Rangers 1, Panthers 2

Our final post-game write up is once again by Florida resident and blog regular EVrockriser. The post is in two parts, the second page has the bullet points. Thank you again EV for another stellar writeup!

The 2023-24 New York Rangers passed away from the playoffs late Saturday night, not with the bang that they finished the regular season with, but with a whimper. They were 98 games old. They played in 16 playoff games and, although that number is a target for every team in the postseason, it was 10 wins and 6 losses, not the 16 wins they were striving for.

The last thing I expected to have to do when I agreed to do these game write-ups was having to type up the Rangers’ obituary. And, yet here we are. A great season that, although was much better than last year’s result, was pretty much the same as the year prior. So, last season they took a couple of steps backwards and this season they just got back to where they were in 2022. Out in six games in the conference final then, and out in 6 games in the conference final this season. No real progress.

However, I’d argue that the ending this season was worse than that one. In 2022 they finished 4^th in the Eastern Conference and tied for 7^th in the entire league. This year they won the President’s Trophy. There was much more expected of this team than there was that season. But those Rangers didn’t get run out of the building like this team did. The scores of this series’ games weren’t even close to representative of the games themselves. If teams won just based on whether they deserved a win from their play in a game, this year’s Rangers would’ve been swept. The scores of the games were like putting lipstick on a pig. Five one-goal games and one game that was basically a one-goal game until late in the third on a puck that didn’t even go in from a Panther’s stick.

The Rangers were very adept at staying alive in these games and keeping the games close. But that was all Igor. The same was true for the final game of this series. Even though the local press didn’t vote Shesterkin as a star of the game, like the New York press had voted Bobrovsky when he had a similar performance, he was as stellar as ever and deserving of one.

The Rangers came out in this game exactly how they needed to. They took it to the Panthers right away, controlling play in the first half of the first period. They cycled the puck well in the offensive zone and got the first few shots. The one hiccup happened when Trocheck was called for a weak hook of Aaron Ekblad. Although the Panthers got 4 shots on that power play, they never broke through. The Rangers still did a good job of forcing play afterward and were rewarded with a power play when ex-Islander Kyle Okposo took an interference penalty on Brodzinski. This was the beginning of the end. The Rangers didn’t get much on the man advantage and had trouble just getting the puck into the offensive zone with possession. The Panthers got more life out of that kill and the Rangers started to droop.

Then the Rangers did the most Ranger thing possible: they gave up a goal in the last minute of the first period. Gustafsson lofted the puck in the air to get it out of the zone, except he misjudged how deep the defensive zone is and it was easily caught and controlled by a Panther player a few feet inside the blueline. Gustafsson had a second opportunity to clear the puck and did, barely. Unfortunately, it was batted down with a high stick by Evan Rodrigues, but play was never stopped by the always-reliable linesmen. Rodrigues got the puck to Bennett, who skated it back into the Rangers’ zone and then finished off a neat little give-and-go. You’ll never guess who was defending this play and did absolutely nothing to stop it or slow it down. No, not K’Andre. No, not Trouba. It was Gustafsson again; another Ranger defenseman who could be expected to be on the ice for a play like that. Coincidentally his partner, Trouba, stepped up on Bennett as he entered the zone but decided to do another Ranger thing, which was to poke check instead of body check and never even touched him, nor impeded his or Rodrigues’ progress. So, you can thank Trouba as well for the gift that gift to the Panthers.

End of the First Period – Shots 13-9, Panthers – 1-0 Panthers

You’d think the Rangers would come storming out in the second period. You’d be wrong. Another lazy period by the Rangers with Igor keeping them in it. As usual, he was able to keep the gap at one goal. The Rangers looked tired and disinterested. This looked nothing like the desperation that the Hurricanes showed against them when they were on the brink of elimination in the last round. This period was when I started feeling embarrassed to be a Ranger fan in the Panthers arena. There were a lot less Ranger fans at this game than any other that I’ve ever been to down here. Maybe they saw this coming.

End of Second Period – Shots 24-18, Panthers – 1-0 Panthers

Surely, they’d come out like gangbusters in the third period, when they were just one goal away from tying it, but at the same time, 20 minutes away from the possible end of their season. Negative, Captain. Somehow the Rangers looked worse in what would turn out to be their entry into the off-season than they had through the first two periods. In fact, from their play, it looked like they thought the off-season had already begun. As Ranger fans we should’ve expected them to put less shots on goal in the most important period of the entire season and that’s what happened. We’d seen this before. They put a grand total of 6 shots on net in the third, with half of those coming in the back half of the period and two of those coming in the last three minutes.

Just before the halfway point of the third period, Tarasenko got his first point of the series, a goal to put the dagger in his former team’s heart. (Where was that last year?) They couldn’t come back from one down and I knew there was no way they were coming back from two. In fact, I was convinced that the series would wind up being bookended by easy Bobrovsky shutouts. Luckily, I was incorrect. With a minute and a half left in their season, Panarin felt it was a good time to show up in the series. He finally put a puck past his good buddy, Bobrovsky. He’d been wanting to do that from the beginning of this series, but I guess he thought it would be more dramatic if it was scored when it pretty much didn’t matter anymore, instead of any time earlier in the game or series. The Rangers would get no more shots on goal. The final whistle blew. There would be no more comebacks. The Rangers have left the building… and the playoffs.

End of Season – Shots 34-24, Panthers – 2-1 Panthers win

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