Rangers revisited: A Florida sweep with an OT win

The New York Rangers sweeping a Florida road trip is rare and the last time they did it was on this date in 2017

With no New York Rangers hockey until January, we will try to give all Ranger fans a taste of hockey by reliving the best moment on this date over the last five years.

The Rangers have played three times in the last five years on November 4.  Last season it was a 6-2 thrashing at the hands of the Ottawa Senators.  The year before, it was a 3-1 win over Buffalo, propelled by Jimmy Vesey’s two goals.   But the most dramatic and significant win was on November 4, 2017 when the Blueshirts won in Florida in overtime.

The final score was 5-4 as Kevin Shattenkirk scored at 1:08 in overtime for the win.  It was his second goal of the game and he was joined on the scoresheet by Nick Holden, Michael Grabner and Rick Nash.

It came on the heels of a 2-1 overtime win over the Lightning and it meant a sweep of the trip to Florida, the last time in three years.   Since then, the Rangers have made three trips to the Sunshine State and have split the games once and lost both games twice.

The Rangers had won only five of their first 14 games while Florida had won four of 12.

The game

After a scoreless first period, the Panthers took a 1-0 lead on the first of Colton Sceviour’s two goals.  Eight minutes into the second period Nick Holden tied the score on a one-timer from the point.

The Panther’s Colton Sceviour scored his second goal to take a 2-1 lead, but that’s when Shattenkirk scored his first goal, a wrist shot from the blueline that eluded Roberto Luongo with only a minute left in the period.

It was a back and forth third period with both teams exchanging goals. Michael Grabner made a sweet move to put the Rangers ahead right after the Blueshirts had killed a Panthers penalty. Jesper Fast forced a turnover and got the puck to Grabner alone in front who put the Rangers up 3-2.

The Panthers and Rangers then exchanged  goals with Ex-Blueshirt Keith Yandle beating Lundqvist and Rick Nash getting the lead back three minutes later.

The Yandle goal was off a lost faceoff in the defensive zone and Lundqvist was clearly fooled by the off-speed shot.

Nash’s goal was a deflection of a point shot from Ryan McDonagh.  As Sam Rosen said, it was a power play goal.

The Rangers led with just under two minutes left when the Panthers pulled Luongo and Vincent Trocheck broke in and scored the tying goal on a shot that Lundqvist should have stopped.

That set the stage for the overtime winner by Kevin Shattenkirk.

In the three-on-three overtime, Shattenkirk broke in on a two on one with Rick Nash and the blueliner took the pass and beat Luongo over the shoulder.

Micheal Haley?

Believe it or not, Micheal Haley was in the lineup for the Florida Panthers had had a career high two assists in the game.  He came close to scoring but was stoned twice by Lundqvist in the first period.

Ranger fans know Haley more for his fisticuffs than his scoring, but he had already tallied two assists twice in his NHL career.  This was the third time he did it and the first time as a Panther. In 22 games with the Rangers last season he had one goal, one of 11 he has scored in 270 NHL games.

Looking back

Looking back at this game, the Rangers were flying high. It was their third straight win and they were on their way to winning 12 out of 15 games.  They were a confident team led by new arrival Shattenkirk and veterans like McDonagh and Nash.  J.T. Miller chipped in with three assists, the second time he had three assists in one game that season and he would do it twice more that season.

Little did the Blueshirts know that in just three and a half months, the team would give up on the season and jettison five players who scored nine of the 13 Ranger points that night.  Miller, Nash, McDonagh, Holden and Grabner would all be gone at the trade deadline.

How much has the lineup changed in three years?  Of the 19 players who skated for the Rangers, only three remain: Mika ZIbanejad, Pavel Buchnevich and Chris Kreider.

Allowing the Trocheck tying goal was a hint of what was to come, but at this point in 2017, everyone believed that the Blueshirts were headed towards good things.

Here’s a full video recap of the game if you are interested.

We hope you enjoy reliving these past games.  It’s amazing to see how much the team has changed in just three years.