NEW YORK — Sergei Bobrovsky and the Florida Panthers shut down the New York Rangers on Wednesday in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final. Bobrovsky made 23 saves and the Panthers kept the Rangers’ offense in neutral for most of the night on the way to a 3-0 win.
Matthew Tkachuk scored the first goal of the night on an innocent-looking wrist shot to beat Igor Shesterkin 16:26 into the game, and Bobrovsky and his teammates did the rest. The Panthers kept the Rangers’ offense from getting started through the first 50 minutes, then Bobrovsky held the door shut over the final half of the third to secure the 1-0 series lead for Florida.
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Oliver Ekman-Larsson appeared to have given the Panthers a two-goal lead 8:45 into the third, but the Rangers challenged for goalie interference and got it overturned, with Ryan Lomberg ruled to have bumped Shesterkin before the shot.
And the Rangers got some life after a subsequent penalty kill, nearly tying it on chances from Alex Wennberg and Alexis Lafrenière, but Bobrovsky stopped two shots and Lafrenière rang his shot off the post.
Carter Verhaeghe gave the Panthers that two-goal lead with 3:48 to go. Shesterkin played a puck softly to the side wall, Verhaeghe tried a centering feed and Lafrenière deflected it through Shesterkin’s pads. Sam Bennett iced it with an empty-net goal with 1:19 to play.
“I think we can play better,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “I don’t think that was the best version of ourselves.”
😼 CATS WIN 😼
The @FlaPanthers take Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final! #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/019kodih7C
— NHL (@NHL) May 23, 2024
Bob holds the fort
Bobrovsky wasn’t called on a ton, but he answered the bell on Wednesday, with his best stretch coming in the opening minutes of the second. He stopped Will Cuylle on a breakaway from in tight, then had his best save of the game on a redirect by Vincent Trocheck off a feed from Lafrenière.
Despite the Rangers getting only 23 shots through to Bobrovsky, Game 1 wasn’t devoid of scoring chances for the Rangers. They simply didn’t connect on the few they had, and the Panthers players kept the Rangers away from the net most of the night.
Bobrovsky was alert to stop Kaapo Kakko on a one-timer seven minutes into the third, and then did his best work with just under eight minutes to play. The Rangers killed off a Panthers power play and forced their way down low. Bobrovsky denied Wennberg in tight and then Lafrenière rang one off the post.
B🚫B
Sergei Bobrovsky shuts the door in Game 1! @FlaPanthers | #TimeToHunt | #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/9zspI19hgk
— NHL Network (@NHLNetwork) May 23, 2024
Rangers bottled up on the breakout
The Panthers and Rangers play similar neutral-zone structures, but Florida executed its 1-1-3 to a much higher level of success than the Rangers did their 1-3-1. The Panthers stepped into passing lanes early and often, turning pucks over and stifling any possible Ranger rushes.
The Panthers also used their forecheck to pressure the Rangers into a couple of ghastly turnovers, especially in the opening period — Jacob Trouba simply fanned on a D-to-D pass behind his own net and took a hooking penalty to try to keep Barkov from feeding Vladimir Tarasenko alone in front of the Rangers’ net.
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Florida came into this series with a reputation for playing heavy on the forecheck, looking to bang some bodies. The Panthers did some of that in Game 1, but they were far more puck-focused and that worked well.
“We were stubborn going up ice with the puck, they weren’t,” forward Chris Kreider said. “We didn’t put ourselves in position to generate a whole lot… They put everything behind us and went to work. We didn’t do that nearly enough.”
A rare Shesterkin softie
Last series, the talk was much more about Shesterkin’s standout play and his ability to not give up the low/mid-danger chance goal that can deflate a team — and how the Carolina Hurricanes’ Frederik Andersen did the opposite, especially when the Rangers started their Game 6 comeback to end that second-round series.
So it was a surprise, as it always is with Shesterkin, when he surrendered the opening goal to Tkachuk in the first. Tkachuk smartly held his shot for a beat to try to change the angle and make Shesterkin commit too soon, but the resulting shot wasn’t exactly a blistering, top-corner wrister. Tkachuk got it past Adam Fox and Shesterkin simply missed it with his glove.
Shesterkin was otherwise on his game, stopping an early flurry from the Panthers in the first and a couple of quality chances in the second. The second goal may have somewhat been on Shesterkin, as he softly played a puck to the wall that Verhaeghe easily recovered, but the Lafrenière deflection left Shesterkin a bit helpless.
Rangers win the goalie interference wheel of fortune
We all know about the seeming randomness of goalie-interference rulings in the playoffs but the review that took Ekman-Larsson’s goal off the board at 8:45 of the third seemed to be consistent with how the interference rules have been applied lately. If you can say there’s any consistency.
Ryan Lomberg entered the crease on his own and appeared to bump skates with Shesterkin before Ryan Lindgren gave Lomberg a small shove, which coincided with Ekman-Larsson’s shot going past Shesterkin and in. The review didn’t last long, so it was pretty conclusive that Lomberg initiated the contact and was in the crease of his own accord to create the interference.
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Laviolette’s line juggling
The Rangers had so little going through the middle period that Laviolette turned on the line blender, giving Artemi Panarin a few extra shifts while taking some away from his bottom-six forwards. The changes — Filip Chytil got a shift with Kreider and Mika Zibanejad, then got one with his old Kid Line mates Kakko and Lafrenière — didn’t amount to much, or at least not enough for the Rangers to break the Panthers’ defensive strength that they used to their advantage much of the night.
Chytil, Kakko and Cuylle all played under 10 minutes of ice time for Game 1.
(Photo: Elsa / Getty Images)
