NEW YORK – Aleksander Barkov should consider taking his show on Broadway.
Gaining a spark from a highlight-reel assist by their superstar captain, the Florida Panthers turned heads with a 4-2 win over the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Monday.
“This is like one of those places where you don’t need that extra motivation,” said Barkov, whose puck-juggling assist to set up a power-play goal for Sam Reinhart in the second period got the Panthers on the board and set social media ablaze across the NHL. “You come here to New York and the most famous arena, it’s always fun to play here no matter what. This is it.”
Taking down the top team in the Metropolitan Division, the Panthers have won 15 of their last 17 games to improve to 42-16-4 and gain a two-point cushion atop the overall standings in the NHL.
Also improving to 2-0-0 against the Rangers this season, Florida surrendered no goals at 5-on-5 tonight.
“We got faster as the game went on, which we really liked,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said. “Some similarities to our last game. The power-play goal that got us to even was really important because we seemed to have better legs after that. We built as the game went on.”
Just after their power play expired, the Rangers opened the scoring when Will Cuylle snuck a rebound through Sergei Bobrovsky’s five-hole to make it 1-0 at 16:40 of the first period.
Earning a power play in the second period after Eetu Luostarinen just managed to get out of the way of a charging 6-foot-8 Matt Rempe and draw a trip, the Panthers evened the score.
Showing off a level of skill that only a select few players can claim to possess, Barkov juggled the puck with his stick in transition before setting up Reinhart for a goal from the right doorstep with a cross-ice pass while falling down to the ice to make it 1-1 at 10:11.