NEW YORK – The Florida Panthers will try to take a 2-0 series lead when they face the New York Rangers in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Final at Madison Square Garden on Friday.
“Every game, we learn something about ourselves and about them,” Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov said. “I don’t know if going into the game and expecting something is the right thing. You just go into the game and do your thing. We know what we need to do.”
Improving to 5-1 on the road in this year’s playoffs, the Panthers played their usual suffocating brand of defense in a 3-0 win over the Rangers in Game 1 on Wednesday.
Holding New York to just 23 shots on goal – including a stalwart stretch of nearly 15 minutes in the second period in which they didn’t allow a single puck to get to their net – the Panthers took a 1-0 lead on a goal from Matthew Tkachuk in the first period and never looked back.
In the third period, Carter Verhaeghe doubled the lead to 2-0 when Rangers forward Alexis Lafrenière poked a cross-ice pass through the pads of Igor Shesterkin for an own-goal. Not long after that, Sam Bennett buried an empty-net goal to make it 3-0 with just 1:19 left.
Earning his second-career playoff shutout, Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all 24 shots he faced.
Making seven high-danger stops, the 35-year-old veteran’s biggest save of the came less than a minute into the second period when he shut down Will Cuylle on a breakaway.
Over his last six starts, Bobrovsky is 5-1 with a .936 save percentage.
“For him to work so hard every single day, it’s contagious to our team,” Barkov said of Bobrovsky’s commitment to his craft. “Every single guy sees that, notices that. The things he does, they’re not for everyone. But you can see what he’s doing and want to work as hard as him to become as good as him. It’s just incredible to see how he works day in, day out.”
Slowing down one of New York’s biggest weapons, the Panthers went 2-for-2 on the penalty kill in the win while allowing just three scoring chances and one high-danger shot attempt.
Entering the series, the Rangers were operating at over 30% on the man advantage.
“We’ve got to be in shot lanes,” said Panthers forward Kevin Stenlund, one of the elite penalty killers in the playoffs right now. “We know everyone can score. We’ve got to block shots and be in lanes and try to have good sticks. We’ve just got to help each other out.”
Across the ice, the Rangers will look for…
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