After falling behind 2-0 in the first period, the Panthers put their nose to the grindstone and clawed their way back to within one goal on three separate occasions against the Rangers, including cutting their deficit down to 4-3 less than three minutes into the third period.
"We were driving after the first period," Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said. "We were driving the pace of play, and then we put ourselves in the box a few times and that was it."
A split-second after 4-on-4 play had expired, Mika Zibanejad opened the scoring for the Rangers on the power play when he cut straight through the defense and slipped the puck through Sergei Bobrovsky's five-hole to make it 1-0 at 14:36 of the first period.
Finding the back of the net again, Zibanejad, feeding off a big save from Jaroslav Halak at the other end, doubled New York's lead when he teed up a pass from Kaapo Kakko and blasted a one-timer into the cage from the right circle to make it 2-0 at 10:30 of the second period.
Getting the Panthers on the board, Nick Cousins fired a shot from the center of the right circle that caught a piece of Halak before floating into the twine to cut the deficit to 2-1 at 13:57. But just 1:47 later, Chris Kreider scored from the low slot to send the Rangers ahead 3-2 at 15:44.
"The second and third period, I thought we carried the majority of the play," Cousins said. "We put the puck deep and got in on the forecheck. I really like when our team's forechecking. It makes it hard on their D and makes them defend. I thought in the second and third period we had a good chance to win."
After Vincent Trocheck buried a centering feed from Kreider on the power play to extend New York's lead to 4-2 at 1:38 of the third period, Eric Staal quickly roofed an absolute later of shot past Halak from the right circle to bring the Panthers back to within a goal and make it 4-3 at 2:53.
Despite a ton of pressure from the Panthers, the Rangers went up 5-3 when Artemi Panarin jumped on a dribbling puck in the left circle and ripped a wrist shot past Bobrovsky at 10:04.
Bobrovsky finished with 23 saves while Halak stopped 32 of 35 shots.
"Our team knows what we need to do to have success," Cousins said. "It's not a secret. When we get in on the forecheck and make it physical on their D, that's when we have success. When we're turning the puck over and gifting them odd-man rushes, that's never a recipe for success."
