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The sun on the Rangers’ season could set in Sunrise this weekend.
That was made possible Thursday night at Madison Square Garden, where the Panthers got the better of the final period to take a 3-2 win and a 3-2 series lead in the Eastern Conference Final as it heads back to Florida.
The Rangers will come face-to-face with elimination for the first time this postseason in Game 6 on Saturday 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’ smothering defense.
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 the course of the game.
That’s just been the way this conference final has unfolded.
The Panthers have owned the offensive zone for a majority of it.
And it’ll be what ends the Rangers’ season if they don’t figure it out.
Head coach Peter Laviolette has had to dress a different lineup in every game in response to losses and 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.
Florida scored twice in the third period, including an empty-netter from Sam Bennett, before Alexis Lafreniere tipped in a Mika Zibanejad shot to cut it to one with less than a minute left. It was a push that came too little too late.
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.
With K’Andre Miller in the box for his second penalty of the game, 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 for the Rangers.
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.
The lead lasted just over six minutes before Bennett sent a slick, no-look feed to Gustav Forsling, who split two Rangers defensemen and backhanded the puck past Igor Shesterkin to tie it.
The Rangers came out fast and managed to have the puck a lot more than they did in the previous two periods of Game 4, but the turnovers and defensive lapses in their own end were still prevalent.
Not enough for the Panthers to capitalize on, however, as Shesterkin made eight saves to keep it scoreless in the first period on the way to 34 on the night.
