Rangers beat Devils, jump up to 8th seed in East

RANGERS 3
DEVILS 2

In a battle of the Tri-State area's inconsistent hockey teams, the Rangers found a way to hold off the New Jersey Devils in Newark on Tuesday, 3-2. After some recent struggles, the Rangers have now won two in a row, and have leapfrogged the Devils for the last playoff spot in the Eastern conference.

While there is still a lot of games to play before the postseason, the fact that New York finally has the edge on New Jersey is big news.

The Blue Shirts got big nights from Michael Del Zotto (three shots on goal), who scored the games first goal of the game, and Carl Haglin (five shots on goal), who scored his eighth goal of the season on an assist from Dan Girardi and Ryan Callahan to give New York a 2-1 lead in the first period.

The Devils answered each of the Rangers first period goals. Travis Zajac tied it at one on a power-play with six minutes to play in the period. Finally, Anton Volchenkov scored his first goal of the season, tying the game at two, just second after Haglin's netter.

The Rangers took the lead for good when Rick Nash netted his 10th goal of the year a little more than midway through the second period.

Henrik Lundqvist had 29 saves on the night for the Rangers, while back-up goalie Johan Hedberg struggled on the night, recording only 19 saves on 22 shots on goal.

The Rangers (15-12-2) are tied with the Devils (13-11-6) with 32 points, but because of head-to-head, New York has the advantage for now for the eighth seed.