "

THE INJURIES

Nathan Beaulieu, defenseman, was injured before he was acquired from the Jets at the trade deadline. He has resumed practicing with the team in a full capacity.

Tristan Jarry, goaltender, is sidelined on a week-to-week basis with a broken bone in his foot. He has not skated yet but is working through the rehab process.

Jason Zucker, forward, is still being evaluated for a lower-body injury after leaving Tuesday's game against the Oilers in the first period.

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan’s lines and pairings:

Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Danton Heinen - Evgeni Malkin - Rickard Rakell
Brock McGinn - Jeff Carter - Kasperi Kapanen
 Brian Boyle - Teddy Blueger - Evan Rodrigues

Brian Dumoulin- Kris Letang
Mike Matheson - Chad Ruhwedel
Marcus Pettersson - John Marino

And for Brad Larsen's Blue Jackets:

Gustav Nyquist - Jack Roslovic - Jakub Voracek
Yegor Chinakhov - Cole Sillinger - Oliver Bjorkstrand
Eric Robinson - Justin Danforth - Emil Bemstrom
Kent Johnson - Brendan Gaunce - Carson Meyer

Vladislav Gavrikov - Andrew Peeke
Dean Kukan - Jake Bean
Gavin Bayreuther - Gabriel Carlsson

THE SCHEDULE

The team won't practice on Saturday. Game 1 opens on Tuesday in New York. The full first-round schedule and broadcast information can be found here.

THE CONTENT

Visit our team page for everything.


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