Panthers waste a commanding second period and points streak ends at 5 games in New York
Comebacks have been hard to come by for these Florida Panthers this year and yet they still kept coming all throughout the second period Monday against the New York Rangers.
With 11 shots and a constant barrage of scoring chances against the Rangers, the Panthers had plenty of opportunities to erase their early deficit in New York. When Florida couldn’t, the Rangers made the Panthers pay.
On only its third shot of the second, New York scored to double its lead on Florida going into the third period and the Panthers, who are one of only two teams in the NHL still without a win when trailing after two periods, missed their chance. Their five game points streak ended with a 6-2 rout at the hands of the Rangers at Madison Square Garden.
The loss keeps Florida three points out of the eighth and final postseason spot in the Eastern Conference, and now the Panthers will likely be without Sam Bennett for at least one game. The forward sustained a lower-body injury in the first period when he jammed his right foot into the boards and didn’t play in the third period after initially trying to come back in the second.
Coach Paul Maurice said Bennett is unlikely to play Tuesday against the Pittsburgh Penguins, but could return this weekend for a pair of games in Sunrise ahead of the All-Star break.
On Monday, Florida outshot New York, 35-26, and finished with a 33-27 edge in scoring chances, but the Rangers converted almost half of their 14 high-danger chances into goals.
All-Star goaltender Igor Shesterkin is once again a dark-horse contender for the Vezina Trophy after winning the award last year and goaltender Alex Lyon was making only his second start in the last year, and the difference was pronounced. The Panthers didn’t score a goal in 5-on-5 play and New York essentially sealed its win when it scored twice in 14 seconds to go up 5-1 in the first nine minutes of the third period.
Forward Carter Verhaeghe scored a power-play goal in the first period to knot the score at 1-1, and star center Aleksander Barkov scored with 8:58 to go to briefly give Florida some life after coach Paul Maurice aggressively pulled his goalie for an extra skater with almost half of the final period remaining.
Verhaeghe’s early goal, however, only kept the game tied for about 11 minutes. The Rangers got their only power play of the game with 4:07 left in the first period and star center Mika Zibanejad scored with 2:39 remaining in the period a few seconds after star defenseman Adam Fox hit the post.
The second period was ultimately what doomed the Panthers and their best chance came in the last few minutes there. Florida got another power play with 2:50 left in the period and Shesterkin stopped both of the Panthers’ shots for two of his 33 saves. In the third period, New York outshot Florida, 11-7, in 5-on-5 action before the Panthers played most of the last nine minutes with an extra skater on the ice, searching for a desperation comeback and padding their shot total until Rangers forward Filip Chytil finally scored an empty-net goal with 3:11 remaining.
This story was originally published January 23, 2023 at 9:46 PM.
