With the Eastern Conference Finals returning to New York, the Rangers are facing a troubling trend: They managed to escape Game 3, but then suffered another painful blow in a Game 4 loss to the Panthers on Tuesday night.
The Rangers lost Game 4, 3-2, in overtime, allowing the Panthers to tie the series.
And the Rangers have been missing out big time offensively, with the Panthers surprisingly outplaying the Blueshirts in their past two games, including being outscored 88-44 in Tuesday’s loss. According to Natural Stat Trick:.
To make matters worse, Florida had more than double the high-risk chances (6 for 16) that it had in the Rangers’ Game 4 loss.
Igor Shesterkin was forced into big save after big save as the Panthers kept up the pressure all night, with Sam Bennett, Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart finding the back of the net.
The Post follows Rangers coverage in the NHL playoffs
“Especially in the second period, we’re taking a little too long on the defensive end.” Rangers head coach Peter Laviolette said: While discussing the Chris Kreider-Mika Zibanged line, he said, “The same thing happened last game, so we weren’t able to move and attack the way we wanted to. They come at us hard. They throw the puck at us a lot.”
“They forecheck hard, so you can’t spend time in the right zone.”
The Rangers faced similar issues in Game 3, where they barely managed to win in overtime, but were outshot 108-43 in offensive plays and had high-risk chances favored the Panthers 16-8.
“At home we’ve done a lot better at controlling the play,” Laviolette continued, “but in Game 3 and Game 4 we had some periods where we just couldn’t push, and our guys weren’t in the zone where we wanted to be. They just weren’t there.”
The series returns to Madison Square Garden for Game 5 on Thursday night.
