Sergei Bobrovsky finished with 23 saves for his first shutout of the postseason
Sergei Bobrovsky finished with 23 saves for his first shutout of the postseason
The Florida Panthers did what do best, frustrating the New York Rangers up and down the ice in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
Florida played sound positional hockey, defended as a five-man unit and left Madison Square Garden with a resounding 3-0 victory on Wednesday.
The building was rocking at the opening puck drop, but the Panthers did well to tame the Blueshirt faithful by outshooting the Rangers 4-0 over the game’s first two minutes.
As the period progressed, Florida enjoyed twice as much offensive zone time than the Rangers, with each forward line spending a shift or two bogging New York down in their own end.
Matthew Tkachuk opened the scoring, in the game and the series, late in the first period.
A quick breakout pass from Carter Verhaeghe to Gus Forsling led to the smooth skating defenseman entering the Rangers zone and sliding the puck to Tkachuk.
He fired off a wrist shot that appeared to give Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin some trouble, barely hitting his left arm as it flew by into the net.
New York came out firing for the start of the second period, putting up four shots on goal in the first two minutes. That nearly matched their shot output from the entire first period, when they logged five.
The flurry seemed to wake up Panthers back up, as they went the next 16:23 without allowing the Rangers another shot on goal.
Florida briefly thought they’d gone up 2-0, but an Oliver Ekman-Larsson goal about halfway through the third period was wiped off the board for goalie interference.
Here’s the video. You be the judge.
The Rangers saved their best offensive pushes for late in the game.
A too many men call on Florida with 6:49 to go put the Cats in a very precarious position against a power play operating at over a 30% success rate.
New York got plenty of zone time but only got off two shots on three attempts during the man advantage, with Florida nearly capitalizing on a shorthanded chance by Sam Reinhart and Eetu Luostarinen as the power play expired.
Less than a minute later, Verhaeghe blocked a clearing attempted by Shesterkin and tried sending a pass through the slot.
The pass was deflected by Rangers forward Alexis Lafreniere right between the legs of Shesterkin to give Florida a 2-0 lead with 3:48 to go.
An empty net goal by Sam Bennett would act as the final nails in the coffin.
On to Game 2.
Here are some thoughts and observations from Game 1 against the Rangers:
Bobrovsky finished with 23 saves, including six of the high danger variety.
Florida went a perfect 2-for-2 on the penalty kill while failing to score on three power play opportunities.
Another multi-point outing for Verhaeghe, his fourth of the postseason. He’s got seven goals and 12 points this postseason.
Tkachuk, with a goal and an assist in Game 1, is now up to five goals and 16 points through Florida’s 12 playoff games.
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