Panthers Bounce Back, Hand Rangers First Regulation Loss

Sergei Bobrovsky earned his 400th win in a 3-1 Florida Panthers victory over the New York Rangers.

NEW YORK — The Florida Panthers quelled any concerns of falling into a lull within the first three minutes of Thursday night’s Eastern Conference final rematch with the New York Rangers.

After suffering one of their worst losses of the season two days earlier, the Panthers roared off to a hot start with two goals in the first 2:42 of the game to defeat the Rangers, 3-1.

Sergei Bobrovsky made 24 saves to backstop Florida for his 400th career win, becoming the 14th goaltender and the first-ever Russian in NHL history to do so.

“At the moment, I don’t think much about that,” Bobrovsky said after reaching that feat in the fewest number of games (707) in NHL history.

“It’s a big two points for us. We just beat a really good team, really balanced team. Good goalie, good defense, good forwards, good power play. And yeah, it’s a big moment for us, important moment to build the chemistry, build the condifence in the locker room for the season.”

As the saying goes, a cat always lands on its feet — even after a 5-1 drubbing from the Minnesota Wild which prompted Sam Bennett to call the team’s effort “soft” after the game.

They were not going to let that happen again. Especially not in an Eastern Conference final rematch where the Rangers were going to come out hungry for revenge.

“I just think when we’re playing harder on pucks, not necessarily running over and crushing guys, but killing plays, getting our sticks on the puck first, stopping the puck, controlling it, we are hard to play against,” Matthew Tkachuk said. “We did a lot more of that and then just did a better job in general tonight.”

Anton Lundell put a lid on things early, banging home a feed from Sam Reinhart 44 seconds into the game to put the Panthers ahead. Eetu Luostarinen got the play started with a quick poke check to force a turnover in the offensive zone and the relentless Panthers did the rest.

And they did not take their foot off the gas pedal.

Carter Verhaeghe scored his first goal of the year less than two minutes later, ripping a wrist shot from the left face-off circle past Igor Shesterkin. It was a long time coming for Verhaeghe, who came into the game with the second-most shots on goal (28) and a litany of scoring chances that came up empty.

“It was a really important for him,” coach Paul Maurice said. “He’s at a point in his career where he doesn’t need the stats to feel good about his game. His last two or three games were very, very strong, but he didn’t have anything to show for it.

“I think he’s found his game, found his rhythm, more in terms of his physicality and his speed and all the other things he does. And then he just scores goals when he plays like that.”

Florida was hounding New York, holding them without a shot for the first 3:57 of the game while outshooting them 5-0, looking as dominant as ever — even with captain Aleksander Barkov still out with a lower-body injury he sustained on Oct. 10.

But Alexis Lafreniere put a damper on things 2:02 later, beating Sergei Bobrovsky with a backhand shot on the Rangers’ second shot of the game.

Bobrovsky quickly bounced back from that and answered back with a few crucial saves, including a big pad save on Chris Kreider with 4:45 to go in the second period to stymie a Rangers power play that could not generate much afterward.

New York came close to tying the game again early in the second period, when Vincent Trocheck seemed to have a wide-open net on a rebound attempt, but Bobrovsky sprawled out and just got his skate on the shot to keep it out.

Seconds later, Sam Bennett deflected a Niko Mikkola shot past Shesterkin to put the Panthers ahead 3-1.

Florida pressed on, generating some quality chances well into the third period, but Shesterkin answered them.

Sam Reinhart had a golden opportunity on a power play to put the Panthers ahead by three goals 6:46 into the third, but Shesterkin had other ideas. When Reinhart appeared to have him beat, he went spread eagle and robbed him with a huge glove save on his backhand shot.

Just after that power play expired, Shesterkin put an exclamation point on that Rangers kill by coming up with another flashy save on a wide-open Luostarinen after he received a cross-crease feed from Aaron Ekblad.

The Panthers shut things down, killing off a 6-on-4 Rangers man advantage after Verhaeghe took a penalty with 3:03 to go, to hang on and hand the Rangers their first regulation loss of the season.

“That was our mindset from the start of the game — that we were going to defend hard and capitalize on their mistakes,” Dmitry Kulikov said. “And I think we did. We did all that we needed. We got big saves from Bobby when we needed, it the penalty kill was good and we capitalized on our chances.”