Panthers win Game 5 to push Rangers to brink of elimination
The sun on the Rangers’ season could set in Sunrise this weekend.
It has gotten dark quickly for the Blueshirts, as the Panthers picked up their second win in a row Thursday night at Madison Square Garden, a 3-2 victory, after getting the better of the third period of Game 5 to take a 3-2 lead in the Eastern Conference Final as the series heads back down to Florida.
The Panthers have simply gotten the better of this series in general, and now the Rangers face elimination for the first time this postseason Saturday night at Amerant Bank Arena.
It’s a position they shouldn’t be surprised to find themselves in after failing to find an answer for the Panthers’ ruthless pursuit of offense.
Even though they had the puck a lot more in this one, the Rangers still weren’t able to threaten nearly as much as Florida did throughout.
That’s just been the way this conference final has unfolded.
The Panthers have owned all three zones for a majority of it.
And it’ll be what ends the Rangers’ season if they don’t figure it out.
“We knew that it was going to be tight defensively coming in here,” head coach Peter Laviolette said after his team lost for the second time in a row for just the second time in these playoffs. “The way they played the regular season, the way that they played the playoffs up until this point let us believe that it wasn’t going to be wide open and we’re going to have 40 chances a night.
“So we need to capitalize on some of the ones that we did generate and we weren’t able to do that tonight. It was tight, the game was tight.”
Florida scored twice in the third period to break a 1-1 tie, on a goal off the rush from Anton Lundell and an empty-netter from Sam Bennett, before Alexis Lafreniere tipped in a Mika Zibanejad shot with the extra attacker on to cut it to one with less than a minute left in regulation.
It was a push that came too late, especially considering how unobtainable it appeared to be earlier despite the close score.
Laviolette has had to dress a different lineup in every game, sometimes based on coaching decisions and others based on Jimmy Vesey’s injury in Game 2, but it’s been inconsequential with the way the Rangers are stacking up to Florida as a team.
It’s become apparent just how much harder the Rangers are going to have to work if they hope to advance.
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“Another close game,” said Zibanejad, who notched his first two points of the series with assists on both the Rangers’ goals. “I think there was a five- or seven-minute period in the third where I think they get going and they get some chances and we don’t get out of our zone and aren’t able to play our fast hockey.”
The Rangers’ penalty kill, which had been a strong point for a majority of the playoffs, came up big to start the second period after a scoreless opening 20 minutes.
Chris Kreider — just a day after Matthew Tkachuk cracked to reporters that he told the Rangers’ forward throwing his mouth guard was his best play in Game 4 — intercepted the Panther forward’s pass to spring a shorthanded rush.
Dishing to Zibanejad, racing up the ice and getting the puck back for a pressured breakaway, Kreider buried his first point of the series on his backhand to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead.
It was the Rangers’ NHL-leading sixth shorthanded goal of the postseason, but was even more of an encouraging sign for a penalty kill that has had a hard time with Florida’s power play in this series.
After giving up just four goals through their first 11 playoff games, the Rangers PK had surrendered five to the Panthers in the previous three games before fending off all three of their power plays Thursday night.
Every aspect of the Rangers game, however, has to be better.
It’s win two or let dusk take over.
“Leave it all out there,” captain Jacob Trouba said. “There’s nothing to say before, your backs are against the wall, everybody’s got to bring their best game to survive another day.”
