In Sunrise, Aleksander Barkov scored the first and final goals of the game for the Panthers in a Saturday matinee with the New York Rangers.
The problem for Florida was the Rangers outscored the Panthers4-1 in between those two goals.
After Barkov had staked the Panthers to a 1-0 lead in the opening stanza, Ryan Lomberg scored to push the lead to 2-0 after 20 minutes of play.
“There’s no point of hanging our heads,” Lomberg said. “We know what we’re capable of. A tough pill to swallow, but we’ve got to swallow it and move on.”
Jaroslav Halak made 31 saves in the New York win.
The Rangers moved to 43-20-1o on their eighth win in 10 games, they are 8-1-1 in that stretch.
For New York, the Kid Line came through with three goals in the rally.
“They took over,” Barkov said. “Playing against good teams, they’re going to have their momentum and stuff. They played well in the second period, and in the third period they defended well. They didn’t give us that much. We played against a good team. They won the game today. Now we’ve just got to regroup and move on.”
Kaapo Kakko and Alexis Lafreniere scored in the middle frame to get the game tied, 2-2.
Lafreniere scored with less than two minutes left in the frame on a neat move down the right wing, faking on the forehand, pulling puck between his skates, faking a backhand before sneaking the puck in on the forehand.
Kakko had crashed the net for the tying goal.
Patrick Kane was credited with his 450th career goal in the third period for a 3-2 lead to New York.
Kane’s attempted pass across the slot deflected off Carter Verhaeghe’s stick blade directly into the net.
“You play long enough, sometimes you reach these milestones,” Kane said. “Obviously, not the prettiest one, but I’ll take it.”
The Panthers dropped to 36-30-7, and still trail in the Eastern Conference race for the second wild card.
Filip Chytil took a bounce pass off the boards from Kakko and raced into the zone and put the puck home for a 4-2 lead, and the eventual game-winner
“Our line, we felt great today,” Chytil said. “I think we’re playing good, consistent the whole season. Sometimes there are games when we have so many chances and it doesn’t go in, and today we scored three important goals. I’m very happy for all three of us.”
Barkov scored with 13 minutes left in the game for the 4-3 final.
Use CodePHN15
Sergei Bobrovsky made 38 saves in the Florida loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.