NEW YORK – Another close one in the Big Apple.
Coming up just shy, the Florida Panthers fell 3-1 to the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
Now sitting at 35-35-3, the loss comes just 24 hours after their game against the New York Islanders at UBS Arena on Saturday.
“These games are never easy,” Aaron Ekblad said of the back-to-back after the game. “Back-to-backs are one of the tougher things to do in this league and everybody put in their best foot forward, and not the outcome we wanted.”
A relatively quiet first period, the Panthers outshot the Rangers 15-4, but were unable to get one by Igor Shesterkin.
Per NaturalStatTrick.com, the Panthers had a 63.16% offensive advantage while five-on-five in the opening frame.
Like the first, the second 20 minutes remained scoreless.
Not much generated offensively during the period, the Rangers controlled the shots 8-3.
Nearly going down while on the penalty kill, Gustav Forsling swiped the puck away just inches before it could cross the goal line.
“I thought we were right in the first,” head coach Paul Maurice said of the game. “A little less in the second, but we’ll take zeros going into the third period on the road all day long.”
Breaking the ice in the third, Adam Sykora deflected in a shot from Adam Fox to make it 1-0 at 5:10.
Adding another for the Rangers, Connor Sheary made it 2-0 at 11:14 with a shorthanded goal.
“I thought we played a well-rounded game,” said Mackie Samoskevich. “They had chances, we had chances. They just got one shorthanded goal late.”
Pushing the game to 3-0 late in the period, Adam Fox scored on the empty net at 16:06.
Ending Shesterkin’s bid for a shutout, Samoskevich found the back of the net at 19:19, to make it 3-1 before the Rangers closed out with the win.
