The Rangers and Panthers battled it out in the 2024 Eastern Conference finals for the right to compete for the Stanley Cup.
Less than two years later, the teams squared off in a meaningless game that resulted in a 3-1 Rangers win Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden. Stacked at the very bottom of the conference, the Rangers and Panthers are in much different places than they were just under 22 months ago.
The difference? Florida actually has something to show for it: two Stanley Cup rings.
In this Sunday matinee, however, the Rangers received stellar goaltending from Igor Shesterkin (27 saves) and broke through on another encouraging game from rookie Adam Sykora.
They took advantage of a hampered Florida team that is projected to miss the playoffs for the first time since 2018-19.
“That team over there, they’re not going to give you an inch no matter who’s in their lineup,” said Adam Fox, who assisted on Sykora’s first-period goal and scored one of his own into an empty net from the length of the ice to seal the win. “They’re a proud team. [Sykora has] been great. He’s brought a lot of energy. And that’s part of his game too. He’ll get in the mix and bring some jam. So, you know, it’s definitely been some help for us.”
Sykora scored his second goal in as many games and got into the “first ever fight in my life.” Getting a stick on Adam Fox’s shot just over five minutes into the third period, the 21-year-old opened the scoring and continued his impactful play since making his debut three games ago.
The Rangers then doubled their lead on Conor Sheary’s short-handed goal before Fox potted one into an empty net to seal the victory.
Since that conference finals meeting, the Rangers have gone 3-2-0 against the Panthers in the regular season, including a dominant 5-1 win in the Winter Classic in Miami earlier this season.
They have one game remaining against them this season in Sunrise, Fla., on April 13, which is the second-to-last game of the season.
Of the 20 Rangers who dressed for Game 6 of the ECF on June 1, 2024, only eight dressed Sunday.
Shesterkin, Mika Zibanejad, Vincent Trocheck, Adam Fox, Alexis Lafrenière, Braden Schneider, Jonny Brodzinski and Will Cuylle are the only ones who played in that series and suited up for this game.
Backup goalie Jonathan Quick was also on the bench for Game 6, but he has been sidelined with an upper-body injury the last six contests.
While the Panthers had seven players — Sergei Bobrovsky, Aaron Ekblad, Matthew Tkachuk, Carter Verhaeghe, Dmitry Kulikov, Eetu Luostarinen and Gustav Forsling — in Sunday’s game from the lineup that ended the season in 2024, the visitors had six others not playing due to injury.
That included Sam Bennett, Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Anton Lundell, Evan Rodrigues and one-time Ranger Niko Mikkola.
“I thought we got better as the game went on, in particular the second half of the game,” head coach Mike Sullivan said. “The second half of the second period, we started to, I think, play with the intensity that we needed to play with and the intentions that we needed to play with.
“What I mean by that is, when you play against a team like Florida that plays really a no-nonsense, straight-ahead game, they play straight ahead, they skate, they hit, they close on you, they’re one of the better teams in the league that takes time and space in all three zones. They have big, mobile defensemen with long reaches and they don’t give you a lot of time.
“When you make soft plays on the entries or the exits, they tend to knock things down. It makes for a hard game. I thought as the game went on, we got better at just making harder plays, playing more straight ahead, playing behind them when we had to, and then getting after them as opposed to them getting after us a little bit.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
