NEW YORK -- Some people feared that intradivision rivalries would suffer when the NHL changed its scheduling format this season.

Penguins defenseman Rob Scuderi, though, believes rivalries actually will be enhanced now that teams are playing each opponent from inside their division six times instead of eight.

"I would actually think it adds to [the rivalry], because you have fewer games," he said. "Coming from college, where you only play a team a couple of times, each game is that much more important, especially within the division. I think that intensifies it a little bit."

The Penguins' game at Madison Square Garden last night was their first of six against the New York Rangers during the 2008-09 season. Last season, those clubs met 13 times, including five during the second round of the playoffs.

And while that kind of familiarity might help to breed a little extra contempt, the Penguins don't seem to feel it adds any particular intensity to the rivalry that was renewed last evening.

"It's going to be much the same," center Jordan Staal said. "I think [six] is the perfect amount of games."

Ruslan Fedotenko got his first goal as a Penguin when he picked up the winner in a 4-1 victory Thursday against Carolina at Mellon Arena.

He acknowledged yesterday that, after going seven games without a goal, he was feeling a bit of stress to get one -- "I wouldn't say pressure, but you want to get on the board and help the team" -- but added that he has always been a streak scorer and tried to not let other facets of his game suffer when his scoring touch deserted him.

"Sometimes you get hot, sometimes you go a little cold," Fedotenko said. "As long as you're playing well defensively and you're still doing the little things, you can help to give your team a chance to win."

The Penguins will spend about seven hours traveling from New York to San Jose today -- a refueling stop in Kansas will add a bit of time to the journey -- and, in most years, that's about as long a trip as they would take.

This time, it's not even their longest of the month.

The good thing about that is, after having spent nine hours or so getting back from Stockholm on Oct. 6, the flight to California probably won't seem as bad as it would in most years.

"That was a lot of time to kill," Scuderi said. "You could only watch so many movies. Five or six hours [in the air to San Jose], that will be a treat compared to the flight to Sweden."

Staal's parents had a tough decision to make yesterday, as they were in New York and had three sons playing in the area.

Jordan and his young brother, Marc, a Rangers defenseman, were squaring off at the Garden while the oldest son, Eric, was on Long Island with the Carolina Hurricanes.

Jordan, smiling, labeled Eric "the golden boy" of the family, but that wasn't enough to lure the Staals to Nassau Coliseum.

They opted to watch Jordan and Marc in Manhattan.

The Penguins scratched left winger Paul Bissonnette and defenseman Hal Gill. ... Coach Tom Renney was back behind the Rangers' bench last night despite getting an apparent concussion. He was struck in the head by an errant stick in New York's 3-1 victory Friday at Columbus.