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  Tuesday, Jan. 25 7:30pm ET
Knuble's 2 goals rally Rangers over Pens
 
  RECAP | BOX SCORE

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Their fourth consecutive road game, their fourth consecutive victory. So, appropriately enough, the New York Rangers got most of their scoring from ... their fourth line.

Mike Knuble scored twice in the third period and the Rangers won their seventh game in a row, rallying twice from two-goal deficits to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-3 Tuesday night.

Mike Knuble
Mike Knuble, left, celebrates with Rangers teammates Mathieu Schneider and Sylvain Lefebvre, right, after scoring the winner.

"This is just tremendous," Rangers defenseman Mathieu Schneider said. "I haven't been on a team that won seven in a row in years. It's a great feeling. It doesn't happen very often in this league."

The Rangers were 1-17-3 when trailing after two periods until Knuble tied it with his eighth goal at 8:48, then won it by grabbing a loose puck near the left-wing boards and lifting it over Tom Barrasso at 15:37.

The winning streak is the Rangers' longest since the 1993-94 season and was accomplished largely on the road, as they completed a four-game road sweep by winning three times in four nights in three cities.

"It's been a long trip. It feels like we've been on the road two or three weeks," Knuble said of the Rangers, who got three goals from Petr Nedved in beating Atlanta 6-3 Monday. "Somebody else had to step it up and pick us up a little."

The Rangers (21-20-7) have won eight of nine to move over .500 for the first time since Oct. 17. The Penguins (19-24-4) are 1-6-1 in their last eight games and wouldn't make the playoffs if they started now. They now trail the Rangers by five points in the Eastern Conference standings.

"If we're not desperate right now, all we have to do is pick up the paper and look at the standings," Pittsburgh's Tyler Wright said. "Every time you lose a game in your division, it's tough to make up those points."

The Penguins squandered a two-goal lead for the second time in three nights and are 1-2-1 without NHL scoring leader Jaromir Jagr, who has an injured stomach muscle and may not play until after the All-Star break.

The Rangers, obviously weary of the road, looked tired and sluggish before closing to 3-2 on Valeri Kamensky's fifth goal at 8:05 of the second period.

Knuble tied it in the third, grabbing a rebound of Eric Lacroix's shot as it skittered along the goal line and wristing the puck over Barrasso's right shoulder from a difficult angle.

"I think if I had that (shot) 100 times, I wouldn't get it more than once," said Knuble, who came into the game with 10 points before getting two goals and an assist. "It was a rolling puck to boot. It just came right on my stick and went through a space about seven inches wide."

Knuble's game-winning goal came from the opposite side of the ice and gave the Rangers their first victory in Pittsburgh in exactly three years, or since Jan. 25, 1997. The teams' last three games in Pittsburgh ended in ties.

"They played a smart road game and waited for us to make mistakes," Penguins assistant coach Eddie Johnston said.

Knuble also assisted on Tim Taylor's goal in the first period as the Rangers got most of their production not from Nedved's Czech Mates line, but their mop-up line.

"It's a quality line. It's not a bunch of plumbers," the Penguins' Tom Chorske said.

Former Rangers player Alexei Kovalev deflected a shot off goaltender Mike Richter on a Penguins power play at 7:19 of the first period -- his 16th goal and third in six games against New York. Richter stopped 20 of 23 shots and faced only three shots in the third period.

Pittsburgh made it 2-0 at 13:23 on Wright's fifth goal.

"When we were down 2-0, I still felt like we had the power to come back and win," said Taylor, who scored less than a minute after Wright's goal. "At the start of the year, if we got down 2-0, we were all thinking, 'Oh, no, don't let them get the third one or it's over.' "

Hans Jonsson restored the Penguins' two-goal lead with Pittsburgh's fourth short-handed goal of the season, putting in a rebound of Chorske's shot on a breakaway at 4:51 of the second.

 


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RECAPS
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AUDIO/VIDEO
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 Mike Knuble scores the game-winner for the Rangers.
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