That collective sigh of relief on Broadway, Monday night, was not the resolution of conflict in the latest theater mystery. No, it was the relief of a win by the New York 
Rangers after nearly blowing a four-goal lead in the third period.
The Rangers led 4-0 after 40 minutes and quite literally handed the game over the Florida Panthers who obliged by scoring three unanswered goals in the frame to cut the deficit to one.
New York’s Igor Shesterkin made 42 saves, including 14 in the third period, to earn the 4-3 win.
“Fortunately for ‘Shesty,'” Rangers head coach Gerard Gallant said. “No fun watching that. You win a game against an undefeated team, a great team, and you don’t feel good about that one. I’ll take the two points later, but it’s not the way you’ve got to play hockey.”
The loss was the first for the Panthers in regulation.
“We got what we deserved tonight for sure,” Panthers head coach Andrew Brunette said. “The mistakes that we made are very correctable but those are mistakes that really hurt you when you put yourself in those positions. We got exactly what we deserve.”
Florida got their rally started early in the third when Eetu Luostarinen scored with just 20 seconds gone in the stanza.
Sam Reinhart and Patric Hornqvist scored in the final two minutes of the game to make a tense final 40 seconds of the match.
Florida dropped to 10-1-1.
New York opened the game with a power play goal from Chris Kreider, his sixth strike with the man advantage, and Adam Fox scored shorthanded with six seconds left in the opening period.
“We gave up a power-play goal, a shorthanded and two 4-on-4, which doesn’t happen very often to give up two,” Brunette said. “I think a little bit of our management ability in certain areas we talk about a lot, the blues and just inside the blue, we just weren’t completely sharp at different times in the game when we needed to be.”
K’Andre Miller showed speed and skill in the middle frame with an end-to-end rush and burst around the Florida defense to roof a shot for a 3-0 lead to the Rangers.
“It was an incredible goal,” Gallant said. “He’s got a lot of talent. You see his raw skill and his talent. He can skate and he’s got that big reach. It was really nice to see, a good confidence-builder for him.”
Ryan Strome scored 30 seconds later to push the New York Lead to 4-0.
New York improved to 7-3-3.
From there, it was a typical Rangers game, standing around watching the opposition scrimmage and score.
Shesterkin made sure the “W” was penned in and not a stand-in for an under study.
“We battled for two periods and that third period, just, it’s not acceptable for us,” Gallant said. “We’ve got to fight through it. We’ve got to grow up. We’ve got to be men and fight through it late in the hockey game.”
Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad recorded two assists each in the win for the Rangers.
Spencer Knight made 14 saves in the Florida loss.
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