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Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust return for Penguins vs. Rangers

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Evgeni Malkin returned to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Game 2 of their series with the New York Rangers on Saturday after being out since March 11 with an upper-body injury.

Malkin centered a line with Conor Sheary and Bryan Rust, who returned from a lower-body injury. Malkin was not credited with a shot on goal in 18:47 of ice time, but he did have an assist in the Penguins 4-2 loss.

Penguins coach Mike Sullivan chose not to break up the lines of Sidney Crosby centering Chris Kunitz and Patric Hornqvist or Nick Bonino between Carl Hagelin and Phil Kessel.

The Penguins were still without goalie Marc-Andre Fleury who missed the last two weeks of the regular season and Pittsburgh's series opening win due to a concussion. Jeff Zatkoff was again between the pipes for the Penguins, allowing four goals on 28 shots.

He opposed Henrik Lundqvist who was cleared to return to action for Game 2 after missing the final two periods of Game 1 when he was poked in the right eye by Rangers defenseman Marc Staal. Lundqvist made 29 saves.

Lundqvist met with a specialist Thursday and practiced Friday, and there were no residual effects from the incident.

The Rangers were without injured veteran defenseman Dan Girardi. He was replaced by Dylan McIlrath who played in his first postseason game.

Information from ESPN's Scott Burnside was used in this report.

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