Recap: Rangers Beat Panthers in Shootout, 5-4

SUNRISE, Fla. - Not many would have guessed that the Rangers, after five days without playing a game, would have been at their strongest on Saturday night at the start of the game and at the end of a long night. Although they did give their dads a firsthand look at just how good they are in shootouts.
With their fathers watching from a suite in one corner of BB&T center, the Rangers opened their two-game Dads' Trip to the Sunshine State with a 5-4 shootout victory over the Panthers to complete a three-game season sweep of Florida. Four different Rangers scored in regulation time - including Matt Beleskey's first as a Blueshirt and Freddy Claesson's second - and all three Rangers who went in the shootout beat Roberto Luongo as the Blueshirts won a game in which they never trailed and put an end to their four-game road losing streak.
Claesson added an assist for his third career multipoint game, while Mika Zibanejad and Vlad Namestnikov scored the other Ranger goals and Kevin Hayes assisted on each of those. Zibanejad hammered the Panthers with three goals and six points in the teams' three-game season series.

And Henrik Lundqvist - in the debut, and quite possibly the finale, of a brand new set of goalpads - stopped 27 shots over 65 minutes before coolly gloving Aleksander Barkov's shootout attempt to give the Rangers the only leg up they would need.

"Going into overtime it was just, 'We need this extra point, no matter what,'" Lundqvist said. "They're big points, for us to start winning and feel good."
With that said, Lundqvist was at his best when the extra point was on the line. Both he and Luongo (22 saves) made game-saving stops in the 3-on-3 overtime, but none were better than Lundqvist's poke check of Jonathan Huberdeau's breakaway deke, or his glove save on Mike Matheson in overtime's final minute that had the Florida blueliner quite literally doubled over in disbelief.

Huberdeau and ex-Ranger Keith Yandle led Florida with a goal and two assists apiece, giving Huberdeau seven multipoint games in the eight-game homestand that the Panthers wrapped up with this loss. They went 3-2-3.
The Rangers, meanwhile, were playing their first game in six days, and before the game, Quinn allowed that he would be curious to see how his team would start at the end of such a big hole in the schedule.
For this one, he loaded up his top line with his team's top three scorers, moving Hayes onto the right side of Zibanejad - and it took all of 3:37 for Zibanejad to score the game's first goal. His new right wing was actually the high forward covering up the left point when he got the puck, flicking one toward goal that Jimmy Vesey knocked down and Zibanejad found and finished.

Hayes set up another one late in the period while killing a penalty, drawing two Panthers to him behind the Florida goal line and picking out Namestnikov all by himself in front for two whacks at it. It was Namestnikov's third goal of the year and his first career shorthanded goal.
"The way we started the game was awesome," Lundqvist said. "Coming off a few days of just practicing, it's not easy to have that intensity, but credit to the entire group. We come out really hard in the first, and sometimes that's not easy."
But none of the Rangers, least of all their head coach, was particularly thrilled with how they followed up after the strong first 20 minutes.
"I was really anxious to see how we were going to respond to our good first period," said David Quinn. "We commit a bad penalty just like we did against Winnipeg (last Sunday), and they score early in the period, and you could just sense it on the bench. We've got to get out of that rut - we can't hang our head after we give up a goal, we've got to keep playing.
"We've got to do the things we did in the first period - we did a lot of good things, we did things that we were hoping to accomplish throughout the week in practice, and we built on it. But we didn't sustain it."
"We came out flying, played with our speed that we need to play with," Brady Skjei said. "Maybe got away from that in the second period. Gave them a bit of life."
The penalty came just 11 seconds into the second, giving the League's fifth-ranked power play a chance to go to work, and Yandle made it count with a one-timer from the blue line at 57 seconds - the 18th time in 19 games the Panthers had scored at least one power-play goal. Yandle entered the game tied for the League lead with 17 power-play points.
Huberdeau leveled the score just 3:17 after that on a fluky goal in which he shanked his shot but Lundqvist's momentum opened him up to let the puck slide through.
Lundqvist said "I made two mistakes on their goals": on Yandle's, "my pad just bent, and then on the second he just missed his shot. Sometimes as a goalie you go for the first shot, and then that motion keeps you moving.
"It's a little annoying," he added. "For a month here I've been working on these new pads. Just finally decide to switch to new pads and this is what happens. We'll see; we might go back to the old pads for next game, to be honest. I definitely felt a difference, the way I was moving. It wasn't perfect."

He was able to say that with a smile, because for all the back-and-forth in the game, the Rangers never fell behind. Beleskey picked up his first goal in his third game this season with a tip-in of Skjei's quick release from the left point, giving the Rangers a 3-2 lead and providing an answer to the Panthers' push.
"We've been talking a lot as defensemen, go D-to-D wide and shoot quick," Skjei said. "I got the puck and tried to release it as quick as I can. Really good tip by him - nice to get him his first goal as a Ranger."
After Aaron Ekblad scored to send the teams into second intermission all square, Claesson put the Rangers in front for a third time, stepping up along the left-wing wall and then sniping one over the shoulder of Luongo, his second goal of the year - both of which have been a top-corner bullets. Barkov's power-play goal with 9:09 left forced the game's final tie.

In the shootout, Zibanejad, Kevin Shattenkirk and Hayes each scored for the Rangers, while Huberdeau got Florida's only goal. The Rangers improved to 5-1 in shootouts this season.
"I'd love to sit here and take credit for it, but I spend zero time on shootouts," Quinn said. "That's all God-given ability and skill. And Hank doing a good job to give us a chance."
Lundqvist will be back in the Ranger nets on Monday night when the trip wraps up against NHL-leading Tampa Bay. "We're going to draw from that first period," Quinn said. "We're going to go to practice (on Sunday), and we're going to continue to get better, and build on it. That's what we have to do."