The New York Rangers are having a hard time convincing the rest of the hockey world that they are for real. With this game, they didn’t do themselves any favors. For the first time this season the Rangers took a lead into the third period and lost in regulation. It took three third period goals by the Florida Panthers, the same number of third period goals the Panthers scored in their first game in New York in November.
The Rangers had taken a 2-1 lead on goals by Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad and had stifled the Panthers offense in the second period. It all came crashing down in the third period. There were several keys to this loss.
- The Rangers had numerous opportunities on two early power plays but couldn’t score.
- Ryan Strome was stopped on a breakaway.
- Ryan Strome hit the crossbar on another prime opportunity.
- Julien Gauthier was stopped by a great defensive play on a break-in with an open net.
- Igor Shesterkin was fabulous early, but two of the three third period goals were stoppable.
As expected, Coach Gerard Gallant said he was pleased with the overall effort. He said “I was real happy with the first two periods…good solid play from both teams, in the third we got away from it, made a couple mistakes that ended up in the back of our net…overall, for the first game I thought the fans got everything they wanted.”
Gallant was right, the first two periods were a textbook example of how to play a road game. The Rangers were opportunistic in scoring and they played a very solid defense, holding the league’s top shooting team to only seven shots in the second period.
The Rangers looked sluggish to start the third period then took a penalty. Although the penalty kill was excellent, the Panthers tied the game just 17 seconds after the penalty expired. It was a crusher. They gave up a fourth goal to Anthony Duclair when no one picked him up and were able to pull within one when Chris Krieder scored with Shesterkin pulled, but with only 44.4 seconds left, there just wasn’t enough time.
Here is a video recap of the game.
It’s always disappointing to blow a third period lead, but coming back to win is a trademark for Florida as they have done it four times this season, the most in the NHL. The encouraging thing is the Rangers went toe-to-toe with one of the best teams in the league on the road and almost pulled off a win.
The discouraging thing is it reinforced what we already know. That this is a two-line team and will win on the strength of their first two lines and their goaltender since they are getting next to no offense from their bottom six.
The defensive breakdowns in the third period were disappointing, but they had several opportunities to put this game away and they couldn’t. Did they miss Ryan Lindgren and Kevin Rooney? In the third period they certainly did, but that’s a depth issue.