Rangers barely hang on to beat Panthers 4-3

About the game

The Rangers played pretty well for two periods.  Chris Kreider led off the scoring, putting in a rebound of a Mika Zibanejad shot while on the power play.

Scoring first was a big boost for the Blueshirts who were being peppered by shots by Florida with Igor Shesterkin again on the top of his game.

Called for their second penalty of the game, Adam Fox scored a backbreaker of a shorthanded goal with only six seconds left in the first period.  The Panthers forgot about Fox trailing the play and he had an breakaway and put the backhander past Spencer Knight.

Artemi Panarin scored what he thought was their third goal, but it was challenged by Florida and because Ryan Strome was in the crease and interfered with Knight, the goal was disallowed.  The Blueshirts rebounded from that on a brilliant individual effort by K’Andre Miller who went coast-to-coast to score.

The Blueshirts made it 4-0 as Strome made up for his error scoring on a great feed from Panarin on  two-on-one.

So, 4-0 going into the third period, it seemed like an insurmountable advantage.  Not so fast.  The Rangers forgot how to play defense when the period started and gave up a goal just 20 seconds into the period.

This one might have been called back with Patric Hornqvist interfering with Shesterkin, but Gallant chose not to challenge and it was back to the shooting gallery.

The Panthers outshot the Rangers 17-3 in the third period and the Blueshirts were fortunate to keep them off the scoreboard  until Sam Reinhart scored with 1:26 left in the game. It was time to pull Spencer Knight and it was an all out assault with Hornqvist scoring with 39 seconds left.   Thankfully, it was too little too late and the Rangers hung on for the win.

Here’s a five minute video recap of the entire game.