Alex Wennberg’s deflection goal 5:35 into overtime lifted the New York Rangers to a 5-4 overtime win over the Florida Panthers in a wild one from Amerant Bank Arena.
After the teams combined for just six goals in the first two games at Madison Square Garden, Sunday’s matinee was altogether a different beast.
Sam Reinhart opened the scoring with a power-play goal 2:50 into the action. After Matthew Tkachuk held the puck in at the right point, he quickly moved the puck to Aleksander Barkov, who backhanded a pass to Reinhart near the corner. Reinhart cut into the slot and roofed a backhand on Igor Shesterkin for his first of the series.
The Rangers would tie the tilt 4:27 later. Jacob Trouba’s first outlet pass attempt was rebuffed by Reinhart, but his second found Vincent Trocheck at center ice. Trocheck then sent Alexis Lafrenière away with a head of steam and he broke in on Sergei Bobrovsky and beat him up high on the backhand.
Will Cuylle would race to a loose puck and feed Braden Schneider at the right point and his shot would be deflected off the far post and in by Game 2 overtime hero Barclay Goodrow 25 seconds later to give New York the lead. The Rangers fourth line got the best of Florida’s on this shift.
Reinahrt would become the first Panther to ever score two power-play goals in the same postseason period when he blocked K’Andre Miller clearing attenpt, then took a pass from Carter Verhaeghe and put a backhand off the skate of Trouba and through Shesterkin’s five hole at 14:26.
After a much more cautiously played 15 minutes of second period hockey, Lafrenière put the Rangers back on top by bursting by Eetu Luostarinen at his own blue line and then toe-dragging past Dmitry Kulikov before chipping a bachand off the post after Oliver Ekman-Larsson failed to take the puck off his stick. Incredible goal for Lafrenière, assits to Miller and Trouba, some real shoddy defending by the Panthers.
A slashing penalty followed by an elbow to the head of Evan Rodrigues, which reviewed and left a minor, both by Trouba, put the Panthers on a four-minute power play, but it was the Rangers who would score at 18:14 to take a two-goal lead.
Goodrow tried to find a cherry-picking Trocheck, but missed the mark. Trocheck collected the loose puck and rounded the Florida net, taking a bump from Montour before centering to Goodrow, who fired the puck past Bobrovsky from the left circle. Inexcusable. Just not enough effort from the rest of the Panthers on the ice to get back and help Montour.
Florida would utterly dominate the third period and score twice in a 1:54 span to tie the game.
The first goal came at 5:04 when Niko Mikkola came around the Rangers cage and handed off to Verhaghe. Verhaghe sent an aerial centering pass off the body of Barkov and into the back of the net to halve the deficit.
An offensive zone faceoff win by Rodrigues led to the game-tying marker. Rodrigues won the puck back to Tkachuk, who crossed to Forsling and he strided into the left circle and ripped a rising wrister by Shesterkin at 6:58.
Florida continued to roll, outshooting the Rangers 13-4, outchancing them by an even wider margin, and even getting another call on Trouba late in the game. Unfortunately, they couldn’t score another over the final 13:02 of regulation, despite quality opportunities from Reinhart, Verhaeghe and Tkachuk, who was robbed by the blocker of Shesterkin.
The end came with a whimper. After Rodrigues tied up Wennberg in the left circle following faceoff, Kuliov took possession of the puck and had it whacked off his stick by Jack Roslovic, who swept back to Ryan Lindgren at left point. Lindgren floated a shot into the slot that a completely unmarked Wennberg was able to bunt past Bobrovsky to hand the Panthers a second straight heartbreaking overtime loss.
The third period feaured the best of Panthers during the series, but the hole they dug themselves late in the second coupled with some physical and mental errors led to another gut-wrenching one-goal defeat. Florida will need a similar effort over a longer span of time on Tuesday night to even the series.
Bulls & Bears
- First Star and former Panther Alex Wennberg finally picked up his first of the playoffs to give his outplayed team the series lead. The last time Wennberg scored was on March 19, against the Winnipeg Jets.
- The Panthers fell to 1-2 in overtime during the playoffs, while the Rangers are now a prefect 4-0.
- Igor Shesterkin got the better of Sergei Bobrovsky again. Shesterkin made 33 saves to collect his 10th win of the playoffs. Bobrovksy stopped 18 of 23 shots.
- Florida got two power-play goals, but allowing the shorthanded goal on a four-minute man-advantage cut deep. They had a chance to win it late with Jacob Trouba in the sin bin yet again and came up empty.
- The pairing of Dmitry Kulikov and Oliver Ekman-Larsson were on the ice for Alex Lafrenière’s highlight reel rush and Wennberg’s game-winner.
- Carter Verhaeghe set up two goals and finished with a game-high seven shots. He was one of four Panthers to post a multipoint game.
- For the other side of Game 3, stop by Blueshirt Banter.