Sunrise, Fla. — The Florida Panthers couldn’t have asked for a better scenario. Sam Reinhart, alone in the slot, on the power play.
Game over. Series tied.
Reinhart – the NHL’s power-play goal leader this year – came through with his 65th and most important goal of the season 1:12 into overtime, and the Panthers topped the New York Rangers 3-2 on Tuesday night, evening the Eastern Conference Final at two games apiece.
“If he’s open, obviously, we want to look for him,” said Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov, who set Reinhart up for the game-winner.
With good reason. Reinhart has 31 goals on the man advantage this year, connecting on 32% of his power-play shots.
“I saw him wide open there, and I was pretty confident he was putting that one in,” Florida forward Carter Verhaeghe said. “He has an awesome shot and obviously he made no mistake on that one, and it was awesome.”
It was the third straight OT game in the series, and the first one that the Panthers scored in the extra session. And on a night when it took a bounce off a skate and then a baseball swing to give Florida its first two goals of Game 4, the finish was picture-perfect for Florida.
Verhaeghe and Sam Bennett also scored for Florida, which got 21 saves – and an assist – from Sergei Bobrovsky.
Vincent Trocheck and Alexis Lafrenière scored for the Rangers, and Igor Shesterkin stopped 37 shots.
Game 5 is Thursday in New York, where the teams split the opening two matchups in this series. Game 6 will be Saturday in Sunrise, and the Prince of Wales Trophy – awarded to the East champs – will be in attendance that night.
“Overall, not the result we wanted,” Rangers forward Mika Zibanejad said. “It’s the best out of three. We go home and try to take care of Game 5.”
Blake Wheeler, playing his first game for the Rangers since mid-February, was called for hooking Barkov 59 seconds into the extra session. And it didn’t take long for the Panthers to cash in, with Barkov setting up Reinhart in front.
Rangers defenseman Adam Fox defended Wheeler, who basically had no chance with Barkov skating in alone on Shesterkin.
“I don’t think it was a bad penalty to take. They have a good power play and they capitalized,” Fox said.
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