SUNRISE, Fla. — This was a matchup between two of the top three powerhouses in the Eastern Conference, but the Rangers did not rise all the way up to the occasion.
Aside from Jonathan Quick’s goaltending, the usually dependable aspects of the Blueshirts’ game did not deliver in a 4-3 loss to the Panthers on Friday night, in front of a Rangers South sold-out crowd of 19,723 at Amerant Bank Arena.
The Rangers’ NHL-leading power play only could muster two shots on two opportunities.
Their fifth-ranked penalty kill, which hadn’t given up a goal in over two weeks, surrendered a go-ahead score in the second period.
And their new-found structure was sliced and diced by a pesky Panthers team that lost in the Stanley Cup Finals over six months ago.
The score may have been close, but suddenly the five points separating the Rangers and Panthers in the standings look a lot slimmer.
Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov led his team with three primary assists, while Sam Reinhart chipped in two goals.
Artemi Panarin served as the Rangers’ stars lone representative for a majority of the game with a goal and a team-high six shots, but Mika Zibanejad blasted a shorthanded one-timer with 7:45 left in regulation to knot the game at three-all.
Florida never stopped applying pressure, however, which led to Carter Verhaeghe’s game-winner 1:22 after the Rangers’ tying score in the third period.
After falling behind by a goal in a flat first period, the Rangers woke up and pieced together a much more competitive middle frame.
The Panthers had been beating the Rangers up on the forecheck before Reinhart made it a 2-0 game off a feed from behind the net from Barkov.
It suddenly snapped the visitors out of their laid-back play.
Ryan Lindgren’s chipped keep-in at the blue line landed right on the stick of Alexis Lafreniere, who fed a wide-open Panarin in the opposite faceoff circle to put the Rangers on the board at the 13:23 mark.
Just over a minute later, K’Andre Miller stole the puck in the Rangers’ zone before dishing to Will Cuylle on a 2-on-1 rush.
Cuylle buried his seventh goal of the season to tie it up, leaving Nick Cousins toppled over Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky in his rearview mirror.
When Braden Schneider was hit with a weak interference penalty, however, the Panthers regained the lead on the power play on Reinhart’s second goal of the night.
It was the first power-play goal the Rangers penalty kill has given up since Dec. 12 against Toronto.