In Sunrise, Sam Reinhart hit for his for the game winner for the Panthers, with 72 seconds gone in extra time on Tuesday night to give the Panthers a 3-2 win in Game 4.
“Well, if he’s open, obviously we want to look for him, and he’s in the slot and just get the puck to him,” The Panthers’ Alexander Barkov said of Reinhart. “Obviously, he’s scored a lot of goals from there and works really hard in the practices shooting from there, so you want to get the puck to him, and that’s what happened.”
The win knots the Easter Conferee Final at 2-2.
“Confidence was good,” Reinhart said. “When the game is tight and with the way we play, we’re going to generate chances. The more we can stick with it, the more we can stick to our structure, the more comfortable we’ll be, and you’ve got to believe that one is going to go in.”
Game 5 is set for Madison Square Garden on Thursday night.
“Especially in the second, there was a lot of heat there,” New York coach Peter Laviolette said. “We ended up going out in the third trying to force it to get that thing tied up. We did. Just not the way we wanted to get into that in overtime that quick.”
The Rangers tied the game, 2-2, on a power play, early in the third period on a Alexis Lafreniere’s seventh goal of the post season, and fourth in the last three games.
He scored off a wrist shot form the right circle at 3:28 of the third.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 21 saves in the win.
“We wanted it so bad. I think we were gripping our sticks a little tight in the first,” Bennett said. “Then we started to loosen up and just relax, started making more plays, got back to our game that we’ve had success with all year. It was good composure by our part, and we just calmed down in the second and third there.”
New York took a 1-0 lead on a power play goal from Vincent Trocheck at 8:51 of the opening stanza.
“I think we sat back a little bit in the second and allowed them to kind of dictate the period,” New York’s Mika Zibanejad said. “We played a pretty good first period, set ourselves up. The second period was not what we wanted. Good job in the third tying the game up and giving ourselves a chance. Overall, not the result we wanted. It’s best-of-3. We go home and try to take care of Game 5.”
The Panthers replied with a pair of strikes to take a 2-1 lead.
Sam Bennett tied the game, 1-1, art 8:45 of the middle frame on a tip in.
“I thought we were tight. That’s the best way I can describe it,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said of the first period. “Both teams want it so bad, they’ve invested so much hard work to get here. I just thought we were tight, and then after the first we just played. It wasn’t more coaching, I would say less. I don’t have a better explanation for it. I don’t think that I wind them up hard before a game, but you never know what your impact is. My conversation after the first was I thought we were tight, and we don’t play that way.”
Carter Verhaeghe scored off the power play at 12:16 in the second to give the Panthers a 2-1 lead. 
Igor Shesterkin made 37 saves in the loss.
“We’re playing a team that’s good on the power play and the penalty kill,” Laviolette said. “… They got us tonight. Tomorrow is a new day.”
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